"If an employer asks you to prove you're here legally, what would you bring to the employer" other than a Social Security card? asked Keith Cunningham-Parmeter, a law professor at Willamette University in Salem, Ore. "A passport? Those are the sort of things that low-wage workers don't necessarily have in their desk drawer."
Immigrant rights groups that warn of the dangers of employers aggressively questioning their workers have long pointed to the employment discrimination case the Department of Justice filed against Swift in 2002.
The complaint says that, since 1990, Swift's Worthington, Minn., plant requested extra proof of legal residence from job applicants "perceived to be non-U.S. citizens or foreign-born."
Arcenio Martinez applied for a job at the plant in 2000. A legal U.S. resident, he was asked to show a Social Security card and a work permit -- more than was requested from non-Latinoappearing applicants, the complaint says. Even though he produced both documents, Martinez was not hired. Another applicant, a U.S. citizen who did not speak English, was asked for a birth certificate, driver's license and Social Security card before he was hired.
The federal government sought $2.5 million from Swift but settled for $200,000. Nonetheless, in a release, the Justice Department called it the largest employment discrimination case based on immigration status in history.
"Anyone who is entitled to work should be treated equally and without discrimination in the employment market," Assistant Atty. Gen. for Civil Rights Ralph F. Boyd Jr. said in a statement.
In testimony before the House Small Business Committee in June, Jack Shandey, Swift senior vice president for human resources, cited the case to highlight what he called contradictory government expectations of business. "To repeat, our company found itself in hot water for allegedly pushing too hard to ensure employees possessed the status they claimed," he said.
Now Swift is feeling pressure from another source.
The company since 1999 has used a federal online system, called Basic Pilot, for speedy verification of its workers' Social Security numbers. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents found that many Swift plant employees were using stolen Social Security numbers that were not flagged by that system.
Chertoff said investigators advised Swift about the case and about the pending raid of the company's plants. The company interviewed suspected workers, and about 400 were dismissed, quit or did not show up for work. It also asked a federal judge in Texas to bar Immigration and Customs from raiding its plants. The judge refused, and the raids went ahead Tuesday.
Swift did not return repeated calls but has argued that it has been obeying the law.
nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com
nicole.gaouette@latimes.com
