With an ambitious New Year\u2019s resolution, U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement is turning up the heat on employers who hire illegal aliens, and deporting those workers.<\/p>\n
Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan vows to boost workplace enforcement efforts by “four to five times\u201d<\/a> with increased work site inspections. He said ICE will aggressively prosecute employers who knowingly hire illegals — and arrest the workers.<\/p>\n This is a welcome change from prior administrations that, for the most part, turned a blind eye to cheap labor exploitation in America.<\/p>\n According to a 2015 Congressional Research Service<\/a> report, ICE arrested a mere 541 individuals on immigration charges and only 362 individuals on criminal charges in work site actions in 2014. That continued a downward trend in actions from a peak in 2011.<\/p>\n During the Obama administration, the number of employer audits peaked in 2013 with 3,127. By 2016, these fell to just 1,279 audits.<\/p>\n With some 12 million illegal aliens in the country, the Trump administration<\/a> is taking a more robust and proactive approach.<\/p>\n A sign of things to come occurred in Tennessee<\/a> last month when 20 illegal immigrant workers were arrested at a logistics company. Federal authorities made the case a priority because the workers had access to a sensitive air cargo area at Memphis International Airport.<\/p>\n Online, ICE\u00a0still posts\u00a0the Obama administration’s policy on work site enforcement<\/a>, which targets employers that use undocumented labor as a business model, engage in human smuggling, mistreat employees, commit identity fraud, launder money or are otherwise involved in criminal activity.<\/p>\n But Homan assures that along with fining and prosecuting scofflaw employers, illegal workers will also be removed. “We’re always going to arrest a person who is here illegally. That is our job,” he said.<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s time \u2013 past time, really — for Congress to pass mandatory E-Verify legislation<\/a> and approve necessary personnel funding. As FAIR\u2019s Ira Mehlman wrote<\/a> in The Hill last week, ICE \u201cwill still need some help from Congress to maximize the effectiveness of workplace enforcement efforts.\u201d