By Liz Jones
KUOW News
February 22, 2010
What's turned out to be the only worksite immigration raid under Obama's watch happened in Bellingham, Washington. A year has passed since then, but effects of this raid still linger in the community. Federal officials say the goal of this type of raid is to make employers comply with the law. But what other consequences do raids have on the community, employers and workers? KUOW's Liz Jones went to Bellingham to find out, and to examine how federal immigration enforcement has shifted under the new administration.
Yamato Engine Specialists occupies a sprawling warehouse, on the outskirts of Bellingham. It's a family–owned and operated business that remanufactures car engines.
Dhanani: "Our specialty is imports, but we do domestics too. A lot of them."
Shirin Dhanani works here with her parents, her two brothers and about 120 other employees. One of her brothers flashes an uneasy look as we pass by. Since federal immigration agents raided the company last year, they've tried to move past the bad publicity.
Dhanani: "Oh it's been difficult, extremely difficult. Your reputation, your credibility, your confidence. It's been tough with banks. It's been tough with customers."
The raid last February was the second time federal immigration officials investigated Yamato. An investigation in 2005 ended with the company quietly dismissing several undocumented workers.
This time, things weren't so quiet.
Dhanani: "When I got here there were cars everywhere, ice agents everywhere. Everybody was gathered in the lunchroom and then they were going through people's paperwork. And then they took them on the busses with chains and I asked why the women had to go. I was pretty verbal. I was very, very upset because these are people that work for me."
In the end, agents arrested 28 workers and two Yamato corporate directors.
Before the raid, Dhanani and her family cooperated with federal officials for several months. If someone had slipped through the hiring process using fake papers she wanted to know about it. Dhanani figured officials would give her a list of employees to terminate whose documents didn't check out, like the time before.
Then, the agent working with Dhanani told her they'd found several undocumented workers at Yamato; some who were possibly gang members. After that, the strategy seemed to shift.
Dhanani: "There was some discussion about coming and taking them away, and I went well, you would do that? Just come here and take them away? And he said, yeah, that's how it's normally done."
Raids are how it was normally done before, but not so much under Obama.
In the 2008 fiscal year, agents with Immigration Customs Enforcement, or ICE, arrested more than 6,000 people during workplace raids. Last year that number was about 2,000. Almost two–thirds lower than the year before.
Matt Chandler is a spokesman with the Department of Homeland Security, in Washington D.C. He acknowledges the government's tactics have shifted away from military style raids where workers are rounded up and put in detention centers.
Instead, more emphasis is now on I–9 audits, which require businesses to verify employee social security numbers and other documents. Undocumented workers are then dismissed. Chandler says employers can also face civil fines or criminal charges.
Chandler: "We feel that by focusing on employers who are knowingly hiring illegal workers, we can begin to target the cycle that is a draw for illegal immigration in the first place. So we are focused currently on building strong cases against employers who knowingly hire illegal workers and go around the tenets of our law to get ahead unfairly."
But raids are still an option.
Chandler: "When you're saying raid, yes, we may still enter the workplace, but the objective is to go after the employer, not to go after the employees."
In 2009, ICE tripled the number I–9 audits across the country, compared the year before. That includes a few dozen audits in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. In December, a fruit grower in Eastern Washington reportedly laid off hundreds of workers in response to an audit.
Back in Bellingham, immigration advocate Rosalina Guillen says audits and raids both have the same negative outcomes. Employers become more fearful about who they hire, and workers lose jobs. That unemployment can put extra strain on community services.
Guillen: "For a lot of social service agencies, it is overwhelming. I know many times for us we feel it's overwhelming. The need is overwhelming because you're not just talking adult males, you're talking entire families with children that are in our schools."
Guillen heads an organization called Community to Community Development. It helped support several families affected by the Yamato raid. Many families have since left the community, while other workers are still waiting for court hearings about their immigration status.
Reporter: "Honestly, what do you think happens to these workers down the road. They don't have jobs. They don't have documents to get jobs. Do they go home?"
Guillen: "I think a lot of them do go home, or just continue to move around. It creates a transient community in the United States."
As for workplace enforcement, Guillan admits the audits are more humane than the raids. But she did see one positive outcome from the raid. It seemed to renew community efforts to fight for comprehensive immigration reform, one that would provide a path to legalization for undocumented workers.
On the other side of the debate, many who favor tougher immigration laws are unsatisfied with Obama's approach so far.
William Gheen heads the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC.
Gheen: "We want comprehensive immigration enforcement. We want the raids. We want the I–9 forms checked. We want employers that hire illegal immigrants fined. And we want the border secured and our local police enforcing immigration law."
That's an agenda Gheen thinks President Bush also failed to enforce. But he rates Obama worse, because he's halted the workplace raids.
At Yamato, the machines are still running but the business has downsized. The cuts were planned before the raid, though that added another big setback.
The case cost them about $100,000 in fines, plus 500,000 in attorney fees and steep losses in productivity and business. Some think Yamato got off easy. But Dhanani believes they paid a high price for the government to make a point.
Dhanani: "What was the point of the government? They wanted to pull us out of business? They wanted to shut us down? What was the agenda? The agenda was to make a point that employers should follow the letter of the law. And this is what happens if you don't."
Dhanani says Yamato pled guilty to the charges, because the investigation uncovered that an HR employee did know some workers were undocumented.
Dhanani now personally handles HR for Yamato. And the company has enrolled in E–verify, a federal program that checks workers' documentation.
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