North County Times - New Immigration Rules Bring Few Immediate Changes
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North County Times - New Immigration Rules Bring Few Immediate Changes
New immigration rules announced by President Bush last month have some local civil rights advocates and farmers worried even before the proposed changes take effect.
One of the main proposals, which would put teeth in an employment verification system, was blocked by a federal judge. Several others, such as increasing the number of nonborder immigration enforcement officers and training police officers to enforce immigration law, have yet to take hold in San Diego County.
The new rules were endorsed by the Bush administration following the failure in Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill earlier this year. After the death of that bill, which would have given illegal immigrants the chance to become legal residents, the administration focused its efforts on strengthening existing immigration laws.
Opponents of illegal immigration welcomed the rules and said crackdowns on illegal workers would deter more immigrants from entering the country illegally to work.
Though they have yet to take effect, the new regulations have illegal immigrants in the community on edge, said Pedro Rios, San Diego director of the American Friends Service Committee. The group is a Quaker human rights organization that works with immigrants.
"The only thing we've been hearing about is the fear factor and the uncertainty," Rios said.
Some migrants are worried that they may lose their jobs because of a provision that would punish employers who can't verify their employees' eligibility to work in the country.
That prospect has worried many employers, including those in the agriculture industry, said Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. The industry, which has seen significant shortages of available workers, relies heavily on a labor force that is predominantly composed of illegal immigrants.
"It's caused a lot of concern, because growers take the documents that they think are good," Larson said of the work documents provided by laborers.
It's long been illegal to hire and retain anyone not authorized to work in the United States. Farmers have taken their chances that documents presented by the 1.6 million farmworkers hired around the country are valid or won't be closely examined.
Historically, employers who received one of the approximately 130,000 letters sent by the Social Security Administration telling them that a worker's identification number didn't match government records have not been forced to fire the employee, as the discrepancy could result from a misprint, or a woman's failure to inform the government of her new married name.
Under the new regulations, these so-called "no-match" letters would be accompanied by a letter from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reminding employers of their obligations under immigration law.
Farmers would be required to ask the employee to fix the discrepancy. If the difference isn't explained in three months, the employer would be forced to fire the worker or face criminal liability.
'The labor force is shrinking'
Larson said it's difficult to calculate what effect the new rule will have on the county's $1.5 billion agriculture industry. Some of the main crops, avocado and citrus, are at the tail end of their harvest season and many of the workers have already left.
The question among growers is whether enough of the workers will be able to return next year, Larson said.
"The concern is looking forward," he said. "It appears to us that the labor force is shrinking."
Late last month, the American Civil Liberties Union and the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of labor unions, filed a lawsuit against the federal government to block the Social Security Administration from sending the letters.
The suit claims that new rules threaten to violate workers' rights and unfairly burden employers.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting the so-called "no-match" letters from being sent as planned.
Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, blasted the judge's decision.
"If you have the court saying you can't send out the notices ... the judge is legislating from the bench," Bilbray said Thursday in a phone interview from his office in Washington, D.C.
Bilbray, who won his seat with a largely anti-illegal immigration campaign, said he supports the president's proposed changes because they could help reduce illegal labor if they are implemented.
"It makes a big difference when the administration says it's going to enforce the law," Bilbray said. "It sends a message not only to those who are already here illegally but those who are thinking about coming here illegally."
More local help for border agents
President Bush has said he wants to increase the number of local law enforcement officers trained to deal with immigration. That's something Bilbray said he has been promoting among local city officials, likening the fight against illegal immigration to the war on drugs.
"I can't picture us fighting the war on drugs without local law enforcement," he said.
Though there are no written agreements between law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, some local police departments are moving toward greater cooperation with federal immigration authorities, Bilbray said.
In August, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency in charge of enforcing immigration laws inside the country, in cooperation with several North County law enforcement agencies, arrested 60 Mexican nationals with ties to street gangs.
Lauren Mack, the agency's spokeswoman in San Diego, said immigration officers are helping to identify illegal immigrants in local jails and arresting illegal immigrants who have been ordered deported.
Bush said he will increase the number of agents devoted to arresting and deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records, from 68 teams to 78 teams by the end of this month.
There are two Fugitive Operations Teams, as they are called, with about a dozen officers each who work in Imperial and San Diego counties. There are no immediate plans to increase the number of teams in the region, Mack said.
Immigrant rights activists said they worry about the close working ties between local police and immigration authorities, because that relationship could deter illegal immigrants from reporting crimes for fear of being deported.
During the crackdown on gangs last month, immigration authorities also arrested 68 suspected illegal immigrants who had no ties to gangs.
"It's an easy way to target people with no questions," Rios said. "The fact that those programs are supposed to target gang members ... makes it easier and more palatable to arrest (people who are not gang members) under less scrutiny."
The complete list of President Bush's immigration rule changes is at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070810.html
Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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