Cracking down harder on illegal immigrants

By JENNIFER BJORHUS, Star Tribune
Nobody has been fired from ROC Commercial Cleaning in Oakdale -- at least not yet. Since they got word that federal immigration officials are poring over the company's employment records, some janitors have simply quit.

Co-owner Peter Mogren said he has no idea how many of his 129 workers might walk away or be fired. One employee said nearly the entire workforce will go. Mogren is angry and bewildered. "This is new territory for me," he said.

His company is one of at least nine businesses across the Twin Cities undergoing a so-called immigration audit, part of the Obama administration's national crackdown on employers using undocumented workers. At least 2,000 people in the Twin Cities have lost their jobs in the last 18 months as a result of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) finding that they couldn't prove their eligibility to work in the United States.

The results of ICE's audits offer a warning to businesses, especially those using low-skill workers:

•The number of audits jumped more than 50 percent last year to about 2,200 from 1,444 in 2009.
•The average fine under Obama ($21,851) has increased about 30 percent compared with the Bush era ($16,666).
•Criminal arrests of employers have jumped 45 percent since 2008. Of the 196 employers arrested last year, 42 have been sent to prison so far, with sentences ranging from time served to 3 1/2 years. Many cases are pending.

Most recently in the Twin Cities, Harvard Maintenance Inc., a New York company with operations in Minnesota, began dismissing its janitors. The company will be forced to dismiss about 240 cleaners, more than half its local workforce, following an I-9 audit of its Twin Cities offices, the union representing the workers said last week. Harvard Maintenance has declined to discuss the matter.

The surge in workplace inspections is a growing source of frustration for employers, said Bill Blazar, senior vice president of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. "Either way, it creates heartache for the employees, heartache for the employer, and it doesn't do communities or the economies any good either," Blazar said. "I think this is evidence for further need of comprehensive immigration reform."

A local union is calling the firings an attack on the immigrant community. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26 in St. Paul, which represents about 5,000 local janitors and maintenance staff, is holding a vigil Sunday at Incarnation Church in south Minneapolis.

At issue are ICE's I-9 audits. The audits are a centerpiece of Obama's new strategy to hold employers accountable, as the administration shifts from arresting undocumented workers in worksite raids to targeting employers and illegal workers through employment records.

Employees fired after such audits typically aren't deported, as they were previously.

So far, the get-tough line hasn't impressed critics. They claim the arrests and fines are too weak given the estimated 8 million undocumented workers nationwide.

In one of the largest Twin Cities firings, about 1,200 janitors were let go from a unit of New York-based ABM Industries Inc. in 2009. ABM, with profits of $64 million, was ultimately fined about $108,000, roughly $90 per fired worker. The SEIU called it "a joke."

More than 300 businesses, large and small, have been audited and fined for violations since 2003, according to enforcement data that ICE gave the Star Tribune. Most of the businesses employ workers for physical work -- landscapers, dairy operations, roofers and restaurants, among others. No employers in Minnesota have ever been arrested for criminal violations, according to ICE, and only four have been fined since 2003, including ABM. Chipotle Mexican Grill, the burrito chain that fired 450 ineligible workers from its Minnesota workforce starting last December, isn't on the list. ICE is still investigating the Denver-based company in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Koch Foods, one of the country's largest chicken producers with nearly $2 billion in annual sales, received the highest fine. ICE ultimately penalized the Ohio company $536,046 last year, following a 2007 raid that saw the arrests of about 160 undocumented workers.