Immigration enforcement hypocritical

Bill Knight column for 12-30, 31 or 1-1, 2019/2020  

The double standard between the haves and the have-nots is rarely clearer than in law enforcement, and the Trump administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are underscoring the hypocrisy of dealing with lawbreakers in their treatment of undocumented immigrants and the companies that employ them.

It's not surprising that hundreds of immigrants get arrested while few employers face consequences for hiring them. After all, marijuana users have been busted while cartels ran rampant, sex workers were arrested while traffickers were mostly ignored, and stick-up specialists faced jail while corporate criminals responsible for financial crises got bailouts.

It’s not a question of Left vs. Right, but of Up vs. Down.

For instance, after a four-year probe, some 600 ICE agents this summer raided seven Southern chicken-processing plants and arrested almost 700 workers. The unprecedented show of force was the largest such operation under President Trump’s get-tough approach.

Companies employing them?

We’re waiting.

Some raids “coincidentally” follow worker complaints about wages, hours and working conditions, so connections are easily made. “Workplace raids play an important role in keeping wages down and profits up,” said “Politics of Immigration” co-author David Wilson. “By depressing wages for undocumented workers, the sanctions also depress wages for U.S.-born workers seeking jobs in the same fields.”

Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union said, “Workers across this country are too scared to stand up for their rights and to report wage theft, dangerous work conditions, and other workplace issues. We must act now to end this dangerous climate of fear.”

Most of the 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States are desperate and willing to work for low wages (and obviously few are “rapists” or “murderers,” as Trump claims). Companies use undocumented workers with virtual impunity. In fact, Trump’s own businesses have employed undocumented immigrants at his golf clubs for years, yet he’s not been investigated, much less raided.

Law enforcement ideally should contribute to preventing crime, and if not, to punish offenders. But undocumented immigrants face deportation while companies rarely face consequences. If they do, it’s usually a fine instead of jail time.

Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reports that between April 2018 and March of this year, 120,344 people were prosecuted for illegal entry. Meanwhile, in the same 12-month period only 11 employers in 7 cases were prosecuted; 3 got jail time.

The federal Immigration Reform and Control Act, enacted in 1986, criminalized hiring illegal immigrants and set penalties including incarceration for violators. Ironically, as the Trump administration is trying to deport people here under the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program – “Dreamers” – that Reagan-era measure legalized most undocumented immigrants who’d come here before 1982. Decisions to prosecute under the statute originate with ICE, which forwards cases to U.S. Attorney offices, which may prosecute on the law or related crimes, from wire fraud to tax evasion. Of course, both agencies get cues from the White House, and though the approach has been nonpartisan (the Obama administration prosecuted about 13 company cases per year), it’s gotten worse since 2016.

“With all of the emphasis on prosecution of immigration offenses, prosecutions against the most serious corporate offenders has almost vanished under the new administration,” Duke University law professor Brandon Garrett told the Washington Post.

ICE may brag about enforcing the law, but “what they did was detain hundreds of workers and not detain the employer,” said Jessie Hahn with the National Immigration Law Center.

Arresting workers but not those who hire them isn’t logical. If corporations were held accountable, they’d presumably refrain from hiring undocumented immigrants, and such limited opportunities would discourage illegal migration. But business-oriented politicians give credence to employer grumbles that it’s hard to hire workers, and few ask why corporations don’t make jobs more attractive to applicants by offering decent pay, hours and working conditions.

Corporations have influence and resources workers don’t, whether undocumented immigrants or unionized employees.

Maybe the tide will turn, but change is painfully slow.

“Only by holding the corporation accountable can we ensure that criminal violations do not keep occurring,” said Garrett. “Only the corporation can usually pay appropriate fines, but more important, only the corporation can fix systematic failures in its compliance.”