Immigration Policy: Worksite and Interior Enforcement

Interior and Worksite Enforcement

Interior Enforcement

• Training for law enforcement officers to address illegal immigration in their communities.
  Measures include:
  • Formal task forces
  • Greater use of the ICE Law Enforcement Support Center
  • Delegated border search and seizure authority under Title 19
  • Enhanced partnerships on location-specific threats, such as gangs
    
    
• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement teams devoted to removing fugitive aliens have quintupled in less than three years. The number of Fugitive Operations Teams has grown from 15 in 2005, to over 100 today.
  
  
• The Justice Department will initiate regulatory action to close the "voluntary departure" loophole. Regulatory action closes a loophole that permits illegal immigrants who accept "voluntary departure" to nevertheless keep litigating their case.

Worksite Enforcement

• A "No Match" regulation will help employers ensure workers are legal and help the government crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. The Social Security Administration will identify employers with a large number of employees with inaccurate personal information. Those employers receive a "No Match" letter, and they may be held liable if they ignore it.
  
  
• New regulation reduces the number of documents acceptable to confirm employees’ identity and work eligibility. Employers have little capacity to verify document authenticity, and this regulation disallows many document categories often used in identity fraud.
  
  
• Fines imposed for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants have been raised by approximately 25 percent. These fines have been so modest as to be considered by some as nothing more than the cost of doing business. The 25% increase is the limit under current law.
  
  
• Expanding criminal investigations against employers who knowingly hire large numbers of illegal aliens. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests for criminal violations have increased from 24 in 1999 to 1,101 in FY 2008. Anecdotal evidence suggests that companies are adjusting business practices accordingly.
  
  
  
  
• ICE set a new all-time record for alien removals in fiscal year 2008: 349,041 illegal aliens were removed from the country.
  
  
  
  
• Transnational gangs like MS-13 pose a clear threat to public safety. Gangs cause spillover into other kinds of criminal activity, including illegal drugs. Under Operation Community Shield, ICE has arrested more than 11,000 illegal alien gang members and their associates since the program's inception. This number includes a surge of more than 1,700 arrests over the past 4 months.
  
  
  
  
• A rulemaking process required all federal contractors and vendors to use e-Verify to ensure their employees' work eligibility. There are more than 200,000 companies doing federal business with the federal government.
  
  
• Assistance to help states make greater use of e-Verify. Some states already mandate use of e-Verify, and others are considering it.
  
  
• Expanding data sources e-Verify can check. New sources of data will include cross-checks of visa and passport information.
  
  
• States are sharing Department of Motor Vehicles photos and records with e-Verify on a voluntary basis. Agreements to allow e-Verify access to state DMV photo databases help prevent illegal immigrants from using fraudulent driver’s licenses. Such agreements lay the groundwork for further expansion of the electronic employment eligibility verification system.