Worksite Enforcement Focuses on Employers

Obama administration officials are sharpening their crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants by focusing increasingly tough criminal charges on employers while moving away from criminal arrests of the workers themselves. The scope of the administration’s strategy has become clear as long-running investigations of employers have culminated in indictments, convictions, exponentially increased fines and jail sentences. While conducting fewer headline-making factory raids, the immigration authorities have greatly expanded the number of businesses facing scrutiny and the cases where employers face severe sanctions. Last year, according to government figures, the enforcement agency started 2,746 workplace investigations in addition to audits, more than double the number in 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration. Fines totaling about $43 million, also a record, were levied on companies in immigration cases. Department of Homeland Security officials, speaking anonymously in order to discuss internal policy, said immigration officers were no longer authorized to carry out workplace raids unless they cooperated with federal prosecutors to prepare criminal cases against the employers. Last year, 119 employers were convicted.

To read more:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/us/politics/30raid.html?pagewanted=1&sq=immigration&st=cse&scp=2

Local University Accused of Scamming Foreign Students

 The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that Susan Su of Pleasanton was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that her school, Tri Valley University, was a front for foreign students seeking to establish U.S. immigration status. Federal prosecutors say she illegally obtained visa documents “without regard to the students’ academic qualifications or intent to pursue a course of study required to maintain a lawful immigration status.” Authorities said Indian nationals paid $2,700 a semester in tuition for visa-related documents that allowed them to live and work in the country on student immigration status.

The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/05/03/BAC01JAS0N.DTL

Employers Watch Out for Fines for Employing Undocumented Workers

In Washington, two owners of an engine parts company were fined $100,000 for employing workers not authorized to work in the US, as reported by the New York Times.  This report illustrates the penalties that the Department of Homeland Security is imposing on employers with illegal workers on the payroll.  In 2009, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) has a $3 billion budget for worksite enforcement actions.  In 2008, it made 1103 criminal arrests of people in connection with worksite enforcement, and 5,184 administrative arrests.  In light of the risks of criminal fines and arrests, employers should review their Form I-9s to ensure compliance with the immigration laws.