I’ve written before in this space about the work of the National Commission on ICE Misconduct, which has been investigating the heavy-handed tactics utilized by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) in its conduct of immigration raids at workplaces during the last few years. So I want to let you know that the commission has released its final report today.
The report, titled “Raids on Workers: Destroying Our Rights” (PDF), details just how wrong-headed and ineffective the Bush Administration’s immigration enforcement policy was:
Because of ICE’s repeated failure to address concerns by elected officials, humanitarian experts, immigration attorneys and worker advocates, the Commission felt it was critical to produce a report that documented the findings of each of its regional hearings and to use the analysis of these hearings as well as subsequent evidence and testimony submitted to the Commission to create a set of recommendations that could serve as a resource for elected officials and future Department of Homeland Security personnel.
At each hearing clear patterns began to emerge regarding the tactics used by ICE agents and how the procedures used by these officials were compromising individual and workers’ rights.
The testimony revealed several disturbing patterns:
- U.S. citizens and legal residents detained for hours unable to leave even after establishing their status;
- A lack of coordination by ICE with state and local labor and child welfare agencies and law enforcement;
- Violations of the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and other constitutional violations;
- Repeated incidents of racial profiling and harassment;
- The human toll of immigration enforcement, including family separation and children left without proper care;
- Lasting psychological devastation of communities and families in the aftermath of workplace and community raids.
The report lays out a number of recommendations for how ICE can improve its methods to enforce the law without violating workers’ rights or devastating communities. The Obama Administration and new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano begun moving in that direction, focusing on drying up the demand for illegal immigrant labor by busting executives who create it rather than hitting all workers at a worksite with Bushian “shock and awe” tactics. So there are encouraging signs that the behavior recounted in the report — workers’ rights being casually violated by the very agencies who are supposed to protect them — is on its way to becoming, as it should be, a thing of the past.