You read about the Pilgrim's pride raid, where Federal agents arrested more than 300 people as part of an identity theft investigation at Pilgrim's Pride plants in West Virginia and four other states. According to ICE, agents had taken into custody 311 people by Thursday afternoon. Of those, 91 face criminal charges alleging false use of a Social Security number and document fraud. The rest face charges of immigration violations and were being processed for deportation.
THE KILLER QUOTE, From John Chakwin, Special Agent in charge of ICE's investigations in Dallas:
"We'll go wherever the evidence leads us, whether it's in the company or offsite the company. We're still here. This is not the end."
This incident foreshadows a coming collision between federal laws and rules and the laws that are emerging out of the several states.
Both Arizona and Mississippi guarantee that employers who use E-Verify to hire employers -- as is mandated under the Arizona Legal Workers Act and the Mississippi Employment Protection Act -- are granted "safe harbor" when it comes to enforcement of the state law. Use of E-Verify = rebuttable presumption.
But despite this fact, and despite the fact that the standard memorandum of understanding between the Department of Homeland Security and any E-Verify user also grants users a rebuttable presumption, the federal government continues to crack down.
BICE did it last year with Swift and this year with Pilgrim's Pride.
Our worry is that using E-Verify is going to lull employers into a false sense of security. After all, it creates a rebuttable presumption, right?
Posted by: Lighthouse Background Screening | April 20, 2008 at 09:55 AM