The Weekly Round-Up: ICE Completes Largest Workplace Raid in 10 Years and Paul Ryan Announces Compromise Bill on Immigration

ICE Arrests More Than 100 During Company Raid in Ohio

This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Officers raided Corso’s Flower and Garden Center in Castalia, Ohio, arresting over 100 company employees who are alleged to be in the United States without documentation.  This marked the largest number of ICE arrests in a single event in the last 10 years.

ICE reportedly began investigating Corso’s for immigration violations in October 2017.  Following the raid, the regional ICE spokesman, Khaalid Walls, indicated that the Department of Homeland Security will be charging the company with numerous violations including actions related to harboring and unlawfully employing undocumented immigrants, fraud, and identity theft.  Walls stated that if “you are hiring illegal aliens as a business model, we will identify you, arrest you, and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

This enforcement action follows current White House policy, which stresses a crackdown on undocumented employment.  In October 2017, ICE Chief Thomas Homan stated that when “we find you at a work site, we’re no longer going to turn our heads. . . .We’ll go after the employer who knowingly hires an illegal alien . . . but we’re always going to arrest a person who is here illegally.  That is our job.”

If you are an employer or employee and have questions about compliance with current immigration laws, regulations, and enforcement policies, please contact an experienced immigration attorney to discuss your rights.

House Speaker Paul Ryan Says the House Will Vote on an Immigration Bill This Year

This week, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced that the House of Representatives will draft and vote on a single immigration bill prior to the midterm elections in November.  This announcement comes as several House Republicans are gathering signatures to put a set of immigration bills on the House floor for a vote.

As we previously reported, if a sufficient number of signatures are obtained to force a vote, the House will be required to vote yes or no on four different immigration bills.  After that, pursuant to an infrequently used House procedural rule, known as the “Queen of the Hill,” the bill with the most votes would be deemed passed and be sent to the Senate for review, regardless of whether it received a majority of votes.  Speaker Ryan indicated that a bill passed in fashion would have no chance of making it through the Senate, and that House “members realize it’s better to have a process that has a chance of going into law than not.”  Ryan wanted a compromise bill and that “the next step is to start putting pen to paper so we can get legislation to the floor.”

The bills being considered for the “Queen of the Hill” vote cover a wide range of topics including pathways to citizenship for DACA recipients, reduction in overall family immigration, changes to temporary work visas, border security, and much more.  It is unclear at this point what, exactly, would be encompassed by a bill in compromise.  The NMM Immigration Blog will continue to cover this story as it develops.

If you have questions about topics covered in today’s weekly round-up, or other immigration matters, contact me at wcmenard@nmmlaw.com.
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