DHS Takes Action to Crack down Employment of Illegal Immigrants

On April 19, 2006 , 1, 187 illegal-immigrant employers of a Houston-based pallet supply company called IFCO Systems were apprehended and 9 relevant employees were arrested, 7 of whom were former or current managers of the company and the other 2 were lower employees. This showed that a more rigorous federal action to crack down employment of illegal immigrants has been commenced.

IFCO was a German-based company, which has more than 40 offices in 26 states. By inspecting the payroll of IFCO, investigators found that more than half of its 5, 800 employees did not have legal Social Security numbers. Although the senior executives of the company knew some of their employees were undocumented immigrants, they provided them with accommodation and even helped them with their fake identity certifications. It is a crime to employ hundreds of illegal immigrants for a nationwide company. The government officials filed criminal charges against the seven managers and one foreman of IFCO for conspiring transporting, harboring and inducing illegal immigrants to enter the US . The charges would bring maximum penalties up to 10 years in prison.

Mr. Chertoff, the minister of DHS, claimed that government would take some rigorous actions to crack down the employment of illegal immigrants. In the new fiscal year, DHS will receive more budget support to expand its documentation verification system. They plan to hire 171 additional worksite enforcement agents and have asked Congress for legal authority to routinely get access to Social Security records so they can more easily identify companies which hire employees using fake identity documents. In addition, DHS is adding 20 special teams of investigators to its existing 32 such teams to search the 590,000 illegal immigrants rejecting leaving the US . Even so, the agents implementing immigration law will be still far from enough, because the amount of illegal immigrants in the US is too large. Almost half of them entered the US with legal visas, such as tourist visa, and stayed beyond the allowed time, making the prevention and search illegal immigrant very difficult. However, the government action will definitely create a significant deterrent against the employment of illegal immigrants.

(04/25/2006)

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