ICE is coming for Undocumented Workers
ICE is coming for Undocumented Workers – How to Prevent Corporate Frostbite
If you compile recent headlines, you’ll know the President has implemented two immigration bans, is challenging so-called “Sanctuary Cities” that do not help Federal immigration enforcement, has instructed government agencies to become more aggressive in enforcement of immigration laws, and is already reviewing proposals to strengthen the border wall. On top of this, the E-Verify program for verifying worker status is likely to become mandatory.
Further, employers who try to do it right by using the H-2B program have been dealt a stiff blow. The Returning Worker Program, which dramatically extended the stingy 66,000 nationwide cap on H-2B non-immigrant workers, has not been renewed. The H-2B cap has already been reached for 2017, so the hope for help there is gone.
A 2013 study by the Workers Defense Project and University of Texas found that 50 percent of surveyed construction workers in Texas were undocumented. Approximately one in every thirteen people in the Texas workforce labors in construction, meaning as many as 400,000 Texas construction workers are undocumented. The national unemployment rate is presently at 4.7 percent, almost at a 10-year low. If all the undocumented workers vanish, there will be hardly any place to find replacements.
