Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, IMMIGRATION NEWS—EPI shares important context on immigration enforcement, (Apr 16, 2025)

By Pamela Wolf, J.D.

The federal government spends 14 times more on enforcing immigration laws than on labor standards that protect workers; “Funding for immigration enforcement exceeds the combined funding for the five main U.S. federal law enforcement agencies,” EPI said.

In an attempt to clarify the facts amid a controversial and heated immigration and immigration policy environment in the United States, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) offered a question and answer series to help shed light on the subject. The EPI describes itself as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank working for the last 30 years to counter rising inequality, low wages and weak benefits for working people, slower economic growth, unacceptable employment conditions, and a widening racial wage gap.” The Q&As covered important aspects of immigration data and policy, some of which is highlighted below.

ICE worksite raids and I-9 inspections. Worksite “raids” are operations carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a subagency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the EPI noted. The raids are intended to detect whether persons are employed unlawfully at a particular workplace. During a raid, ICE agents come to a workplace with a judicial warrant to question and possibly detain workers whom ICE suspects are present in the U.S. without a lawful immigration status. The agents may also target the employer’s business practices and seek review of documentation regarding the immigration status of employees.

According to EPI, raids are often carried out with a large and intimidating show of force with ICE agents showing up armed, sealing workplace exits, arresting employees—sometimes en masse—and seizing files and computer equipment. ICE is sometimes supported by local law enforcement in conducting the raid.

Among other things, EPI noted that the law that ICE endeavors to enforce in worksite raids is traced to Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), enacted in 1986. It requires employers to verify the identity and employment eligibility of their employees, with noncompliance potentially resulting in criminal and civil penalties. Under IRCA, 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(b), employers are required to verify the identity and employment eligibility of all individuals hired in the U.S. after November 6, 1986. The Employment Eligibility Verification Form—Form I-9—is found at 8 C.F.R. § 274a.2. It is the primary way for employers to document the identity and work authorization status of employees, and lists the eligible documents that can be used to do so. Employers are required to maintain original Form I-9s for their current employees and to produce them when requested by ICE.

I-9 inspections. In addition to large raids, ICE also conducts I-9 inspections, which require notice to the employer of at least three business days in advance, sometimes with a subpoena that demands the employer produce information about hiring, payroll and tax records, and other business information, in addition to the employer’s I-9s and copies of supporting identification documents. When ICE finds inconsistencies or indications of false documents, the employer has at least 10 business days to make corrections, EPI noted. ICE may also issue a “Notice of Suspect Documents” if it believes a particular worker or workers are not authorized to work. The employer may then contest the finding or terminate the worker. The employee must also be given an opportunity to update their documentation.

According to EPI, the number of I-9 inspections fluctuated widely during fiscal years 2008 to 2024, with a low of 503 during the final year of the George W. Bush administration, and a peak of 6,456 in 2019, during the first Trump administration. There was an average of 2,033 inspections conducted per year over the 2008 to 2024 period.

Violations and fines. ICE has the authority to issue fines for violations, which may include a monetary fine for all substantive violations and uncorrected technical or procedural failures. EPI explained that fines range from $288 to $28,619 per worker, depending on the type and severity of the violation, including whether they are considered minor paperwork issues or more serious breaches like knowingly employing unauthorized workers.

Impact of worksite raids on workers, communities, and employers. The main policy justification for worksite raids, according to some proponents, is that they protect U.S.-born workers from unfair competition by punishing employers and removing undocumented workers from the labor market. This should raise wages and improve labor standards, according to this theory. But the reality is very different, EPI contends.

Effect on employers. Instead of improving conditions for workers, worksite raids rarely result in significant punishment for lawbreaking employers, with fines against employers who are punished being so minimal that they are unlikely to be effective at deterring illegal conduct. According to EPI, the harshest penalties are rare because the legal standard for them is difficult to prove and they are reserved for repeat violators. Instead, raids enable employer lawbreaking while at the same time degrading standards for all workers, regardless of immigration status, and mostly serve to increase the power employers have over workers. Notably, employers can use the threat of calling ICE to coerce their immigrant employees to accept substandard working conditions and not report employer lawbreaking, EPI explained.

