CHICAGO — One of the key promises President Donald Trump made during his 2024 campaign was to “crack down on illegal immigration.”
On day one of his term, the president signed several executive orders that called for increased immigration enforcement, potential travel bans, enhanced deportation priorities, increased scrutiny during the travel visa process, and more.
The administration’s immigration policy has made it more challenging for businesses, including industrial laundries, to retain and hire foreign-born employees.
After hearing from several laundry operators about the topic, American Laundry News examined some of the policy changes that were enacted, their immediate effects, and how industrial laundries are handling the challenges.
(Note: This article is for informational purposes only. For advice on your specific situation, consult your attorney of choice.)
IMMIGRATION POLICY CHANGES AND BUSINESS EFFECTS (Part 2)
Laura Foote Reiff is a shareholder at the Greenberg Traurig law firm in the Northern Virginia/Washington, D.C., area, and has more than 35 years of experience representing businesses and organizations in the business immigration and compliance field. She is on the board of the National Forum and chairs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Immigration Subcommittee.
During the recent National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) webinar “How Small Businesses Should Prepare for Stricter Immigration Enforcement,” she said the key to navigating what’s going on with U.S. immigration is for employers to understand their responsibility to fill out and complete an I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form from the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), for each employee who was hired after November 1986 when the Immigration Reform and Control Act put that burden on employers.
“And that’s all of our employers,” she stresses. “We all have to do a check to make sure that people have sufficient identity and employment authorization documents.
“Many people just ignored that, and I would say if you feel like you’re too small to do it, I think you need to go on the USCIS website and get yourself familiar with the I-9 form. It’s really important that you protect yourself and have I-9s for everybody who is on your workforce.”
Laundry operators should be aware that an audit or raid is possible because of the administration’s immigration focus.
“Worksite enforcement audits of employers are carried out by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), and you’ve probably heard a lot about ICE,” Reiff says. “They have a lot of duties. They are going after individuals who have overstayed orders of deportation. They’re currently going after individuals who have already been removed and then come back in. They’re also targeting people who are here and have committed crimes.
“One of their other duties is to go into workplaces and review the I-9 forms. ICE comes in and looks at your employment verification records. They try to determine whether you’ve adequately screened your employees or your potential employees. Have you gotten that appropriate identity document? Have you gotten that appropriate work authorization document? And if that document is time-sensitive, and it expires at a certain time, are you reminding yourself to go back to double-check and re-verify those documents? ICE has the right to come in and look at your documents.
“It is really important for the employer, within three days of hiring somebody, to look at the back of the I-9 form, look at the identity documents, at the work documents that they’re presenting, and make sure it’s compliant with those documents that are listed on the back of the I-9 form.”
If a business enrolls in E-Verify, then it can go into the online system and get an E-Verify verification, which is attached to an I-9. This shows that the U.S. government has evidence that this person is work-authorized.
“Many smaller businesses don’t use E-Verify, but we do expect that E-Verify will be made nationally required and many businesses will sign up for E-Verify just to give themselves some extra protection,” Reiff says. “If there is an audit, if you use E-Verify, that’s kind of a nice tool.”
There’s been much in the media about ICE going into different businesses and there being questions about whether the visit is an audit or a raid.
“It’s really important to be good citizens of the United States but also to protect your business and protect your lawful workers, to have a protocol,” Reiff shares. “It can just be bullet points. How do you actually deal with ICE worksite visits? That should be written out so people aren’t surprised when ICE comes knocking. Create and memorialize a uniform process for responding to a worksite visit.
“Is this a notice of intent of inspection, or are they coming with a subpoena? Do they not have any of that? Train either yourself or your receptionist on how to decide what kind of visit this is. Ensure that you have somebody to call, like the owner or an attorney.”
If ICE comes and has what’s called a notice of inspection, Reiff says it doesn’t mean that the operator needs to turn over documents right away.
“By regulation, you have three business days to confer with counsel and pull the materials together, get it organized,” she points out. “Make sure you’re not turning over documents that aren’t necessary. You wouldn’t turn over wage-and-hour documents. You wouldn’t turn over other personnel records. It would just be the I-9 records.”
There is a difference between an ICE audit of I-9 forms and a raid, she shares.
“A raid is usually a joint enforcement effort,” Reiff says. “ICE will be there but also maybe some other law enforcement. In order to come onto the property, they need to have a warrant that is signed by a judge. If there is a warrant, ICE can only go to the places described in the warrant.”
During a raid, ICE’s purpose is to locate and detain individuals before deporting them from the United States.
“A lot of times, we are finding that companies are not necessarily the target, but their staffing company or their vendors are the target of the particular ICE visit, whether it’s an audit or whether it’s a warrant,” Reiff points out.
She stresses that before a business engages a vendor, it’s important for the company to have language in an agreement that specifically places the burden on the vendor to comply with the Immigration Reform and Control Act.
“You, as the prime contractor or the owner of the business, don’t want to subcontract with vendors who you know are violating immigration laws,” she concludes.
Check back Thursday for the conclusion with insights from two industrial laundry representatives.
Click HERE to read part 1 for an introduction to policy changes, and what they mean for businesses.
(Image licensed by Ingram Image)