California Labor Comm Tells State Workers to Kick ICE Out of Labor Offices

Labor Commissioner Julie Su issue a directive last month telling her staff to turn away ICE agents who come to department offices unless they have warrants.

The directive applies to offices where state investigators are assessing claims about underpaid employees and workplace retaliation.

In the past 10 months, ICE agents have attempted to get information about illegal immigrant employees who’ve filed claims against employers. They tried to attend hearings where investigators discuss the claims with workers and their employers, but the agents were asked to leave.

Su, the state’s labor commissioner since 2011, did not know how the immigration agents learned about the appointments.”

In the past year, the Department of Industrial Relations investigated 14 complaints in which workers alleged employers threatened them with immigration enforcement. So far this year, the number of immigration-based retaliation cases has jumped to 58.

[Su] said the presence of immigration officers in state offices could disrupt the enforcement of labor laws by discouraging immigrant workers from reporting employers who short them on wages or unfairly punish them in other ways.”

An ICE spokesman would neither confirm or deny if the agency has conducted investigations related to the Department of Industrial Relations.

Su is now the third top California agency official to show concern about increased immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Previously, last December, State Education Superintendent Tom Torlakson encouraged local school districts to declare themselves “safe havens.”

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye in March wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask that ICE agents not “stalk” undocumented California residents near courts.

In response, Session and then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly displayed their annoyance with the attitude of California officials. They maintained California’s “sanctuary city” policies create a dangerous immigration enforcement environment since ICE agents sometimes are unable to retrieve jailed suspects.

Such policies threaten public safety, rather than enhance it,” Kelly and Session wrote.”

Su distributed a 27-page memo in early July outlining her new policy. The memo included a script to tell her staff how to deal with ICE agents who show up at the state offices. The script instructs staff to ask the ICE agent to leave and to contact a department attorney or executive.

It also asks employees to write down contact information for the agent, and then to tell the agent, “The Labor Commissioner’s Office is a state law enforcement agency that investigates and prosecutes labor law violations. Your presence is interfering with our ability to enforce state labor laws. It is the Labor Commissioner’s general policy not to permit such interference with our state law enforcement duties.”

While Democrats in the state legislature applaud Su’s actions, Republican state senator Jim Nielsen opposes the proposed state sanctuary legislation and actions being taken by agency heads like Su.

I think it’s a black mark on California to have agencies of the state advocating the violation of federal law,” he said.

Obviously, the controversy will continue as other agency heads look to take similar action while ICE becomes increasingly frustrated by the lack of cooperation it’s receiving in California.

Source: Sacramento Bee