Immigration Enforcement Actions on the Rise

Since January, U.S. employers have been encountering increasingly hostile treatment at the hands of Executive Branch officials who administer and enforce America’s immigration laws. In recent months, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has dramatically changed the immigration enforcement policy of the Bush Administration. Under the direction of Janet Napolitano, the Department has redeployed its resources by focusing an unprecedented level of resources and energy on the investigation of employers for immigration-related law violations. In addition employers across the country have reported recent surprise visits by the Fraud Detection and National Security division (FDNS) of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. To add to the enforcement emphasis, Hilda Solis, the new Secretary of the Department of Labor (DOL), recently announced that the DOL unit (the Wage and Hour Division) that investigates immigration-related labor law violations will increase its ranks by an additional 150 investigators.

Employers must prepare for immigration-related worksite inspections by developing and implementing robust compliance policies, auditing their I-9s and H-1B public access files, and putting plans in place for responding when immigration agents come calling. This memorandum describes new developments in immigration enforcement and provide answers to questions that many employers are asking.