The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 73/No. 34      September 7, 2009

 
U.S. gov’t expands
attacks on immigrants
(front page)
 
BY SETH GALINSKY  
Contrary to his campaign promises to bring undocumented workers “out of the shadows,” the administration of President Barack Obama has stepped up actions leading to the firing, deportation, and prosecution of workers without papers.

“We are expanding enforcement, but I think in the right way,” Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told the New York Times. For Napolitano and the White House this means less reliance on high-profile factory raids and more emphasis on other measures that increase deportations or firings of undocumented workers.

In an August 11 speech to an Albuquerque, New Mexico, Border Security Conference, the Homeland Security chief boasted that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has already arrested more than 181,000 undocumented workers this year, a rate she said was higher than in 2007.

She said that in the last six months the U.S. government has doubled the number of ICE agents on the border, as well as added mobile X-ray machines, license plate readers, and K-9 dog teams as part of a twin antidrug, anti-immigrant campaign.

On July 1 ICE announced that it was ordering audits of I-9 employment forms at 652 businesses across the United States, compared to 503 in the entire previous year. During an audit, ICE inspects the company records to determine if workers are U.S. citizens or “authorized” to work in the United States.

If ICE says a worker does not have required job permits, the company can be fined up to $10,000 per undocumented worker, if the worker is not fired. If ICE says there is a “pattern” of violations, company officials can be imprisoned for up to six months.

The penalties for hiring undocumented workers were part of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, approved when Ronald Reagan was president. The law granted amnesty to some 3 million undocumented workers, but also included new anti-immigrant measures.

After an ICE audit at American Apparel in Los Angeles, some 1,800 workers were informed they will be fired if they can’t produce work papers. Workers from American Apparel have joined marches against the Obama administration’s stepped up use of 1-9 audits and expansion of the E-verify system.

According to a study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, in April there were 9,037 immigration cases in federal courts, a 33 percent increase over April 2008.

Homeland Security is also proceeding with plans to check the fingerprints and immigration status of everyone in federal, state, and local jails.

Two other existing programs that the Obama administration is expanding are E-verify, which lets employers check on the legal status of workers through the Internet, and 287(g), a program instituted during the William Clinton administration that gives local police the power to act as immigration cops.

Some 137,000 companies are now enrolled in E-verify. According to Napolitano, more than 1,000 new companies sign up for the program every week.

The combination of increased anti-immigrant measures and the rising U.S. unemployment have slowed the pace of immigration to the United States. Emigration from Mexico for the year ending August 2008 declined 25 percent compared to the previous year. Close to a third of immigrants in the United States are from Mexico.

During his campaign to win the U.S. presidency, Obama said that he would both crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers and create a “pathway” to citizenship for immigrants already in the United States. The so-called pathway included making immigrants pay huge fines, learn English, pass background checks, and go “to the back of the line.”

But at a summit meeting with the presidents of Mexico and Canada in early August Obama said that he has “a lot on my plate” and that immigration “reform” would have to wait until 2010.
 
 
Related articles:
Haitian refugees fight for justice in Florida
N.Y. socialist calls for legalization of immigrants  
 
 
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