U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expects this year to quadruple the number of workplace inspections compared to last year, which would be double the record set in 2013, a senior ICE official confirmed to the Washington Examiner Wednesday.
The federal agency tasked with enforcing immigration laws inside the U.S. said Tuesday its Homeland Security Investigations office has opened 6,093 investigations since Oct. 1, 2017 — the start of the government’s fiscal year — through July 20, following employer refusals to turn over work eligibility documents to the Department of Homeland Security.
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With less than three months left in the year, the ICE official said they expect to hit at least 6,864 worksite investigations by the end of September. That’s four times greater than the 1,716 worksite probes launched last year.
The dramatic uptick is the result of a directive recently retired acting ICE Director Thomas Homan issued last fall. Homan had called for HSI to follow-up with employers it had reason to believe were not verifying legal documents of job applicants and their ability to work in the U.S.
“I want to see a 400 percent increase in work site operations,” said Homan, during a press briefing in Washington, D.C., last December. “We’re not just talking about arresting the aliens at these work sites, we are also talking about employers who knowingly hire people who are unauthorized to work.”
Still, the 2018 numbers are up significantly higher than when the Obama administration had allowed ICE to broadly carry out worksite inspections.
In 2013, when that number peaked at 3,127, former President Barack Obama ordered ICE to begin only focusing on criminal offenders, not worksite violations. In 2014, total workplace probes dropped to 1,320. For the next few years, that number stayed low until Homan ordered more inspections.
So far this year, 675 criminal and 984 administrative worksite arrests have been as a result of the 6,000 investigations. HSI defended the uptick as a compliance mechanism that is similar to what the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would do if taxpayers did not file taxes.
“Employers need to understand that the integrity of their employment records is just as important to the federal government as the integrity of their tax files and banking records. All industries, regardless of size, location and type are expected to comply with the law,” Derek Benner, acting executive associate director for HSI, said in a statement.
Businesses and employers who are suspected of employing people not eligible to work in the United States will first have HSI officers contact them asking to turn over hiring records within three days. If the employer does not turn over documents, ICE will then physically inspect the worksite for those forms. While at the worksite, ICE may arrest employers and employees found to be illegally employing or working, respectively.
