By: Andrea Ramos | americanimmigrationcouncil.org | Editorial credit: Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com
Across several presidential administrations, the U.S. government has used American workplaces as another front line for immigration enforcement. What started in 1986 with a law that required employers to verify their workers’ legal status, known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), has evolved into a system which places employers as immigration enforcers. The idea was simple: if you could eliminate access to jobs, you could eliminate the so-called “magnet” drawing immigrants here. But like most deterrent policies, worksite enforcement has had negligible effect on the number of people migrating to the United State and, instead, fueled a cycle of fear that’s now older than I am.
Under every administration, the strategy has shifted, but the story has stayed the same. The Bush years brought high-profile immigration raids to poultry and meatpacking plants. The Obama administration replaced them with “silent raids,” using I-9 audits—which include a review of documents used by employers to verify employees’ work authorization—to quietly push noncitizens out of work. The first Trump administration revived and leaned into the worksite enforcement spectacle with helicopters, handcuffs, and televised arrests in worksites, particularly in rural areas of the country. Biden briefly turned back the clock by primarily focusing on “unscrupulous” employer practices before history began repeating itself with Trump 2.0.
Now, in 2025, workplace raids are roaring back not only in rural areas, but in urban areas at small and large scale. Construction sites, restaurants, bakeries, and nail salons—where many immigrants work hard and keep their heads down—have become targets of possible worksite raids and scenes of chaos.
These worksite raids aren’t random; they’re meticulously organized, carried out by multiple agencies including ICE, CBP, and, under Trump 2.0, even the Coast Guard. The Trump administration has diverted manpower from agencies typically focused on human trafficking, drug smuggling, and other genuine threats to arrest noncitizen workers just to meet daily immigration arrest quotas set by the White House. And, though the warrants effectuated by these agencies often target employers, it’s the workers who end up in handcuffs, stripped of dignity, and too often, punished criminally. Behind every arrest is a family member who didn’t come home that night, a child arriving to an empty house, or another immigrant family mourning a dream that once seemed possible.
The aftermath of these raids lingers long after the news cycle moves on. Businesses lose workers; local economies suffer, and entire towns fall into silence. In 2018, at the Southeastern Provision meatpacking plant in Tennessee, operations dropped to a fraction of capacity after a single raid. In Postville, Iowa, a similar raid in 2008 left schools nearly shuttered and storefronts empty. Families left town. Property values sank.
The devastation doesn’t stop at the “economic” consequences. It seeps into the rhythm of daily life. It shows up in classrooms where students can’t focus because they don’t know if their parents will be home when the bell rings. It shows up in grocery stores, in churches, in quiet hesitations before people speak their native language in public. For many, the raid never really ends—it just changes form.
Worksite raids have been justified for decades as a matter of “law and order.” But what they really do is create chaos in the name of control. They do little to prevent unauthorized employment. They don’t protect American workers. Instead, they leave behind trauma that spans generations and a chilling reminder of who is considered disposable.