Auditors With Scalpels

México del Norte
Jorge Mújica Murias
mexicodelnorte@yahoo.com.mx


I started at the end of last year, and a new office was created to “administer” the program, called the Employment and Compliance Inspection Center. You would think this is something to force employers to pay fair wages, to not steal overtime pay for workers, or to reduce the number of workers who die or get maimed in industrial accidents.

No such luck. The Employment and Compliance Inspection Center is an ICE (Immigration Customs and Enforcement) program, courtesy of Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama, to find jobs for the unemployed. What has ICE to do with unemployment, you may ask. Lots. Given that the companies who received billions of dollars from Obama to create jobs did not do it, now Barack found the alternative to put out of a job thousands of undocumented immigrants to make them available to unemployed US citizens. Pretty much what the Republican Party has been demanding for years even if no US citizen takes those jobs.

They are called “Forensic Audits”, and are part of this twisted plan. Traditionally, ICE conducted simple audits at companies who have federal contracts, with the Army, or those with more than 10 thousand workers, or those in strategic industries, like explosives or mining. La Migra checked the I-9 forms and advised the employer that such and such worker did not have proper immigration papers. The employer fired them or gave them a chance to bring new papers and that was it.

The new “forensic audits” cut to the bone, and also works in a blackmail manner. La Migra calls the employer and let him know inspectors will be there in a week, and a subpoena is issued at the same time, but requesting only the I-9 papers of those working at the time of the inspection. The employer then executes a “preventive attack”, firing anyone he knows (or suspects) is undocumented, and when La Migra comes around all I-9’s are clean and legal.

“One forensic auditor is a lot cheaper and less intimidating than 100 ICE agents, according to ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton.


“Please Go Get Arrested…”


Angelica Salas, Executive Director of CHIRLA, (Coalition of Human & Immigrants’ Rights Los Angeles,) thinks the presidential program will have a “devastating effect in the undocumented population” working at industries like agriculture, food processing and the hospitality, and that it will “generate massive firings”, allowing employers to take even more advantage or workers without documents. There will be so many unemployed people that offer will increase and there will be a wider chance of exploitation.

She’s not wrong. With past similar programs, according to NILC, the national association of immigration lawyers, there are employers who even forge No Match letters to fire workers, and others offer “indefinite layoffs without pay” to “avoid getting caught by La Migra”, with the chance to return “when they have papers”. As a rule of thumbs, the first workers fired are those with higher wages and seniority, older or with better benefits, to save the largest amount of money possible.

In an extreme case, at West Liberty Foods, the company even sent employees a memo to all workers asking them to “attend a meeting with Homeland Security” to avoid being fired, pointing out that “you could be arrested during the interview”.

It seems that, not by coincidence, the new program is also focused on unionized companies. It recently happened at the Chipotle restaurants, at West Liberty Foods, and a several unionized industrial laundries in Chicago. La Migra even got to arrest an UFCW Union Agent and accused him to “harbor illegal aliens” alter a Know Your Rights Workshops, which included recommendations on what to do in case you do not have papers.

Fortunately, it seems labor unions are doing something about it. They are, for instance, trying to put to good use the Operation Manual of La Migra, which clearly establishes that the agency should not intervene in workplaces where there are labor conflicts such as negotiating a collective bargaining agreement, or raising individual worker’s grievances all the way to the Department of Labor to avoid deportations, even offering testimonies on “crimes” committed by the employer, such as deadly working conditions. But in the end all those are just delay tactics, and are not going to solve the deeper problem, the forced existence of undocumented workers.

Curiously, Obama and the Republican Party seem to be united in sending help our way. Republicans caused a serious revolt in Wisconsin by stripping unions of their bargaining rights and Obama, with his new program, is attacking union members. If they unite, it follows logic that we should do the same. This upcoming May Day we should all be united to fight against our common two enemies…