John Valdez’s Legal Blog

A clever trap depends upon its location of unsuspecting victims.  Right now, there may be a few employers wondering if they have blindly walked into a pretty good government snare.

 This week, ICE agents arrested 595 suspected illegal workers at Howard Industries, Inc. (”Howard”), a large electronic transformer manufacturing plant in Laurel, Mississippi.  This raid is just one of many raids that have been conducted in the past two years, one being the large raids on six plants operated by Swift & Co. (now JBS Swift & Co.; herein referred to as “Swift”). 

Both Swift and Howard may have thought they were protected against large scale liability for use of undocumented labor because they were enlisted in E-Verify.  E-Verify is a government program that has been tauted as a system that helps employers abide by immigration laws when hiring workers.  The program is supposed to help employers check Social Security and Immigration databases to determine if workers are authorized to legally work in the United States.  Howard joined the E-Verify program last year.

Howard and Swift may now be wondering why they voluntarily joined the E-Verify program.   The program gives the government a vast amount of information on employees.  This information undoubtedly made it easier for the government to develop a case for the raids.  Swift estimates the raids costs it approximately $53 million dollars.  As a result of the latest raid, Howard likewise stands to take major losses.  The catastrophic business effect of the raid on Howard could cause it to go out of business, resulting in the loss of many jobs held by U.S. workers. 

The general community also stands to suffer from the ramifications of the raid.  Unemployment will cause depressed economic activity.  There will also be human tragedy, as families will be torn apart, children ripped from schools and sent abroad, and increased discomfort among legal immigrants who may feel they will be associated with the undocumented, as tempers flair in the confusion of just who is undocumented in the town.  Immigration attorneys will certainly have their work cut out for them in the area.

E-Verify has been widely criticized as a system prone to mistakes, but it is a program that is growing.  The real question is whether this enforcement tool is worth the cost.  Employers may re-think their cost-analysis in the future before jumping in, if they have a choice.  Some states are making the program mandatory for some employers, and the Federal government is trying to do the same.