1,200 janitors fired in 'quiet' immigration raid

[pampango]

Source: Minnesota Public Radio

Minneapolis — One of the largest immigration crackdowns under the Obama administration to date took place in the Twin Cities last month, when 1,200 undocumented janitors were fired from their jobs, according to immigration lawyers.

The Obama administration has shifted away from the dramatic workplace raids that were a hallmark of the Bush administration's enforcement strategy. Under President Obama, the Department of Homeland Security says it is putting pressure on employers who break the law.

The nonprofit Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota was called in by the janitors' union, SEIU, to give legal advice to the frightened employees. "There was a lot of fear that even showing up to talk about your documents that you were going to be arrested and detained by ICE," said the center's John Keller. "People thinking that they shouldn't go to work, extremely concerned about their children. Almost always the first concerns in these circumstances -- even when your children are US born -- is, what if I go to work and don't come back?"

The union worked with the company and ICE to give employees more time to show proper documents. They had until October. Then, each Monday, another batch of workers who failed to show correct papers was fired. The janitors' union, SEIU, is prohibited from talking about the enforcement action. The ABM janitor jobs make up one-quarter of SEIU's membership.

Read more: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/09/immigrants-fired/

[notadmblnd]

1. I hope the government took actions againt the corporation that hired them

to begin with. I just think the punishment should go to root cause of immigrant debate. We all know the root cause- cheap labor corporations/republicans.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Ain't that the truth!

I'm sick of undocumented workers getting referred to as 'illegal aliens' or the truncated 'illegals.' Corporations are responsible for creating the conditions that attract undocumented workers in the first place, yet they're seldom - if ever - prosecuted for circumventing the law by accepting dicey documentation as I.D.

[Orrex]

11. My fantasy about that...

is that the people who knowingly hired the undocumented workers should be stripped of their citizenship. I know that it would be hard to accomplish something like that, so that's why it's just a fantasy.

I mean, if employers are moving toward biometric identifications and exhaustive credit checks anyway, it shouldn't be hard for them to determine whether this or that worker is a citizen.

Under the current structure, the corporations get off with a comparative slap on the wrist, while the individual workers are jailed or deported, while simultaneously being used to exacerbate prejudice against the workers.


Lou Dobbs barely pauses for breath between his anti-Mexican screeds, but I've never heard him call for truly punitive measures to be taken against the unlawful corporations that benefit so hugely from their labor.

[Canuckistanian]

64. "We don't have an illegal immigrant problem. We have an illegal EMPLOYER problem"

Thom Hartmann says it nearly every day.

Why not bring in a nationwide law saying that employers must obtain a SS number before employment?

That's basically what we do in Canada. It keeps EVERYONE honest - the employers AND the immigrants.

[Robb]

2. Wow. First letters went out in June.

Five months to produce docs or get fired. Seems like a good way to avoid sweeping up anyone who is actually here legally. :shrug:

[Historic NY]

10. How did they get employed in the first place? Forged documents.

[izquierdista]

18. Documents?

You think employers need documents to hire someone who will gladly accept their shit wages? They probably have a file of only slightly used Social Security numbers in case the applicant has trouble remembering his.

[WriteDown]

23. Links to some evidence of that? nt

[izquierdista]

54. Stand on a street corner

Where contractors are picking up day laborers, err, used to pick up day laborers in the days of the housing boom. If you want unimpeachable, documented evidence of what happens off the books and under the table, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you may be interested in buying.

[WriteDown]

58. So they are picking up janitors on street corners?

Who knew. :eyes:

[Igel]

29. Some.

There's a federal law that addresses that. If you have workers off the book, there's a law for that; if you don't have evidence that you checked employees' documents and get an immigration audit, there's a law for that.

