Border
chief explains why there have been no ICE raids at Trump properties
By Riley
Beggin
 |
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On
CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper asked Morgan why Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, which Morgan led until early July,
hadn’t conducted any raids or investigations into Trump’s eight properties
given reports that the clubs and hotels employ undocumented people.
“You
really can’t say that for sure,” Morgan said. “There are investigations going
on all the time that you’re unaware of. ... Of course it’s going to jeopardize
the investigation if I come on here and I talk to you about an investigation
that’s going on.”
The
question came days after a massive ICE raid on a Mississippi
chicken processing plant. The worksite raid was one of the largest of its kind
in US history; 680 people suspected to be unauthorized workers were abruptly
arrested and separated from their families.
Tapper
asked why employers who hire undocumented workers are not always punished along with the workers themselves; the host
cited Syracuse University’s immigration records research that found only 11
people and no companies were prosecuted for employing undocumented workers
between the spring of 2018 and 2019.
During the same time frame, 85,727 people were prosecuted for entering the US illegally.
During the same time frame, 85,727 people were prosecuted for entering the US illegally.
Morgan
responded that an investigation into the business that employed the
undocumented workers in Mississippi is ongoing.
Among
the companies that have not been prosecuted for employing undocumented
laborers, however, are those owned by President Trump, despite the Trump
Organization having reportedly hired undocumented workers for decades.
What we know
about hiring at Trump properties
Multiple
news outlets have reported on the Trump Organization’s longstanding reliance on
the very people the president often discusses with derision: undocumented
immigrants.
Most recently, the Washington Post reported on construction crews at Trump properties largely being composed of undocumented workers, even after Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons and a Trump Organization executive, said the company was making a “broad effort” to identify and fire undocumented laborers.
One worker told the Post he was even instructed by a supervisor to buy fake documents on a street corner in New York City.
Employing
workers without legal status gives the company a competitive advantage,
industry officials told the Post. And undocumented laborers are less likely to
risk job changes and less likely to complain if they’re being mistreated.
Trump
“doesn’t want undocumented people in the country,” one former Trump
Organization worker, Jorge Castro, told the Post. “But at his properties, he
still has them.”
Trump’s
businesses rely heavily on documented foreign laborers as well. As Vox’s Alexia Fernández Campbell reported,
the Trump Organization makes use of the US’s H-2B visa program.
Campbell found that only one out of 144 jobs available at Trump properties during 2016 and 2017 went to an American worker, and that the Trump administration has expanded access to H-2B visas.
The H-2B visa program allows seasonal, non-agricultural employers — like hotels and ski resorts — to hire foreign workers when they can’t find American ones.
The Trump administration temporarily expanded this guest-worker program in 2017 while restricting other avenues of legal immigration, including the H-1B program for high-skilled workers.
Campbell found that only one out of 144 jobs available at Trump properties during 2016 and 2017 went to an American worker, and that the Trump administration has expanded access to H-2B visas.
The H-2B visa program allows seasonal, non-agricultural employers — like hotels and ski resorts — to hire foreign workers when they can’t find American ones.
The Trump administration temporarily expanded this guest-worker program in 2017 while restricting other avenues of legal immigration, including the H-1B program for high-skilled workers.
Employers
are supposed to attempt to find American workers before hiring H-2B immigrants,
Fernández Campbell reported, but documents showed that Trump Organization
hiring managers made the minimum required effort to recruit US citizens to fill
the open positions.
Mark
Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told
Fernández Campbell that the company’s reliance on H-2B visa holders, and
Trump’s expansion of the program in 2017, creates a competitive advantage
similar to the one gained by employing mostly undocumented workers: being able to
avoid paying higher wages or better benefits for American workers.
There aren’t enough low-skilled American workers to fill demand
The
Trump Organization has said it is making efforts to ensure all of its workers
are citizens or documented immigrants.
The company has fired nearly two dozen people due to their immigration status since the New York Times reported on undocumented workers at the Trump Organization’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, last December, and has adopted a system for verifying employment eligibility.
The company has fired nearly two dozen people due to their immigration status since the New York Times reported on undocumented workers at the Trump Organization’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, last December, and has adopted a system for verifying employment eligibility.
But
firing undocumented workers — and instituting widespread policies intended to
flush them out of the US labor market — may have the unintended consequence of
placing stress on an economy desperately in need of low-skilled workers.
There’s
practically no way for a low-skilled worker from Guatemala to “wait in line”
for a visa to take a job at a chicken processing plant in Mississippi. Only one
such visa exists — the EB-3 visa — but it’s limited to a tiny number of people
(5,000 max).
Yet
the US economy needs hundreds of thousands of workers to fill these jobs right
now. The US is experiencing a serious labor shortage, and it’s harder for
businesses to find low-skilled workers these days than high-skilled workers.
As
president, Trump has pushed an immigration plan that favors migrants prepared for
high-skilled jobs and gives advantages to immigrants with advanced college
degrees.
But those jobs are, for the most part, already filled. There is a surplus of jobs available for low-skilled workers, however, and not enough Americans to fill them.
But those jobs are, for the most part, already filled. There is a surplus of jobs available for low-skilled workers, however, and not enough Americans to fill them.
Immigrants
who want to take those open jobs have two options, Fernández Campbell writes:
The H-2A program for farm workers and the H-2B program for seasonal workers,
such as those working at Trump hotels.
There are only around 75,000 visas available annually for those guest workers, and they don’t cover jobs like those at the plant raided last week in Mississippi.
There are only around 75,000 visas available annually for those guest workers, and they don’t cover jobs like those at the plant raided last week in Mississippi.
The
limits on those visas and the need to staff low-skilled positions have been
some of the main reasons behind a spike in undocumented immigrants in the US
since the 1990s, according to Madeleine Sumption and Demetrios Papademetriou of
the Migration Policy Institute.
There simply aren’t that many ways immigrants looking for low-skilled positions can legally get work in the US.
There simply aren’t that many ways immigrants looking for low-skilled positions can legally get work in the US.
Trump’s
policies may make the labor shortage worse, industry experts say, including at
his own properties. If he hopes to keep the economy growing, it will require
rethinking restrictive policies that have been the cornerstone of his platform.