Administration charges few companies

[struggle4progress]

By Renae Merle
August 9 at 5:45 PM

The Trump administration has eagerly pursued arrests of undocumented immigrants over the last two years, culminating in a record-setting raid of Mississippi poultry plants this week. But the administration appears to have been far less aggressive in going after corporations involved in those cases.

Prosecuting corporations, as opposed to individual workers or managers, for immigration-related offenses was also relatively rare during the Obama administration, but it has slowed further under the Trump administration, according to a database maintained by Duke University and the University of Virginia and data reviewed by The Washington Post.

The Corporate Prosecution Registry tracks cases in which companies, rather than individuals, are charged with violating federal law, and it includes cases resolved with plea agreements as well as deferred and non-prosecution agreements ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/09/workplace-raids-multiply-trump-administration-charges-few-companies/

[in2herbs]

1. This is an issue all of our democratic candidates (local/state/fed) should be talking about. nt

[Igel]

2. People don't realize how hard it is to charge companies over immigration violations.

It's easy to get a mob going--"Ms. Smith hired a landscaping company that employed an undocumented worker" or "Ms. Smith hired a nanny who presented her with forged documents"--and then conclude there's no way that Ms. Smith couldn't have failed to see the worker's illegal status and should be held accountable. Nomination derailed, forced to resign from a government post, shamed and disgraced.

That's as different from being charged as being dragged from a jail cell and being beaten by a mob is from being charged and put on trial. In fact, a lot of that kind of vigilantism occurred because the guy wasn't going to be charged due to lack of evidence.

Clean up e-Verify. Make it obligatory. Most of the excuses for non-compliance vanish. Done and dusted.

I liked one article I read recently. There was a company. It was suspected for years of employing underage workers, safety violations, discriminatory employment practices, non-payment of wages, sexual harassment. And for years, charges couldn't be brought because of lack of evidence. Witnesses wouldn't witness. Corporate executives didn't flip. Lawyers wrangled successfully. Then there was an ICE raid. They pulled in over 100 people who allegedly couldn't work legally and yet had been receiving paychecks.

Those 100 or so people could be prosecuted--meaning, mostly just deported--independently of the company's lawyers. And what happened is the administration said, "Hey, Juan/Said/John/Pavel..., how's this. We go easy and let you stay through the trial and maybe give you points towards getting a green card if you tell us what you know about __________________." And a couple of years the company was busted.

Don't think anybody went to jail--there's a problem with nailing individuals when it's corporate malfeasance, a different set of legal requirements and niceties. But there was a fine and closer, more active monitoring.