Articles Posted in Immigration Reform

The entire issue of immigration has been a mixed bag during the first term of the Obama administration. Immigrant rights activists heap praise upon the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Since officially starting in August 2012, over 150,000 people have received deferred action under DACA.

On the other hand, the Obama administration has seen a record number of deportations; 1.6 million over his first four years in office. Plus, the federal government spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement in the 2012 fiscal year. This exceeds the budgets for the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives combined.

With new programs yielding tens of thousands of deferments in under six months on one hand, and a four-year record of massive immigration enforcement on the other, it is easy to get a mixed message out of the current administration. However, look for that message to get much clearer very soon.

As federal immigration officials ratchet up efforts to crack down on the hiring of undocumented workers, business owners can take positive steps to protect themselves from raids, litigation and fines. According to Nation’s Restaurant News…

“The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, has been targeting the hospitality industry in part because of the large Hispanic workforce… An estimated 22 percent of the foodservice industry’s workforce is Hispanic overall, including both documented and undocumented workers.”

It’s mainly in the documents…