Exclusive: Trump administration plans to boost worksite immigration enforcement after increase in criminal probes

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration is planning for an increase in worksite immigration enforcement operations, with multiple federal agencies involved in determining how to boost the number of arrests and placate the president’s base, according to five sources familiar with the discussions.

Administration officials say that criminal investigations have been ongoing and that any additional enforcement measures would stem from those probes. A Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN there has been an “increase in criminal investigations targeting fraud.”

The internal effort comes as the administration has tried to balance carrying out a historic number of deportations without agitating key industries — from manufacturing to construction to agriculture — or unsettling a fragile economy.

The Department of Homeland Security has previously sent mixed messages on conducting raids at worksite locations. Last year, an immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia kicked off a diplomatic spat between the United States and South Korea.

Immigration hardliners argue worksite enforcement is necessary to achieve the president’s broader immigration agenda.

“The reality is worksite enforcement isn’t happening and without that the numbers won’t hit the needed levels,” an administration official told CNN, referring to the state of play.

Officials from various federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security, have been in ongoing discussions to put together a strategy tackling worksite enforcement, three of the sources told CNN.

Part of that plan, so far, involves educating employers on hiring responsibilities, as well as conducting immigration arrests at worksites involved in criminal activity, one of the sources said. Sources cautioned that plans are still fluid and can change.

“This isn’t a new policy,” a White House official told CNN. “The administration has been conducting criminal investigations into a host of violations since the start of the administration into items like welfare fraud, benefit fraud, identity theft, and more.”

“These investigations are criminal in nature. If investigations require law enforcement action to stop those who are breaking the law, the Trump administration will enforce the law,” the official added.

It can take months, if not years, to prepare for a worksite operation, which is often based on an ongoing criminal investigation. ICE Homeland Security Investigations will generally serve notice of intent to audit a company’s immigration paperwork; perform that audit; and, if issues arise, kick off a criminal investigation.

“They’re hard because it’s mountains of paperwork and it requires a lot of analysis and due diligence to put it together to prove culpability,” a former DHS official told CNN, referring to worksite operations. “It takes quite a bit of effort.”

Immigration hardliners and allies of the president have long been urging the administration to do more on worksite enforcement, seeing it as a way to deport a large swath of undocumented immigrants beyond those who are public safety or national security threats and penalize the employers who hire them.

“The administration is going to face with a test — are they going to pass the test or not?” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for limited immigration. “The test is whether they’re going to significantly step up job-related enforcement. That’s not just raiding worksites. That’s got to be part of it, but all the other stuff like paperwork enforcement.”

That includes putting employers on notice, he said.

The worksite push comes as the administration is also increasing its overall arrest effort. In recent days, ICE has stepped up immigration arrests, taking around 2,000 people into custody daily on average, up from previous months— a target that officials want to sustain. (Last year, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller directed ICE officials to meet daily quotas of 3,000 immigration arrests — an unprecedented number that the agency struggled to meet.)

“We’re seeing our arrest numbers come up. We’re seeing our deportation numbers continue to increase. Right now, we’re deporting on average over 3,000 individuals — actually, the average has been, for several weeks now, over 3,200 individuals a day,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at a press conference in New York on Wednesday.

“We’re surging every day because we’re trying to restore law and order, regardless of whether you live in a red state or a blue state,” he added.

Last year, Trump himself wavered repeatedly on the topic of cracking down on migrant workers. At times he had suggested farms and other industries employing migrants should be protected, even as he and some top aides have pushed ICE to intensify its immigration sweeps.

That led to whiplash within ICE as agents were told to limit immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants — and then told to continue worksite enforcement.

It isn’t clear yet what the scope of the latest enforcement effort would be.

“This is going to inconvenience some people,” Krikorian said, referring to employers. “There’s no way to do (mass deportation) and there’s no way to encourage significant self-deportation without it.”

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