ICE agents detain almost 300 workers during a raid in Texas

Immigration officers arrested about 280 employees of a technology company in North Texas. They are suspected of deliberately hiring illegal immigrants, which was the largest arrest in 11 years.

Photo: Twitter screenshot

More 200 law enforcement officers took part in operations at CVE Technology Group in Allen, north of Dallas. According to officials, the company updates and repairs telecommunications equipment, including mobile phones.

“The number of administrative arrests we made today indicates the significant scope of this criminal investigation,” Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Katrina Berger said at a news conference. She added that investigators had been working on the case for "at least a year" after receiving "a lot of information that they [CVE] were hiring illegal aliens who were using fake documents."

Photo: Twitter screenshot

HSI began checking for Form I-9s in January—the forms certify potential employees' eligibility to work in the U.S.—and is identifying "numerous hiring violations," according to a statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Other CVE locations in Plano, Texas, and Riverdale, NJ, have not been tested for this operation.

Berger said that HSI would question those arrested by officers before determining whether they should remain in custody or be released for humanitarian reasons.

“Companies that knowingly hire illegal aliens create an unfair advantage over competing companies,” Berger said. “In addition, they take jobs away from U.S. citizens and legal residents and create an environment ripe for the exploitation of illegal labor.”

Failure to comply with Texas law may result in a $ 10 000 fine and even a criminal case if it is proved that employers deliberately violated the law, ICE representatives said.

For many years, federal law did not prohibit the illegal use of labor. That changed in 1986, when President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, called the IRCA. He first established fines for illegally hiring people in the country. The IRCA imposed relatively low fines, and the law states that in order to be convicted, employers had to “consciously hire” a person who was in the country without documents. This was a relief for employers who could be provided with false documents, claiming they did not know. This was the obstacle to the prosecution of employers.

Recall that in January 2018, as rumors of ICE checks spread in California new law came into force state, prohibiting employers to allow ICE agents to their facilities without a warrant. In addition, companies must notify employees of the receipt of an inspection notice within 72 hours.

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