Market Basket suspends dozens of employees in New Bedford following immigration audit

Boston Globe

6 days ago

Immigration authorities ordered an I-9 audit of the store in 2023, but it was paused by the federal Department of Labor, Ventura said. In an I-9 audit, businesses turn over employees' Employment Eligibility Verification forms to investigators, who check for compliance, according to
The Market Basket spokesperson said DHS investigated the employee's paperwork 'and recently found several had not been properly updated, leading to their suspensions.'
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'Market Basket looks forward to welcoming the employees back to work as soon as they update their paperwork,' the spokesperson said.
A message to the Department of Homeland Security seeking information on the 2023 probe at Market Basket was not immediately returned Monday.
A spokesperson for ICE did not respond to the Globe's
questions Friday about the action, writing in an email, 'ICE cannot comment on ongoing investigations.'
The suspensions were first reported by the
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Store employees were asked to present their work authorization documents at a recent meeting with store management, Ventura said. The meeting came after workers observed ICE activity in Market Basket's parking lot, though agents were not seen entering the store, he said.
Several employees lacking work permits have since been suspended indefinitely, he said.
Ventura said many held valid permits when they were first hired, but those permits had since lapsed. It's unclear if any of the workers held Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, a legal status
For the workers, many of whom Ventura said had worked at the store for over a decade, the situation is 'very difficult.'
'There are mothers that have three or four kids, single mothers,' he said in an interview conducted in Spanish. 'One mother [who was suspended], her husband was caught up in an immigration raid while working construction and was deported. Now she's in limbo ... It's a complete disaster."
Jonathan Darling, a spokesperson for the City of New Bedford, did not comment directly on the suspensions at Market Basket, but said, 'With respect to the federal government's approach to the enforcement of immigration law, the Mayor [Jon Mitchell] has made clear that the focus should be on known criminals or others who pose public safety risks.'
Since President Trump took office, promising
An estimated
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Many of the immigrant workers in New Bedford are originally from Central America, Ventura said, as well as other parts of Latin America and from Cape Verde. He added that immigrants are
If work authorization crackdowns continue, it could spell danger not just for the immigrant community, but for entire city, Ventura said.
'There's a saying that goes, 'take away his water, and the fish dies,'' he said. 'Our concern is that if immigration officials start throwing I-9s at all the companies and agencies here, it will be a complete disaster here in New Bedford.'
In 2007, New Bedford was the scene of the
I-9 audits are not new, said Boston-based immigration attorney Matthew Maiona, but there has been an uptick since Trump took office. Also known as
Such inspections are typically prompted by an outside complaint or an internal investigation, and the process begins when an employer is served with a
While Mainoa was unfamiliar with the Market Basket case, he said the company was likely not knowingly bypassing the law, but was among the many employers nationwide caught up in the Trump adminstration's fast evolving immigration policies.
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'We have people working who maybe had employment authorization cards through temporary protected status, or through a pending asylum application or deferred action, or through one of the many programs … that are now being deemed no longer available,' Mainoa said. 'It puts an exceptional onus on the employers to keep up with all of this.'
He noted that a
'I don't think it's getting any better anytime soon,' Mainoa said. 'It's only going to get worse from here.'
Nick Stoico of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Shannon Larson can be reached at