No More Immigration Raids in Disguise

by Donna Jablonski, Mar 30, 2006

While the immigration debate rages on Capitol Hill, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has quietly backed away from a most disgusting practice: impersonating safety and health officials to round up undocumented immigrants on the job.

BNA’s Daily Labor Report (subscription required) says in a March 17 letter to the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Marcy M. Forman, director of the agency’s inspection division, said:

“Effective immediately, the use of ruses involving health and safety programs administered by a private entity or a federal, state, or local government agency (such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA]), for the purpose of immigration worksite enforcement, will be discontinued….”

Jordan at Confined Space reminds us:

Last summer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials staged a raid on undocumented immigrants in North Carolina by impersonating OSHA officials. The raid led to a firestorm of protest from unions, immigrant rights groups and OSHA who argued that such sting operations would discourage immigrants from seeking assistance from OSHA when working in hazardous jobs. ICE had reaffirmed its right to use such stings, but later said they would only be used when there was a “national security threat or extreme situation.”

Now it sounds like ICE has backed off further. Good. Immigrant workers are far more likely than native-born workers to suffer injury and death on the job. No worker should worry that when he or she is called to an OSHA training, as happened last summer, it might be an immigration raid in disguise.

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