Federal authorities have arrested hundreds of potentially undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles this month, targeting day laborers at a Home Depot, factory workers at a downtown apparel company and cleaners at car washes across the city.
But the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents aren’t going after the business owners who may have illegally hired these workers.
President Trump’s crackdown on immigration has spared small and large U.S. employers that rely on thousands of undocumented employees, even though hiring undocumented workers can be a criminal offense.
“There are some instances of criminal prosecutions of people for knowingly hiring unauthorized workers, but it is extremely rare,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. “There’s not an appetite for that kind of enforcement.”
Instead, the recent raids have affected rank and file workers, most of whom were detained suddenly and face deportation.
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A federal program called E-Verify makes it easy for employers to validate the status of potential hires and ensure they aren’t unknowingly employing someone without proper authorization. But the program is widely underused, especially in California, where only about 16% of employers are enrolled.
Participation in the program is voluntary for everyone except federal contractors and other businesses that receive money from the government, Reisz said. The program is largely ignored because many companies are dependent on undocumented laborers and don’t want to be forced to reject their services.
Employers told The Times last year that requiring the use of E-Verify would devastate their businesses, unless other overhauls to immigration policy allowed them access to more workers.
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https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-06-18/immigration-raids-employer-employee