Immigration crackdown shifts to employers as audits surge

Separated families embrace at border

WASHINGTON, May 14, (Agencies): US authorities have sharply increased audits of companies to verify that their employees are authorized to work in the country. That’s a sign the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration is reaching deeper into the workplace.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday that it opened nearly 2,300 employer audits between Oct 1 and May 4, easily surpassing 1,360 audits conducted between October 2016 and September 2017. Many of those reviews were launched following the January ICE audits and employee interviews at about 100 7-Eleven franchises in 17 states.

The head of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, Derek Benner, tells The Associated Press that audits will total “well over” 5,000 this year. The agency plans to conduct between 10,000 and 15,000 audits annually.

Meanwhile, for three minutes, the border no longer existed for Ivan Castaneda and the family he left behind in the United States when he was deported to Mexico.

They clung together in a weekend reunion for the first time since US authorities sent him back to Mexico two weeks ago as part of US President Donald Trump’s migrant crackdown.

Castaneda’s is just one of thousands of Mexican migrant families whose lives are now disrupted by the border.

On Saturday more than 300 separated families had the chance to embrace each other for three minutes under the hot sun, thanks to the “Hugs Not Walls” event organized by the Border Network for Human Rights, a US-based immigration reform group.

“Every hug is an act of protest,” said Fernando Garcia, the lead organizer.

The fifth event of its kind saw the reunions take place at the river boundary that separates the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, in Chihuahua state, from the US city of El Paso, Texas.

“Why don’t you come with us?” Castaneda’s four-year-old son asked innocently, unaware of the trauma his parents have endured since their separation began a month ago.

Castaneda, 40, a former Mexican army soldier, fled to the US with his family from violence in their homeland, which registered a record 25,000 murders last year and is awash in crime linked to powerful drug cartels.