The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a policy change Tuesday that put an end to the practice of mass worksite operations, a strategy used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that often resulted in the simultaneous arrest of hundreds of unauthorized noncitizen workers.
In a memorandum to the heads of ICE, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and US Customs and Border Protection, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said the change was intended to “protect the American labor market, the conditions of the American worksite, and the dignity of the individual by focusing our worksite enforcement efforts on unscrupulous employers” rather than focusing on the mass arrest of undocumented workers.
Mass worksite operations, which involve ICE agents raiding a worksite suspected of employing noncitizens without proper work authorization and making arrests, were used heavily during the Trump Administration and its “zero tolerance” policy towards illegal border crossings and unauthorized stays in the US. During Fiscal Year 2018, ICE worksite investigations totaled 6,848, marking an enormous increase from the 1,691 in Fiscal Year 2017. However, the Biden Administration sought to re-evaluate immigration enforcement policies once in office, with a pause in deportations occurring in January 2021 while the Department of Homeland Security reviewed and reset its enforcement priorities.
Tuesday’s policy instructs the DHS’ three immigration and border agencies to maximize the focus of their enforcement efforts on “unscrupulous employers who exploit the vulnerability of undocumented workers”, rather than on the undocumented workers themselves. This aligns closely with the Department’s September 2021 memo “Guidance for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law”, which sought to establish individualized assessment and discretion in removal as priorities for DHS, rather than mass enforcement and zero-tolerance. While Tuesday’s memo indicates that further guidance is to be expected, the order to halt mass worksite operations is ordered to take place immediately.
