2 days ago
Wisconsin immigrant work; what to know among rising deportations
The Brief
Undocumented workers do an estimated 70% of the work on Wisconsin's dairy farms.
White House border czar Tom Homan said the country could see more workplace immigration actions than ever before.
All United States employers and their new hires must fill out a Form I-9, proving they are legally able to work with required government documents.
WISCONSIN - Gov. Tony Evers said he's worried about the growing push for deportations, while the Trump administration said it's restoring the rule of law.
What we know
White House border czar Tom Homan said the country could see more workplace immigration actions than ever before, saying these undocumented people have no right to be in the United States.
"We're gonna increase the teams greatly, so you're gonna see more teams on the streets you've never seen before. You're gonna see more work site enforcement than you've ever seen in the history of this nation," Homan said. "If we can't find them in the community, we're going to find them at the work site. So we're going to flood the zone and sanctuary cities will get exactly what they don't want: more agents in their neighborhoods, more work site enforcement, because we're going to get the bad guy."
Local perspective
This is not just worrying Evers, but some Wisconsin farmers.
Undocumented workers do an estimated 70% of the work on Wisconsin's dairy farms, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Workers study.
"I don't know who the hell is going to milk the cows," Evers said. "So I'm fearful [...] if it's suddenly people who are not appropriately documented who are waiting to be documented, and they're picked up because they don't have a document, and that makes them a criminal, that's just bulls—, frankly."
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The Dairy State has about 70,000 undocumented immigrants, and about 47,000 of them are working, per the Migration Policy Institute's 2019 estimates.
"It's certainly something that is a fear of many farmers across the state that have hispanic labor, immigrant labor," Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden said. "We all have the knowledge that most of our workers are documented, and we shouldn't be having an issue, but what happens when the ice enforcement agents show up and want to go after more people than those who have criminal records?"
All United States employers and their new hires must fill out a Form I-9, proving they are legally able to work with required government documents.
"All of this needs to be done in the first three days of employment," said Brook Mayborne, Metro Milwaukee Society of Human Resource Management president-elect.
It's a felony to use a fake ID for this – and if someone doesn't have the documents within those three days?
"They should be taken off the schedule. They shouldn't be allowed to work until they're able to produce it. That does happen quite a bit, where they're not able to show their documentation," Mayborne said. "The paperwork is retained with the employer. They must retain it for at least three years or for the duration of employment. It's kept on file in case of any questions or audits or things like that."
It's not just the immigrant at risk of deportation, but employers can also face fines and even prison.
Dig deeper
So, when employers are checking papers in the U.S., there are two primary categories of visas: non-immigrant visas and immigrant visas.
The purpose of the non-immigrant visa is temporary stay in the U.S., which means the holder is expected to leave the U.S. when the visa expires.
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Examples include business visas and student visas, as well as visas for crime victims and human trafficking victims.
With a non-immigrant visa, there's no intent to immigrate. So applicants have to prove they plan to return to their home country when their visa expires.
The purpose of an immigrant visa is to obtain permanent residence in the U.S. that leads to green card status, or lawful permanent resident status.
Examples include family-based immigration, like the spouse of a U.S. citizen, employment-based immigration and diversity visas.
The Source
The information in this post was collected and produced by FOX6 News.