The problem is actually being able to verify the documents. Which is where the program that nixed these workers' jobs came in. It verifies that the Social Security numbers, names, and other information all match up--and gives employees so many weeks or months for correcting the problem. I did the INS check for my employers, and in one case they did inform us that the name and other info didn't match up. We ignored it because the problem was trivial--even though dear George K. eventually had to clear the problem. He went by his middle name, so while he was hired as Thomas G. K.. at some point I filled out the quarterly forms with him listed as "George K." It was a simple fix, at least for me.

Of course, if you're Gertrude McFarland, a 23-year-old monlingual Spanish-speaking woman from Oaxaca living in Elkhart, Indiana, while the number you're using matches a 66-year-old Gertrude McFarland living in Tennessee for the last 30 years and who retired after 30 years as a school teacher, you're bound to have a problem. Or if your ID says "Gertrude McFarland" but the SSN comes back belonging to James K. Tiberius, who lived in Sausalito, Calif. until his death in 2005. Then you're unlikely to have a quick and easy fix--and if the replacement SSN is radically different then, well, the employer can no longer claim ignorance of the fraud.

If you have a bank of "only slightly used Social Security numbers" it means that the next batch of workers will also flunk verification and be fired. If somebody notices that the same company keeps using the same numbers over and over at a reasonable rate you'll find that this will be construed to constitute knowledge of the illegal immigrants' status.

Look at it this way--most employers game the system, knowing that the standard of proof for "knowingly" is high and it's very easy to simply claim ignorance of what a forged document looks like. Then again, most defendants in criminal court also game the system, knowing that they have evidenciary rules that can get incriminating evidence chucked, that they can simply refuse to provide information that might incriminate them, that they can often warn buddies to make themselves scarce, that they can answer a question truthfully yet incompletely and thereby mislead investigators.

[MNDemNY]

4. This sounds very reasonable, a good step from "raids"

I say good job. But, I do wish more sanctions on the employers in these instances.

[Ian David]

6. See, you punish the brown people, but let their white employers get away with it.

Because this is 'Merika!

[Craftsman]

9. Punish both

Deport the illegals and jail their employers, it is the best way to protect American workers.

[Ian David]

17. If you jail the employers, the jobs will dry-up, and they'll go home on their own. n/t

[Craftsman]

35. Bingo, deport them one way or another

[Ian David]

39. No.

I'm against mass-deportations.

Arrest the rich white dudes who are luring them by the thousands across the border and exploiting them.

Let the undocumented workers pay their own way home on their own time, with their lives and families intact.

[Craftsman]

42. My father was a carpenter and lost a lot of jobs to illegals under cutting him

I say ship every last one back NOW!!!!

[Ian David]

43. How about you arrest the guy who hired them and let them pay their own way back?

Secondly, you ever think that maybe your dad was just a shitty carpenter?

[Craftsman]

44. How about arrestingboth and make the guy who hired him pay to send him back

By confiscating his wealth with the rico act.

[Ian David]

45. Arresting undocumented workers often leaves their children alone and vulnerable.

Or are you suggesting we arrest children and infants along with them, they way Bush and Romney did?

[Craftsman]

46. Yes, they have to go and sooner the better.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Craftsman]

48. I have had to many friends and relatives directly hurt by illegals to offer

anything other then a one way bus ticket south.

[Ian David]

50. You do realize that someday, you could be sneaking across the border into Canada...

... with just the shirt on your back, and a baby under your arm, trying to do the same thing for YOUR family.

No, of course you don't realize that.

Nor do you care.

[Craftsman]

51. Not if we get this country fixed and one of the first things to do is protect

American jobs for Americans.

[Ian David]

61. They tookeryobs!!!!!

Have you tried getting into a big, gay, naked pile?

[paulsby]

55. ah, the lockstep enforcers step in lol

here's a hint. this is democratic underground.

right now, the democratic president is fine with this policy. as is the democratic party. so, how can supporting this policy run contrary to democratic underground rules?

show me where one has to believe that enforcement of our immigration laws is a good thing is contrary to the democratic underground rules.

i'll stand by for the enlightened cite:

[pampango]

56. Agreed. This is the democratic president's policy. It doesn't involve arrest or deportation, just

firing. Supporting that policy should be quite consistent with DU rules.

