EUREKA (California) REPORTER

June 18, 2008

Sun Valley labor problem focuses on work authorization challenges

By CAROL HARRISON, The Eureka Reporter

As the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is making its presence felt at more than Sun Valley Floral Farms.

According to the ICE Web site, in fiscal year 2007, ICE secured more than $30 million in criminal fines, restitutions and civil judgments in work site enforcement cases.

In addition, the Web site stated that ICE arrested 863 people in criminal cases and made more than 4,000 administrative arrests as part of an enforcement effort that has increased tenfold in slightly more than five years.

“There is an increasing problem with counterfeit documents and many are going one step further — they are stealing or appropriating identities of U.S. citizens,” ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice said Tuesday. “It is not a victimless crime.”

It was ICE that reviewed I-9 documents and notified Sun Valley Floral Farms that more than half its work force had invalid identification numbers and were ineligible to work in the U.S.

That notification led to the company’s decision last week to immediately lay off 283 workers.

“There are certainly instances where we review the I-9s and there’s no follow-up,” Kice said. “We’re satisfied the employer has complied with the law and fulfilled their obligations.”

Then, Kice said, there are the cases prepared over months or years that may lead to charges of identify theft, document fraud, alien smuggling, money laundering, and wage and labor violations.

“The bottom line: we’re looking to identify egregious violations of the law, and in many cases they’re wholesale violations, multiple violations where there were clearly issues related to authorizations to work,” Kice said.

ICE has been especially active in the last eight months, racking up 850 criminal arrests, Kice said.

Three months ago, ICE’s three-year investigation into a Michigan janitorial company, Rosenbaum-Cunningham International, ended with prison sentences of 120, 51 and 30 months handed down the RCI president, vice president and comptroller, respectively.

In February 2005, ICE began an investigation into international logistics provider IFCO Systems. It took 14 months for ICE agents to determine more than half of IFCO’s employees were using invalid or mismatched Social Security numbers.

Search warrants, a round-up of 1,187 illegal alien workers and indictments against five IFCO managers have all become part of an investigation that is still ongoing.

“People like to think justice is done in the space of an hour, like on CSI Miami,” Kice said. “These cases can be very, very complex. The actual investigation can span years.”

Sun Valley submitted its I-9 forms to ICE in November.

The I-9 is an employment verification form completed by the employer after an employee is hired. Since Nov. 6, 1986, employers have been required to verify the employment authorization of all workers they hire, regardless of immigration status.

On the I-9, the employee must attest in Section 1 that he or she is a U.S. citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident, or is otherwise authorized to work in the U.S.

In addition, the first question asked on the Sun Valley Group employment application is “Can you, after an offer for employment, submit verification of your legal right to work in the U.S.?”

Section 2 of the I-9 requires the employer to check the documentation provided by the employee.

The second page of the I-9 includes a list of five documents that can prove identity and eligibility. One of those five — a U.S. Passport or a permanent resident card are examples — suffice.

In the absence of one of those five, employers need one from each of the two additional lists. A driver’s license, school identification card with a photo or voter’s registration card could establish identity; a U.S. Social Security card or birth certificate are examples of documents that establish eligibility to work.

“They are not required to be document experts,” Kice said of employers. “If it appears on the face to be valid, they should accept them. In order to find the employer in violation of the hiring laws of the late 1980s we have to establish that they knowingly hired or employed the individual.”

“Every year, we used to get letters saying our workers’ numbers are illegal,” recalled Bev Wasson, a 1979 graduate of Humboldt State University who managed a Sonoma County vineyard for 21 years before retiring a few years ago,

“We would hand them a letter in Spanish telling them to go down and check with Social Security. They would go and come back in three weeks with a new card and a new number. That’s what we utilized and that’s what we’re required to do as employers.”

A service representative at the Eureka Social Security office Friday said it had been business as usual last week. There was no rush of people claiming ICE had erred and their identification numbers were valid.

“If there is an employee that asserts there’s a mistake, we’ll take a look,” Kice said. “It happens on occasion.”

“We have checks and balances in our system,” Social Security Administration spokesperson Dawn Heywood said. “We process Social Security cards for U.S. citizens and legal non-citizens. We take whatever documentation the individual gives to us and we submit copies of those documents to immigration and ask them to confirm.”

If immigration doesn’t confirm the status of the documents, the applicant gets no social security card, which is required of any worker in the United States.

Wasson acknowledges “common sense” told her a new card in two three weeks probably wasn’t legal, but she had a crop to harvest and fear of being charged with discriminatory behavior if she challenged the paperwork.

“Rejecting a document that later proves to be genuine could result in a violation of the anti-discrimination provision of immigration laws,” the I-9 document warns, “so employers should guard against being overzealous in their inspection of documents the employee presents.”

“There can a lot of hassles, and don’t forget that we’re dealing with a communication problem on top of that,” Wasson said. “It’s don’t ask, don’t tell. It works for the military.”

Valid number or not, employers and employees each contribute to the Social Security trust fund 6.2 percent of the employee earnings up to $102,000.

A $20,000 per year employee results in $2,480 paid into the social security system. As it now stands, the 283 workers at Sun Valley who lost their jobs last week will not collect a cent of the money they’ve contributed.

“What’s scary with ICE is they did it on the documentation, by going into the office,” Wasson said. “The last two or three years, they’ve been doing it all over the country. They do it sporadically so it doesn’t hit the entire industry in an area. They’ll just hit that flower farm. No one will want to march and protest — they’ll want to keep a low profile — but that’s what needs to be done.”