Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to increase its attempts to target businesses and intends to take employers who knowingly employ undocumented immigrants to court, according to the agency’s acting director. Thomas Homan said on Tuesday that the aim of the new policy was to remove the job supply that keeps undocumented immigrants coming to the US for work.
A spokesman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce said that business leaders would comply with the new program, adding that the administration should not take a hostile approach toward business owners. Employers in Arizona already have to use the E-Verify program to check on the legal status of employees, and Homan said he wants that to become mandatory across the US.
Homan made the comments during a speech at the Heritage Foundation, in which he also defended the Immigration and Customs Enforcement practice of arresting undocumented immigrants near previously off-limit areas, such as courthouses, hospitals, and schools, and deporting those suspected to be members of criminal gangs. Homan said that no undocumented immigrants are off-limits other than those currently in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and that they hope to send a strong message that the laws on the books will now be enforced.
ICE collaborated with several other federal immigration enforcement agencies on a wish-list of immigration policies that the White House released last week, where the nationwide use of E-Verify was one of the requested items.