"Unlike raids at the Swift meatpacking plant in Worthington in 2006, and the Postville, Iowa raid in 2008, the ABM janitors would not be rounded up or arrested."

"Cangemi (a retired ICE official under Bush) wonders how effective this enforcement will be, considering the workers are free to move into other jobs."

Now if someone here was pushing for the Bush approach of arrest and deportation, that might be more questionable on DU. ;)

[Ian David]

62. Sending children and infants to detention camps isn't enforcement, it's a Crime Against Humanity. nt

[WriteDown]

24. You can only punish employers if you can prove that they knew...

the hirees were here illegaly. Extremely difficult to do.

[paulsby]

53. what complete rubbish

plenty of illegals from mexico aren't "brown" and lots of employers ARE brown.

[Ian David]

65. Good point. n/t

[Ian David]

5. Why don't they arrest the employers who break the law? n/t

[JackintheGreen]

7. It is astonishing to me that after five months

the company still employed 1200 undocumented workers. They *knew* it was coming, and I have to assume they didn't do squat as a company. The workers were the one's here illegally, right? So it's gotta be completely their fault. Right? Right?

[pampango]

8. Their union wanted a delay to give the employees more time to prove their status. Why? I don't know.

"The union worked with the company and ICE to give employees more time to show proper documents. They had until October. Then, each Monday, another batch of workers who failed to show correct papers was fired."

That's probably one time that the company was happy to comply with a request from a union. :)

[timo]

19. ???

Does the union bear any responsibility? I am not blaming just wondering, if the labor in question were union members, does that cast the $ they paid in dues in a bad light?

[pampango]

21. I would assume that liable for verifying employees' legal status does not belong to the union.

In some countries the government has that liability by issuing national ID's or other types of domestic papers. Here we hold companies responsible (with some government oversight) largely because we have a problem with national ID's or internal passports.

Would a union accept and represent any employee working at a company covered by a union contract? When some of their members then had work related issues come up, it seems logical for the union to provide them with whatever assistance it could.

[WriteDown]

26. And verifying identity in this country is a nightmare...

People don't realize how hard it is to disprove stolen documents.

[EFerrari]

41. Because it's hard for even documented people to get their stuff

from a poorly staffed agency. Add in possible language problems and poverty, it can be difficult.

My mom has been a citizen since the 60s and before that was a resident. She had to renew her passport while Raygun was in office and it took WEEKS to get it all straightened out. And she was her own boss, had no language barrier.

[AllyCat]

14. It is all about profits. They look at the potential cost of getting caught

and the real cost of having to actually PAY people to do the work and they decide it's worth it.

[pampango]

15. In this case, these were union janitors making $13 an hour. I didn't read that newly hired workers

to replace these janitors will make any more than that.

[JackintheGreen]

34. In which case

there was zero excuse to hire illegal/undocumented workers. Zero! What the fuck, then?

This is a very confusing thing.

[WriteDown]

36. Could be they thought the union would supply them solid employees. nt

[JackintheGreen]

60. A union's job is not to supply employees n/t

[WriteDown]

69. A union will supply people in a unionized industry. nt

[WriteDown]

25. How would they know which to fire?

The brown ones with Spanish accents?

[bluestateguy]

12. Will their jobs be filled by American workers?

Just asking.

[treestar]

40. Yeah, I would like to see follow up on this

Whether 1200 Americans get hired or not.

[harmonicon]

59. of course not - that's how the game is played

What I rarely see mentioned as a benefit to those companies who illegally hire employees, is that having those employees fired and kicked out of the country means that they won't be around to ask for raises. Then they can get a new crop of workers desperate for a job who are equally disposable.

[AllyCat]

13. I agree with two respondents: will the corporations be punished and who will fill the jobs?

Somehow, I doubt ANYONE will suffer here except the workers and their families. This is information released just to make Obama look "like a racist" IMHO.

