ICE to stop mass raids at workplaces
Homeland Security plans enforcement efforts to crack down on employers.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently issued a memorandum to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement asking the agency to halt mass worksite raids where undocumented workers are employed. Instead, Mayorkas suggested worksite enforcement actions need to be focused on “unscrupulous employers.”
Under the Trump administration, ICE conducted several high-profile workplace raids, with mass arrests of undocumented workers, including at more than a dozen meatpacking plants.
“The deployment of mass worksite operations, sometimes resulting in the simultaneous arrest of hundreds of workers, was not focused on the most pernicious aspect of our country's unauthorized employment challenge: exploitative employers. These highly visible operations misallocated enforcement resources while chilling, and even serving as a tool of retaliation for, worker cooperation in workplace standards investigations,” Mayorkas noted in the memorandum.
Additionally, he said such operations are now inconsistent with the department's September 30, 2021 “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law” and the individualized assessment they require.