Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

8/13/00 News Report -- The Associated Press

FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) -- When immigration officials discovered that 53 well-service workers in Farmington were not legal U.S. residents this past week, the company fired them.

When agents learned in April that 33 illegal immigrants were found in a Budget Rental truck in Bloomfield, the bulk of the group was sent back to Mexico.

Even though the same laws applied to both situations, Immigration and Naturalization Service agents executed different procedures.

"This is the new INS efficient operation which we refer to as musical chairs," said Jack Martin, special projects director with the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "The INS can in effect duck the issue."

With 12 agents covering New Mexico, the INS doesn't have the resources to detain and deport in all situations, said Albuquerque INS agent-in-charge Charles Kirk.

When the INS is conducting sanction work - where agents investigate claims that undocumented workers are employed in the country - they only are required to report the illegal residents they find to their employers. If these workers are not fired, employers could face a fine of up to $3,000 per person.

"The law states that we have to tell the company. Should we come in contact with them, yes we would have to arrest them," Kirk said. "We realize that they're probably just going to go find another job."

Kirk said during busy times, "we don't even get a chance to do sanction work."

Immigration experts say the practice of deporting some illegals and not deporting others is a nationwide phenomenon.

INS agents have been focusing on drug smuggling and those illegal residents who are criminals, said Denyse Sabagh of the American Federation of Immigration Lawyers.

"They're trying to figure out how to use their resources best," Sabagh said. "The law says that when someone is here illegally they can put them in deportation hearings. Typically, INS will put people in these proceedings."

Martin said the agents try to help local law enforcement agencies whenever possible by taking illegal residents off their hands. But, sometimes there is limited detention space.

"If they're in INS hands, they are supposed to remove them from the country," Martin said. "They try to maintain cooperative relations with other law enforcement agencies."

In Farmington, the company that fired the 53 well-service workers, Key Energy Services, did not know the worker were illegal immigrants because documents that verify an individual's identify had been falsified, division president Ron Fellabaum said.

There was nothing wrong with the employees' job performance, but the company had no choice but to fire them because they were not following the law, Fellabaum said.

But it's hard for companies like Key Energy Services to get workers. The Federal Reserve Board cites a severe and widespread shortage of skilled and essential workers, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a shortage of 10 million workers within the next five years.

"It's not just here, it's everywhere," Fellabaum said.

Some companies say immigrants are the key to maintaining economic growth.

"There isn't a nonimmigrant visa which covers the essential workers ... Especially with this low unemployment rate, our immigration laws are not meeting the needs of American employers and the American public," Sabagh said.

There is a visa allowing noncitizens to work in the United States for temporary, nonagricultural work for one year. But employers who need essential workers for a longer period of time can't employ illegal immigrants.

"If we succeed in getting a category that works for employers and is usable, we will have a documentable work force," said Denver-based Donna Lipinski, co-chair of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition.

Coalitions of business and worker organizations are trying to pass federal legislation that would allow essential workers to stay in the United States.

"If we took all the undocumented workers and sent them home, the economy would collapse," Lipinski said. "This really is an attempt at legal immigration."