The United States immigration agents has seen a massive rush in the numbers of the workplace immigration raids in the year 2018, which is more than four times of raids that aimed at finding and also arresting an undocumented immigrants as compared to the year 2017.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday, declared the details of raids of this year which stated that the Homeland Security Investigations agents has opened about 6,848 worksites investigations in this fiscal year, showing a massive rush as compared to about 1,691 investigations, which opened in 2017.
During 2018 investigations, agents had made criminal arrest of about 779, and workplace-related arrests are about 1,525. In comparison to 2017 investigation, it was about 138 criminal arrest and 172 work-place related arrest.
In an official statement, executive director of Homeland Security Investigation Derek Benner said, “Reducing illegal employment helps build another layer of border security, and reduces the continuum of crime that illegal labour facilitates, from the human smuggling networks that facilitate illegal border crossings to the associated collateral crimes, like identity theft, document and benefit fraud and worker exploitation.”
The spike over the investigations was followed by the Trump administration raided on undocumented immigrants in the US with giving less cautions to immigration enforcement agents, on the matter to whom to arrest – a kind of break from the policy which was instructed during the time of Obama administration over agents in order to targets individuals who supposed to be a clear threat to the country.
In a statement release, Benner justified that the increase in the raids with a saying that all the agents are concerned over protecting American jobs from getting held by any individuals who are not at all authorized to the work in the US.
The raids conducted as a crucial part of those investigations was in Bean Station, Tennessee, where about 104 undocumented immigrants were found and arrested during working at one of a slaughterhouse in a rural area of that place.
While the ICE asserted the necessity of conducting these kinds of raids in order to protect US and to ensure its employment laws being followed properly and correctly, the immigration advocates said the raids can affect small communities and their families – such as Bean Station.
When contacted over the Bean Station raid, a 27-year-old Yahel Salazar said, “One day you have your family. You’re just worried about how work is going to go. Then, all of a sudden, everything is gone and you don’t know what’s going to happen.”