WORKPLACE RAIDS ARE COMING; THAT’S NOT WHAT THE CORPORATIONS EXPECTED

Tom Homan, who will be Donald Trump’s “Border Czar” when he takes office in January, has pledged to carry our massive workplace raids as part of the Republican plan to deport millions of allegedly undocumented immigrants. I say “allegedly” because from the way the Trumpies are talking, it’s not clear they understand that their version undocumented people seem to include those with pending asylum applications, or appeals from adverse immigration court decisions, or childhood entrants protected under DACA.

My guess is that Homan figures the easiest way to convince his boss that he’s on the way to deporting millions of people would be to go for the low hanging fruit. He talks he can just show up at a workplace and haul off as many workers as he can stuff into vans. (As a former ICE official, he knows better.) [ICE is Immigration and customs Enforcement, the branch of Homeland Security that is responsible for criminal and civil investigations, arrests, detentions, and deportations.]

I practiced immigration and criminal law for decades. My former colleagues are being besieged by calls from corporate lawyers wanting to know how they an protect their employer clients and the clients’ employees. (Even I had such a call, and I’m retired.) Many, if not most of the lawyers representing the major corporations of America supported Donald Trump, understandable, as he promised the sky to their corporate clients in exchange for their campaign contributions.