Are other labor laws being circumvented? The nonprofit thinktank pointed out that raids only enforce immigration laws, not labor standards like the minimum wage and overtime pay or workplace safety laws. Thus, ICE does not determine whether an employer violated wage-and-hour or labor laws, except in the rare case when ICE works in tandem with the U.S. Department of Labor. This means that if an employer targeted in a worksite violated wage laws, the employer would not be required to pay the back wages owed to workers, and would likely get away with paying a nominal fine, if any, perhaps even for an amount that was less than the wages owed.

In contrast, workers are typically given the option to sign a voluntary departure order, some are detained and released on bond, and some are held in custody, EPI explained. Arrested workers may sometimes sign paperwork consenting to deportation without appeal before having access to legal counsel. Once workers are detained and deported by ICE, it will be much more difficult for the workers to bring any workplace claims against their employers. EPI referred to a report on raids which “documented, there have been multiple instances where ICE has conducted workplace raids ‘that have come in the middle, or followed closely on the heels, of a DOL or other agency investigation or court action,’ which can end up disrupting DOL’s attempt to hold employers accountable.

According to EPI, because raids normally occur in low-wage industries with high rates of workplace violations, “there is a high likelihood that the impacted workers may have been the victims of wage-and-hour violations.” The non-profit said there are “instances in which ICE has cooperated with employers when they request to verify the immigration status of their employees—essentially calling ICE on themselves—when a workplace dispute exists or when a union organizing drive is ongoing.” Employers are thus permitted to use raids as a tool to keep workers from speaking out about unsafe workplace conditions or labor and employment law violations, and to prevent workers from exercising their right to collective action.

Substantial community harm. The worksite raids also harm communities, and the economic and social impacts can be long-lasting, EPI noted. “Numerous organizations, researchers, and news reports have documented these impacts, which can be severe and traumatic for children,” with kids coming home from school to find that one or both of their parents have been deported and there is no one at home to care for them. Fear of raids has led to immigrant parents and their children not showing up at school. Communities can lose a significant portion of their population and tax base, making it hard for businesses that rely on these workers to recover, EPI explained.

More about E-Verify. “Virtually since E-Verify’s inception, advocates and employers have raised significant concerns about E-Verify’s accuracy, efficacy, and negative impact on workers’ rights,” EPI pointed out. Workers can be harmed when E-Verify cannot match a worker’s information to data contained in DHS and Social Security Administration databases, and the system issues what’s known as a tentative nonconfirmation (TNC). Within 10 days of being issued a TNC, the employer is responsible for notifying the employee of the TNC. Within those same 10 days, the employee must notify the employer if they will take action to try to resolve it. One issue is that if the employer fails to notify the worker, the worker is unlikely to become aware of the TNC’s existence, which means the worker won’t know that they are not authorized to work, and consequently, won’t be able to take action to resolve the TNC.

Error rates. The E-Verify system sometimes erroneously issues a TNC—it misidentifies a U.S. citizen or work-authorized immigrant as lacking work authorization. EPI notes that, while the error rates have decreased over the years, “even a relatively low error rate results in tens of thousands of workers being impacted, by erroneously being deemed not eligible for a job, with one study estimating that nearly 760,000 workers have been harmed by E-Verify.”

Tool for discrimination and retaliation? EPI pointed to other issues, including that there are insufficient privacy and due process protections, which permit employers to use E-Verify as a tool to discriminate against and retaliate against workers who call out workplace abuses, wage theft, and health and safety violations, or who try to join with other workers in union-organizing efforts. “Such instances have been significant enough that at least one state has passed laws to protect workers from employers who abuse the E-Verify system, according to EPI.

Impact of mandatory E-Verify. Among other things, the nonprofit think tank underscored a Congressional Budget Office report that found that over a 10-year period, a mandatory E-Verify requirement would reduce Social Security payroll tax revenue by $88 billion. And, looking at the impact on individual workplaces and industries, “there’s no question that pushing more workers into the informal economy with an E-Verify mandate would leave them subject to more exploitation and employer lawbreaking,” according to EPI.

Enforcing immigration laws v. labor stands. EPI also noted that the federal government spends 14 times more on enforcing immigration laws than it does on labor standards that protect workers. An EPI analysis of federal budget data found that in terms of spending, the top federal law enforcement priority of the U.S. is immigration enforcement. Said differently, the nation’s top enforcement priority is detaining, deporting, and prosecuting migrants, and keeping them from entering the country without authorization. “Funding for immigration enforcement exceeds the combined funding for the five main U.S. federal law enforcement agencies,” EPI said.

News: Reports ImmigrationNews FederalRegulations AgencyNews Immigration EconomicNews