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Farmworkers pick cilantro in a field early in the morning mist in Southern California in July 2024. Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
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Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images
A routine weekly Zoom call for the National Council of Agricultural Employers, a trade group, turned into a discussion of fears and tips about immigration officers coming to farms.
A gathering of 150 residents and business leaders in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, earlier in February focused on how best to prepare for any raids and organize paperwork for businesses there, which focus largely on tourism and hospitality.
And in Washington, D.C., workers at a child care center received a notice that their official paperwork would be reviewed.
Since President Trump's election victory, employers across the U.S. have been preparing for him to target their worksites as part of large-scale deportation efforts, according to documents obtained by NPR and conversations with business leaders, employees and trade groups working across the private sector.
The anxiety and advanced preparation come as Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, told 60 Minutes ahead of the presidential election that the Trump administration would target employers that rely on workers without legal status. Companies could face hefty fines and see their employees deported.
Businesses employed some 8.3 million workers without legal status in 2022, according to the latest statistics available from the Pew Research Center — just under 5% of U.S. workers and an increase from three years prior. Agriculture and food production, construction, hospitality and manufacturing are the top sectors.
"We have seen this message coming directly from the White House that if someone has crossed illegally, even if they have zero criminal history, that they are at risk of arrest and deportations," said Rebecca Shi, CEO of the American Business Immigration Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group.
"Employers are taking this seriously, and they are preparing for these expanded enforcement measures."
First-term follow-through
Trump in his first administration also prioritized the issue, boasting an increase in I-9 audits to learn whether employers were hiring workers with falsified or outdated work authorization documents.
Any criminal investigations, business audits and subsequent arrests are conducted by the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. An ICE spokesperson who spoke on background to speak generally says the agency has the responsibility to investigate any tips it gets about businesses that employ workers without legal status, in violation of employment laws.
"There is no requirement to have a signed warrant to conduct worksite enforcement operations in response to a credible tip ICE HSI has received," the spokesperson said. ICE can visit public areas of a business and inspect documentation without court authorization but, in lieu of a business's consent, needs a warrant or subpoena to access nonpublic areas.
A month into the second Trump administration, worksite enforcement has begun. This week, ICE officials arrested 16 people from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, including one minor, at Gulf Coast Prestress in Mississippi. An attorney for Gulf Coast Prestress, Damian Holcomb, told NPR that the employees arrested were hired through a third-party staffing agency that the company says is responsible for verifying employment eligibility.
"We are reevaluating our agreements with staffing partners to ensure stronger compliance measures are in place moving forward," a statement sent by Holcomb said.
ICE officers last week also arrested nine employees at the Tupper Lake Pine Mill in upstate New York — out of 21 employees total.
Nicholas Drouin, director of manufacturing operations, said that ICE did not provide a warrant in advance and that the company believes all employees are authorized to work in the United States.
"While we have made efforts to contact the detained employees, we have not been able to reach them directly," Drouin said, adding that they are fully cooperating with ICE's investigation.
To make up the loss in labor, Drouin and other company leaders are now physically helping to fill in any needed tasks, including on the milling assembly line.
When asked about the situation at the mill, an ICE spokesperson said the agency doesn't discuss law enforcement tactics and, per ICE policy, cannot discuss ongoing investigations.
The New York City Fugitive Operations Team, joined by then-ICE acting Director Caleb Vitello, conducted targeted enforcement operations in January in New York City. Handout/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Getty Images hide caption
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Handout/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Getty Images
Training employees to handle raids
Since the election, the American Business Immigration Coalition and other employer-side lawyers and organizations have offered trainings to prepare managers for what to do if ICE or other federal law enforcement officials come to their door.
"We've just seen a much larger concern by a lot of our companies and clients that we work with. Their employees are just very nervous," said Kelli Duehning, a partner at Berry Appleman & Leiden, an immigration law firm.
Employers may face hefty fines for employing workers without authorization, but in other cases, workers are placed in removal proceedings while employers face minimal or no fines as investigations drag out.
"The larger employers or the employers that tend to get the larger fines are ones that can afford it," Duehning said, adding that proving employers knowingly hired someone without legal status can take years to litigate.
Workers typically have to provide a Social Security number or tax identification number, as well as a passport or birth certificate, to verify their legal status.
"It is not the employer's job to determine the veracity of the documents that are being provided," said Michael Marsh, president of the National Council of Agricultural Employers. "The employer doesn't call the Social Security office, doesn't call the State Department — they take the information down and they put it in the I-9."
It is estimated that half of crop farmworkers lack legal status.
A company may have no way of telling whether a document is legitimate — though 23 states require employers to utilize E-Verify, which lets companies compare the documents employees provide with records held by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.
Several industries, including agriculture, have long lobbied their Republican-led legislatures and Congress against mandatory E-Verify.
"They have something that's got a photo, a scan image on it, and it looks like it's accurate. That's where the I-9 says that is where the employer's responsibility stops," said Rick Howe, president of the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce, which is based in an area where most immigrants work in tourism and service sectors.
"We do rely on about 40% of our staff in our community [who] are multicultural. We embrace it," Howe added.
Doubling down on checking documents
To prepare for potential audits, one child care center in Washington, D.C., Otter Learning, this month asked employees to bring in their paperwork for another review. Washington, D.C., doesn't use E-Verify.
"Recent messages and information we've received from team members indicate that some individuals may have falsified their documentation or not been truthful about their immigration status," said Stephanie Creager, a divisional vice president of operations for Otter Learning, in a notice obtained by NPR.
"This is not a reflection of any employee but rather a necessary step to safeguard our entire team and the organization," the notice continued. Otter Learning did not respond to a request for comment.
Nationally, 1 out of every 5 child care workers is an immigrant, and the increase in immigration enforcement is rippling through the sector.
George Carrillo, CEO of the Hispanic Construction Council, said the current preparations remind him somewhat of widespread workplace raids under the Obama administration.
During his presidency, Barack Obama removed more than 3 million people, in part with a focus on worksite enforcement.
About 13% of the construction industry is made up of workers without legal status — and Obama's raids contributed some 18% to rising housing prices, according to a 2024 study co-authored by a University of Utah business scholar. Home prices hit a record high last year.
"The workforce shortage in this country is a huge deficit right now, and it's a major concern," Carrillo said. "And we see the disaster that we're headed towards."
