How Do You Respond When the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Shows Up at Your Farm, Ranch or Business?

During the past several years, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division conducted multi-state raids on a number of companies, including those involved in the meatpacking industry and in manufacturing. During that period, ICE pursued an interior enforcement strategy that included: 1) a strategic shift to target employers knowingly and recklessly employing illegal aliens; 2) eliminating Social Security abuses that support illegal immigration; and 3) working with Congress to build employer compliance systems. In addition, ICE has launched the IMAGE program, through which it offers to partner with participating companies in developing best immigration compliance practices.

More recently the Obama Administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, signaled a shift in tactics and focus away from high-profile raids and deportations, to conducting a record number of employer I-9 audits. These audits are now underway across the country, and have already affected a number of agricultural employers, and even ANLA members.

ANLA members are asking for advice as to how employers can prepare for possible visits by ICE and what they should do if they are visited. To respond to these concerns, ANLA asked its Washington, D.C. labor and immigration legal counsel to update a summary of the practical and legal issues that agricultural employers should consider if they receive a visit from the DHS or another government agency regarding their compliance with immigration laws.¹ As a result, ANLA provides members this updated document that was prepared several years ago during the last period of extensive immigration enforcement activity.

This memorandum first examines some of the more general and practical issues that agricultural employers should consider if they are visited by DHS or DOL representatives with regard to compliance with federal immigration laws. After providing some practical tips, the memorandum provides guidance regarding the two most common circumstances wherein an employer will encounter the DHS. The first involves a routine employment eligibilityverification (1-9 Form) audit. The second involves more serious and possible criminal investigations where a search warrant may have been acquired.

¹The following summary is intended to provide general guidance regarding investigations common to the agricultural workplace. The reader should recognize that every investigation has its own unique circumstances and if one is uncertain as to what his\her rights and responsibilities are, help from an expert or lawyer should be sought.