Immigration Enforcement Under President Trump: Undocumented Workers, Not Their Employers, Subject to Law Enforcement

Earlier this week, Immigration & Customs Enforcement conducted raids at food processing plants in Mississippi, generating great sadness as children on the first day of school were separated (often tearfully) from their parents who were in ICE custody. 

Two other Washington Post stories shed light on how immigrants, not employers, are bearing the brunt of the Trump enforcement measures. even though employers may be sanctioned for employing undocumented immigrants.

One Post story spells out how, although seeking to enforce the law against undocumented workers,  the Trump administration has not been particularly aggressive in enforcing the laws against employers.

Another story reports on how the Trump Organization has relied on Latinx employees, including some without lawful immigration status, to build fountains and waterfalls, sidewalks and rock walls at the company’s winery and its golf courses from New York to Florida.

In addition, President Trump in December 2017 announced the Presidential commutation of the sentence of the former CEO of America's largest kosher meat processing plant who was convicted in 2009 of a series of fraud charges. The CEO's legal troubles began in 2008, with an  immigration raid arrested nearly 400 undocumented workers at a meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa.

KJ