• Workplace Enforcement by Immigration Authorities Index

• contents: Immigrants' Rights Update, May 23, 2006

ICE discontinues health and safety ruse for
immigration enforcement

Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 20, Issue 2, May 23, 2006

     A top official of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced that ICE agents will no longer pose as federal workplace health and safety personnel as part of its immigration enforcement strategy.  Marcy Forman, director of detention and removal, informed the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) of the agency's decision in March 2006.

     This change in ICE's enforcement policy marks a significant victory for immigrant workers and their advocates.  Several national and state-level immigrant rights groups and unions focused intensive advocacy efforts on ICE after learning that ICE agents had employed this ruse in a worksite raid launched in North Carolina in 2005.  Posing as representatives of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is responsible for enforcing federal laws ensuring workplace safety, ICE agents took part in a workplace health and safety meeting that was mandatory for workers.  Workers who attended were detained and placed in removal proceedings. 

     Immigrant workers' rights advocates and labor unions expressed concern that worksite enforcement actions such as ICE agents' impersonation of OSHA personnel would have a chilling effect on immigrant workers.  On Sept. 16, 2005, NILC sent a letter to ICE on behalf of national and state organizations, raising concerns about actions by the agency that undermine the health and safety conditions for all workers.  The UFCW followed suit by sending correspondence to ICE in Nov. 2005, also expressing its concerns.  In Jan. 2006, immigrant workers' rights advocates and labor unions met with representatives of ICE in Washington, DC, to reiterate their deep concerns with the agency's tactic of impersonating OSHA personnel.  Advocates urged the agency to drop the tactic, pointing out that it was undermining low-wage workers' trust in OSHA.  Advocates also pointed out that diminished workers' trust in OSHA is the last thing workplaces need, in light of the increased rates of workplace injuries and deaths immigrant workers, both documented and undocumented, have suffered.  During that meeting, ICE officials were unmoved, insisting that the use of this ruse to enforce immigration laws would remain in the agency's enforcement repertoire.  

By Monica Guizar, NILC employment policy attorney