Local construction, roofing businesses eyeing feds' immigration team cautiously

Saturday, June 28, 2008

By Mike Copeland

Tribune-Herald business editor

A fugitive enforcement team that will track down undocumented workers who miss court dates will call Waco home beginning in mid-August — and local employers are wondering if this seven-member squad will come knocking on their doors.

“I think anybody who uses immigrant labor from any country is going to be a little nervous with an enforcement office nearby,” said K. Paul Holt, president of the Waco office of Associated General Contractors.

Word of the fugitive squad is getting around, he said. And though contractors generally do a good job of complying with immigration rules, he said, there’s often uneasiness when someone involved in enforcement comes on the premises.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office, or ICE, reportedly will station a new enforcement team in downtown Waco.

ICE was created in March 2003 to serve as the largest investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security. It combines the law enforcement arms of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and the former U.S. Customs Service.

Nina Pruneda, a spokeswoman for ICE in San Antonio, confirmed the agency is creating a Waco-based team that will pursue fugitives in several Central Texas counties. They’ll target undocumented workers who served time for crimes but didn’t show up for scheduled court appearances to be sent back to their home countries, Pruneda said.

“There happens to be a significant number of these fugitives in Waco and the surrounding areas,” she said.

This team will not target individuals simply in this country illegally, Pruneda said, but it may show up at businesses in pursuit of fugitives.

Holt said local members of the AGC should have no problems with the enforcement team if they’re obeying the law.

“Anybody who doesn’t try to ensure that employees have proper documentation is asking for trouble,” Holt said.

He added that local builders may want to recruit this squad to provide education on documentation it should require of job applicants.

Longtime local builder Jim Bland said people in this country illegally “are working around us every day.”

“We need to start picking them up and levying fines on those hiring them,” Bland said, adding: “Most are good people just trying to make a living. They just need to be here the correct way.”

Bill Johnson, owner of Johnson Roofing, employs about 200 people in his roofing business. Like most roofing companies, he said, a high percentage of his employees are Hispanic. He said he doesn’t know exactly what this new enforcement team will be doing but added he already takes steps to ensure his workers are here legally.

Johnson said he’s taking part in a program that will let him employ 20 workers from Mexico for 10 months beginning in September. He said it has become a challenge to find people who want to do roofing work.

Electronic verification

Several employers contacted by the Tribune-Herald said they use the E-Verify service to check on the status of job applicants. It is an Internet-based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.

Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for chicken processor Pilgrim’s Pride, said the company relies on the ICE Best Hiring Practices program to comply with laws on hiring foreign workers.

“These practices include participating in E-Verify, prompt attention to Social Security No-Match letters, and retention of outside experts in immigration compliance,” Atkinson said.

Sanderson Farms, a Mississippi-based company with a new chicken-processing plant in Waco, has been using E-Verify but is testing a new program called Choice Point at plants in Georgia and Mississippi and soon will have it in Waco, chief financial officer Mike Cockrell said.

Once an applicant provides his or her name and Social Security number, the Choice Point system poses questions the applicant should be able to answer, Cockrell said.

Ray Heck, who manages the Clayton Homes plant at 6800 Imperial Drive, said, “We always anticipate some sort of inspection from whatever agency might be involved along those (immigration) lines.”

For that reason, he said, “we do a pretty thorough background check on all our applicants, and we welcome anybody to come on by.”

The status of undocumented workers is an issue that generates mixed responses, but there’s no denying their economic impact.

Waco-based economist Ray Perryman prepared a report that says if the 8.1 million undocumented immigrants who cut lawns, roof houses and do other jobs disappeared overnight, the nation’s economy would lose nearly $1.8 trillion in annual spending.

Texas, the second-hardest-hit state after California, would lose 1.2 million undocumented workers and $220 billion in expenditures.

mcopeland@wacotrib.com

757-5736