The Department of Homeland Security has ordered hundreds of companies to submit their hiring records in an effort to crack down on the hiring of illegal immigrants. The first “silent raids” of the year haven’t been publicly announced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the DHS agency that conducts these raids, but an ICE spokesperson recently confirmed that as of March 29, the agency had notified 500 businesses “of all sizes and types” to submit I-9 employment-eligibility forms and other documents. “These inspections will determine whether or not the businesses are complying with their employment-eligibility verification requirements,” said ICE Deputy Press Secretary Gillian Christensen. “No one industry is targeted, nor is any one industry immune from scrutiny.”
“The expanding rate and reach of I-9 audits is starting to chip away at the perception that only the most egregious employers are at risk of an enforcement action by ICE,” said Julie Myers, who was the chief of ICE under the Bush administration. “Companies in all industries need to be vigilant.”
