Workplace raids have become an important part of the Trump administration’s mass deportations agenda. The recent ICE raid at a Hyundai facility in Georgia made headlines not only because of its near-unprecedented scale—nearly 500 Korean workers were arrested—but also because of its unusual targeting of visa holders hailing from a key U.S. ally. But ICE enforcement at the places where immigrants work has been routine over the past year, since the government stopped following a Biden-era policy against the practice. Federal agents have in some instances opted for indiscriminate arrests in places where they think undocumented immigrants tend to gather, such as Home Depot parking lots and other meeting places for day laborers. Workplace raids offer a potentially more targeted tool to identify immigrants without legal status, since ICE can seek to verify work authorization information collected by employers.
In this enforcement context, some immigrant workers have begun taking action to protect themselves. Last month, dairy workers in Wisconsin went on strike to oppose their employer’s enrollment in E-Verify—a federal database that double-checks employees’ work authorization, which several workers feared would put them out of a job. The largely Latino workforce of a packaging plant in Chicago similarly organized a strike to demand, among other things, that their bosses refuse to allow ICE onto the premises without a warrant. These efforts suggest that collective bargaining may...
Top News The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, says the Federal Government’s high-level delegation currently in the United States is actively confronting and corre...