Laws: July, 2003 - Number #2

There are five to six million unauthorized foreigners among the 15 to 16 million foreign-born workers in the US labor force. Most US employers keep a careful eye on enforcement, and step up their efforts to obtain new guest worker programs only when enforcement threatens access to foreign-born workers. John Gay, vice president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association and head of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which wants a new large-scale guest worker program, argues that "The US will need more foreign workers if we want to grow, and we need the foreign workers we already have."

Before September 11, 2001, interior enforcement of laws aimed at employers who knowingly hire unauthorized foreigners was falling: there were 13,294 workplace arrests in 1998, 418 in 2001, and 451 in 2002. The major interior enforcement effort since September 11 has been to re-check the status of workers with access to "sensitive facilities," beginning with airport workers who had security badges and later employees of nuclear facilities, defense plants and sports stadiums. The re-screening of airport workers led to 4,271 identified as having problems, but in many cases, these problems were minor, such as not properly answering a question on the employment application.

The federal government has brought relatively few cases charging employers with knowingly hiring unauthorized foreign workers. Despite an undercover operation and preparation that cost $2 million, a jury in Tennessee acquitted Tyson Foods in March 2003 of charges that it engaged in a nationwide conspiracy to hire migrants to reduce labor costs and boost profits. In 2002, federal prosecutors dropped an appeal against four Nebraska Beef managers who were accused of conspiring to hire undocumented workers after a federal judge dropped the charges when the INS deported the immigrant witnesses. When the case was dropped, the company agreed to donate $ 150,000 to the Interfaith Immigration Services of Nebraska.

However, in Iowa, John Glessner Jr. agreed to pay $300,000 to settle racketeering charges stemming from his providing workers for egg farms owned by Jack DeCoster, one of the nation's largest farming operators. Dozens of illegal workers were apprehended at DeCoster egg farms in northern Iowa between January 1997 and February 2002.

Unauthorized foreigners cannot obtain Social Security numbers, but they must file tax returns, and the IRS provides them with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers for that purpose. When employers report the SSNs or ITINs of employees to pay taxes, false numbers can trigger mismatch letters, informing the employer that the name and number do not match, or that the number is not in the SSN system.

The US Commission on Immigration Reform in the mid-1990s recommended the creation of a credit-card type employee verification system under which employers would submit the information on new hires that is used to complete the I-9 form, name, date of birth, Social Security number (SSN), or alien registration number, and receive a confirmation number from the verification database. The recommendation was not adopted.

The Social Security Administration issued 110,000 mismatch letters to employers in 2001, 750,000 in 2002, and a planned 130,000 in 2003. SSA acknowledged that the mass mailings did not lead to corrections; instead, it appears that the SSA letters led to a reshuffling of unauthorized workers between employers. In 2003, SSA will issue mismatch letters only if the employer reports more than 10 mismatches. SSA says that, in 2000, about $6 billion was paid by employers and workers in Social Security taxes that could not be credited properly.

In Maryland in June 2003, a Ghanaian couple convicted of forced labor, conspiracy, and harboring an illegal alien for financial gain became the first to be convicted under a 2000 law to combat trafficking. The couple had brought a woman from Ghana to be their maid into the US in February 2000. She ran away in July 2001. The couple claimed she was a family member helping with chores.

Border. The Border Patrol has erected signs along the Mexico-US border in Arizona with a picture of the Grim Reaper and the message: "The Smuggler. Death to those who follow him. Do not trust him." In Summer 2002, some 134 migrants died attempting entry through the deserts; 500 were rescued. In Summer 2003, an additional 150 Border Patrol agents will patrol the Arizona deserts in specially retrofitted Hummer vehicles designed for search-and-rescue efforts.

In South Texas, 19 of 100 migrants died in a trailer truck near Victoria, Texas in May 2003 of heat stroke as they were driven north. The driver, from New York State, was arrested; he said he was promised $2,500 to take the migrants to Houston. Federal authorities said he and the other smugglers would be prosecuted "to the fullest extent of the law." Migrant advocate Rogelio Nunez of Proyecto Libertad said "This incident and others like it have come about because harsher US policies toward the border has made it more difficult for people to come across, increasing the risks they're willing to take."

Interviews with the families of the dead migrants in Mexico suggested that border enforcement provides little deterrence. One worker said that the deaths were a tragedy, but that he was saving as much of his $12 a day in wages as he could to get the $2,000 needed to pay a smuggler to get him to the US. A week later, 18 migrants were found in another sweltering tractor-trailer in southern Texas.

In El Paso, Ruben Patrick Valdes was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in a smuggling operation that left two migrants suffocated in a truck in summer 2002.

In May 2001, 14 Mexican migrants died crossing the Arizona desert. In April 2003, their families filed a $42-million suit against the US Department of the Interior, claiming it failed to help their relatives survive because DOI blocked a water station proposed by Humane Borders near the place where the bodies were found.

The Border Patrol has arrested more smugglers along the border, and fewer migrants, suggesting that smuggling is becoming more professionalized. In Mexico, there has been a crackdown on smugglers, after President Vicente Fox charged that criminal groups have made migrant smuggling a billion dollar a year industry. Mexican officials said 130 small and 15 major smuggling organizations were moving migrants to the US. However, after arrests of smugglers in Altar, Mexico, local residents protested, with the mayor asserting "Most people here do not look at polleros [smugglers] as criminals. They see them as service providers to people in need."

Refugees. The US admitted 27,100 refugees in FY02, down from 68,400 in 2001, and set a target of 70,000 for FY03. In an article in the annual report of the US Committee for Refugees, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Rudd Lubbers said that "Since Sept. 11, refugees and asylum seekers have had even more difficulty than before in finding safety. No corner of the globe has been immune. ... Increasingly governments exclude (refugees) from protection and detain them." (www.refugees.org/WRS2003.cfm.htm)

About 14,300 refugees were admitted during the first eight months of FY03, up from 3,000 during the same period in 2002. 20,000 more refugees were approved to resettle in the US, but they cannot travel to the US until security checks are completed. The US is also checking the affidavits filed on behalf of persons who wish to come to the US to join settled refugees; in some West African countries, 60 percent are false.

The State Department has contracts with 10 agencies to resettle refugees in the US. Agency staff meet new arrivals at the airport and rent them apartments or houses with basic furnishings, explain public transportation, and develop a plan to help refugees get jobs.

After their first month in the US, most refugees receive limited assistance through one of two federally funded programs. About 40 percent enroll in the Matching Grant program, run by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, to have their rent paid and receive $200 a month until the refugee's fourth month in the United States, a total of $59 million-each $2 of federal money is to be matched with $1 of agency money or in-kind services. The other program, refugee cash assistance, provides cash payments for up to eight months or until a refugee finds a job.