Sanctuary California Faces Workplace Enforcement of Worker Legality

By Brenda Walker

02/04/2018

Last month ICE honcho Thomas Homan promised immigration enforcement would come to California, despite its designation by Gov Jerry Brown and his Democrat legislature as a sanctuary state, warning:
“There’s no sanctuary from federal law enforcement. I’m going to significantly increase our enforcement presence in California. We’re already doing it … California better hold on tight — they’re about to see a lot more special agents, a lot more deportation arrests in the state of California. if the politicians in California don’t want to protect their communities than ICE will so.”

Now ICE has arrived, proving Homan’s words by targeting 77 Northern California businesses that are suspected of hiring illegal aliens as workers. ICE is now conducting I-9 audits of the companies, checking the proof of employee identities.

Below, a more meaningful title of the I-9 form is “Employment Eligibility Verification.”

On Friday, radio guys John and Ken explained how the I-9 is universal, required of every new employee. Interestingly, they mentioned that the Obama administration conducted 1360 I-9 audits in 2017, leading to 139 criminal arrests and $98 million in fines from unlawful businesses. The radio hosts mentioned that many construction companies were driven out of business by those that didn’t follow the law and paid their unlawful workers less. I-9 enforcement protects American workers’ jobs.

The part of the radio segment about 1-9 audits begins at around 4 minutes in:

https://www.limitstogrowth.org/ltg-uploads/2018/02/JohnAndKenExplain-I-9businessForm.mp3

So the part of the process going on now is preliminary to arrests — and hopefully ICE will remove illegal alien job thieves and open up more employment for American citizens.

Typically, the usual open-borders crowd is squawking up a storm about basic law enforcement.

ICE employment crackdowns haunt Bay Area undocumented immigrant workers, Bay Area News Group. February 2, 2018

Days after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on dozens of businesses in the Bay Area and Northern California in extensive workplace audits, labor leaders and immigration activists worry the compliance checks will cast even deeper fears across immigrant communities, pushing them further into the shadows.

Some activists say undocumented immigrants are hesitant to show up to work, and others have stopped showing up altogether.

“Taking away these people’s humanity is a commonly-used tactic by ICE and unfortunately, it’s very effective,” said Maria Marroquín, executive director of the Day Worker Center of Mountain View. “People experience this great fear and live with stress and unhappiness.”

“It’s a strategy to manipulate people and their emotions. It’s embarrassing to be living in these times,” Marroquín added.

Several labor leaders, immigration attorneys and politicians on Friday said they didn’t know which businesses in the region were targeted. Others declined to reveal the businesses, citing privacy issues.

The audits are the latest in a growing feud between the Trump Administration and California — the country’s first “sanctuary state” — over immigration enforcement. Many Trump supporters and immigration hardliners applaud ICE’s crackdown on undocumented workers, saying it’ll prevent businesses from sidestepping hardworking Americans that often get overlooked to fill the job.

Progressives for Immigration Reform, a Washington-D.C.-based organization fighting for more immigration restrictions, said it supports “substantial civil and criminal penalties for companies which repeatedly violate the law and hire illegal immigrants.”

“We oppose any further amnesties for those who enter the United States illegally in order to work. Eight amnesties since 1986 have only served to suppress the wages of working Americans and increase unemployment among our most disadvantaged citizens — while incentivizing higher levels of illegal immigration,” the group said in a statement.

(Continues)

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