[shireen]

16. that's right ... go after the people with the least power and money to defend themselves!

I wish law enforcement would spend more time going after the real criminals on Wall Street!

[WriteDown]

27. I'm sure the SEIU has money. nt

[Ghost Dog]

20. "The janitors' union, SEIU, is prohibited from talking about the enforcement action"

How can this be just?

[pampango]

22. That is odd. I can understand that ICE doesn't want to talk about an ongoing investigation and

the company's lawyers don't want them talking while they are the target of an investigation, but the union?

It's not like the union is a target of an investigation. (They're not required to screen new members for their work authorization, are they? That's the company's responsibility.) The union just seeks to represent all the workers at the company.

[rapturedbyrobots]

38. sounds like self-preservation

unions have been taking money from undocumented workers for decades. now those same unions are being used as a backdoor by the obama administration to get to those workers for sanction/deportation. my guess (from seeing first hand how unions and immigrant labor interact) is that unions are being given some kind of deal to 'help' with the kinder, gentler version of workplace raids. they definitely don't want anyone talking about unions aiding in firing/deportation of immigrants en masse.

[timo]

63. hypocrisy?

am i alone in feeling that when union workers and pro union groups rally around the illeagl aliens taking american jobs meme that the unions dont really seem to care as long as the illegal workers are paying union dues?.........thats kinda shitty I think!!

[rapturedbyrobots]

66. its not a meme

its a reality that people face everyday. i'm not rallying around illegals. i have undocumented members of my family, so i know very well the problems that this community faces and poses. most people within the hispanic community don't honestly address the internal problems within the population, or the structural problems this population causes. this is a mistake. i realize undocumented workers are displacing american workers (brown is the new black)...its a crappy situation for american labor. but its not like its a walk in the park for undocumented workers either. they are constantly taken advantage of, including by unions. so instead of blaming either of the victims, lets place the blame where it belongs...neoliberal economic policies that threaten labor regardless of documentation status...policies whose effects unions may serve to mitigate, but do not threaten...and in some cases may exploit. its a messed up world out there and it isn't always us good them bad.

[Dreamer Tatum]

28. How is an undocumented worker eligible to be in a union? Someone educate me. nt

[pampango]

30. If you work for a company and that company is covered by a union contract,

wouldn't the union feel that its responsibility was to represent all the workers that it could? AFAIK, their role is not to determine which people the company hires, but to represent those that it does hire.

[Dreamer Tatum]

31. I would imagine the union would not press the issue if workers are found to be undocumented nt

[pampango]

32. I don't think it did. The union worked to give its members more time to get their documents together

For the vast majority of them that didn't have the proper documents, they were fired and the union didn't pursue it further, at least according to the article.

[Dreamer Tatum]

33. Fair nuff nt

[EFerrari]

49. The union only gains by enlisting all workers in a given area

because then management has no fallback position. They did this in Los Angeles and the hotel industry had to come to the table.

SEIU has to be careful to stay out of illegal activity but it's a brilliant move, imo.

[Romulox]

57. Answer is that it's a crooked union. It's not in Labor's best interest to compete with cheap labor.

:hi:

[Gman2]

37. You dumbasses don't get it. THese are our new McJobs.

That is the shtick with Repubs and immigration. They wanted the market crash. They intended losing all the Mexicans, and then FORCING americans into lower standards of living. Tying accepting one of these jobs, to proving faith, in unemployment. Open YOUR EYYES!

[superconnected]

52. 1. I hate fear/terror tactics, 2. I think we need to remember they chose

to be illegal here. I'm not going to go on a soap box about not over-riding the law because I believe there are times when people should, but, I don't think this is one of them. Break the law, get used to the consequences. I still don't like the terror tactics, and sure I feel sorry for the parents and kids. Not bringing kids into a situation where the parents are in a country illegally seems like it would help this.

[Sultana]

67. Deport them & fine the employers

[proteus_lives]

68. Fine and punish companies who hire illegals.

And send the illegals themselves back to their countries of origin.