Trump's tougher immigration policy
extends to workers post-Harvey
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[September 02, 2017]
By Yeganeh Torbati
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump
administration, in line with its tough immigration policy, is keeping
red tape in place that could make it harder for immigrants in the
aftermath of Hurricane Harvey to find jobs with contractors, a decision
critics say is likely to slow the Gulf Coast's recovery.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Republican President
George W. Bush temporarily exempted employers hiring Katrina victims
from verifying that new employees were authorized to work in the United
States. The 45-day suspension allowed survivors whose identification
documents had been lost during the storm to work while awaiting new
ones, but it also allowed undocumented immigrants to quickly find jobs
with contractors.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a statement on
Wednesday that while it will expedite the replacement of lost documents
for storm victims, employment verification requirements will remain in
place, a move that drew both praise and scorn from politicians and
others.
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"With so much rebuilding needed, we should make it easier for folks to
get back to work," said Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat whose
constituency includes parts of southeast Texas. "Unfortunately, always
overflowing with anti-immigrant hysteria, the Trump administration is
choosing red tape and bureaucracy instead of learning lessons from past
disasters."
President Donald Trump, a Republican, built a base of support in the
2016 election campaign by vowing to stop people immigrating to the
United States illegally and is pushing for a wall to be built along the
U.S. border with Mexico. But business leaders say immigrants make
important contributions and that any effort to limit their employment
will hurt economic growth and tax revenue.
Representative Marc Veasey, another Texas Democrat, said the government
should not penalize Harvey victims.
"Providing employers with temporary leeway will allow Texans to focus on
rebuilding their lives and not on pressuring potential employees to
provide documents that may have been lost during Hurricane Harvey,"
Veasey said.
Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican congressman for south-central
Texas, was critical of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
decision in 2005 and thinks it should not be repeated now. Harvey came
ashore last Friday as the most powerful storm to hit Texas in 50 years,
flooding Houston and driving tens of thousands from their homes before
moving to Louisiana.
On Thursday, he said Harvey's destruction "does not mean federal
immigration laws should be ignored."
"Nor should regulations that require federal contractors to verify legal
work authorization of their employees," he said in a statement to
Reuters. "These policies were put in place to protect American workers
and taxpayers."
USCIS referred questions on the decision to Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, the division under the DHS that enforces federal
immigration policy.
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![](../images/090217pics/news_g15.jpg)
President Donald Trump speaks about tax reform during a visit to
Loren Cook Company in Springfield, Missouri, U.S., August 30, 2017.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
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ICE spokeswoman Dani Bennett declined to speculate about future
policy changes, but said it was not ICE's intent to conduct
immigration enforcement in areas affected by Harvey.
'NOT THE TIME TO GET PRECIOUS'
Waiving verification requirements after Katrina was aimed at
citizens and legal residents who had lost documents in the storm,
since employers must verify the identity of all new hires through
documents, such as passports, permanent residence cards, or driver's
licenses.
But several immigration attorneys said the DHS' 2005 decision was
also a tacit acknowledgment that undocumented immigrants were needed
to help the rebuilding.
The Pew Research Center estimated last year that 28 percent of
Texas's construction workforce is undocumented, while other studies
have put the number as high as 50 percent.
"In certain circumstances those are the people you desperately need
to help you do things," said William J. Manning, an immigration
attorney in New York. "This is not the time to get precious about
their documentation."
In the days and weeks after Katrina, contractors from inside and
outside New Orleans moved to rebuild and take advantage of
government reconstruction funds. But the number of workers in
construction and related industries in the New Orleans area
plummeted just after the hurricane, according to a 2006 Brookings
Institution study.
The DHS decision, and a separate decision by the Department of Labor
to temporarily lift wage restrictions, were part of an effort by the
Bush administration to address the labor shortage.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Sep/02/images/ads/current/lincolntheatre_sda_031016.png)
Some worry that the Trump administration's decision will slow down
the post-Harvey rebuilding, because employers will struggle to meet
the federal documentation requirements in the storm's aftermath.
"Damage is damage, and there are repairs that need to be done," said
Jorge Lopez, an immigration attorney in Florida. "Local folks are
trying to hire right away because even with their existing crew
they're not going to have enough people to do all the work that
needs to be done."
(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; editing by Sue Horton and Grant
McCool)
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