A few years back, it seemed that construction companies’ biggest regulatory fear was OSHA stopping by for an inspection. But Occupational Safety and Health Administration worries seemingly have been surpassed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as ICE raids at or near businesses has been a hallmark of the first half-year of the second President Trump administration.
Experts believe that construction — along with agriculture and hospitality — are the industries most susceptible to immigration enforcement.
“I don’t know if some of you have experienced this yet, but there seems to be a real emphasis from this administration regarding immigration and regarding crackdowns on people who are not documented to work here, particularly punishing employers who hire these types of people,” Sean Monson, employment and labor practice area co-chairperson at law firm Parsons Behle & Latimer, told the audience this spring at the firm’s Employment Law Symposium in Salt Lake City.
ICE certainly has been busy during the second Trump term. It announced in late April that it had arrested 66,463 illegal aliens and removed 65,682 from the country during the first 100 days of the second term. CBS News recently reported that ICE is holding 59,000 immigrant detainees, with nearly half having no criminal record.
In late June, The New York Times reported that ICE had daily arrests of 9.7 Utahns, on average, during the second term, up 215 percent from the same period in 2024.
Many Trump supporters believe the president is fulfilling a campaign vow to crack down on illegal immigration. But some say he’s not, as promised, going after “the worst of the worst,” meaning those who have committed serious crimes, but instead has focused on hard-working immigrants who have been crime-free since entering the U.S.
Among the highest-profile raids have been those in California, including at Home Depot parking lots, which had long been a gathering location for day laborers. At least eight people were arrested earlier this month at a Home Depot parking lot in Sacramento County.
The correct response
At the PBL symposium and other events, Monson and others in Utah have been advising company owners and executives about what to do when ICE comes knocking at their doors.
“Let’s all take a deep breath,” was the first suggestion from Timothy Wheelwright, partner and chair of the immigration law group at Denton Durham Jones and Pinegar. He was speaking to a crowd in the early days of the second Trump term at an event hosted by the Park City Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau, in partnership with the Wasatch Immigration Project, Park City Community Foundation, American Business Immigration Coalition and the Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce.
“It’ll be OK,” he cautioned “We’ll get through this.”
The main response to the current environment, experts say, is having a plan. For at least three decades, high-profile immigration raids were rare, but the situation is different now, Wheelwright said. “Look, you have to be prepared because we will see more raids in future,” he told the crowd.
“Make a plan, now, of what you’re going to do if this happens, because you don’t want to be making decisions in the heat of the moment, where you are extremely stressed, your employees are extremely stressed,” Monson said.
“What you want to have, if you have workers that this might apply to or this might come up, you make a plan in advance: ‘This is what we’re going to do, we’re going to do “X, Y and Z,” this is how we’re going to respond,’ so that you have a plan to follow in a very, very stressful situation.”
Wheelwright said a plan can be 50 pages or five paragraphs — the length is not important — and should be written because it’s the easiest way to communicate its provisions.
“Because in the moment, in the moment when they’re standing in front of you, it’s going to be really hard to remember some of those things,” he said. A receptionist can pull the plan from a desk and go down its checklist of what to say and what to do.
Monson stressed that a receptionist will be the point person during the early stages of an enforcement action. But their reaction can be as simple as having that receptionist tell ICE, “Our company policy is to call our lawyer, and I am doing that now.”
Potential impacts
Companies’ preparations also should spell out communications plans in the event of a raid, including what to say if word of the event hits the press and what to tell news media, employees and stakeholders. Companies also should understand what fines and other financial consequences they might face if they lose so many workers that they cannot complete their contracts with customers.
At the Park City event, Enrique Sanchez, Intermountain state director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, said early second-term raids were instilling fear in the Park City community and across the country, leading some people to change their daily lives to the point that they would not go shopping or to church services.
“Fear is real,” said Maggie AbuHaidar, a co-founder, executive director and volunteer attorney with the Wasatch Immigration Project. “It’s based on real concerns and it’s not only impacting our businesses … but it’s impacting the ability for folks to go to work but also to health care, to go shopping for food, to take their kids to school.”
Targeted ICE actions and broad sweeps of people without criminal records are “causing a lot of people and employers to fear that their workforce is potentially going to dwindle down even further, even after every single sector is already experiencing a labor shortage,” Sanchez said.
Prep work
Experts also stress that companies become familiar with the immigration enforcement process and understand their rights, and those of their employees, during such events.
For example, without a warrant, ICE agents can mill around the parking lot or enter a company’s lobby or other public areas. But to enter private areas, like those reserved for employees, they need a judicial warrant or administrative warrant. Companies also can grant consent to those private spaces.
Wheelwright said agents will always try to gain consent, “including making you feel like you’ll be in trouble if you don’t cooperate.”
Warrants
Issued by a judge, a judicial warrant will spell out locations in the business that can be searched and describe items that can be seized by ICE. An administrative warrant, from a government official, spells out the information and documents that can be taken, often related to an I-9 audit.
“Certainly, try to be welcoming and not be standoffish, but in a way that keeps everything under control so we can manage the process,” said Chris Lampey, vice president of human resources at Deer Valley Resort.
Among actions ICE agents can undertake under the terms of the warrants are shutting down equipment and moving employees to a certain area for questioning. Companies should write down the name of the presiding officer and have a representative — or their legal counsel — follow the agents’ movements, even shooting video. Companies should provide access to locked areas and provide copies of documents the agents seek, being sure to log what is taken and asking for a list of items seized during a search. Companies can object to a search outside the scope of the warrant but should not debate or argue with the agents about it.
Company representatives should not give any statements to ICE or allow themselves to be interrogated before consulting with an attorney. Employees may choose whether to talk to ICE agents during a raid, but companies should not direct them to refuse to speak to agents when questioned.
Do not, experts say, ever provide false or misleading information. And company representatives should avoid blocking or interfering with agents’ activities, if it’s listed in the warrant. “That’s not to say you can’t hold their feet to the fire within the scope of the search warrant,” Monson said, “But if they go outside the scope of the search warrant, you can object.”
Companies also can get into hot water by hiding employees or telling them to leave, either during a raid or even before if they get wind that a raid is imminent. “That’s a bad idea, right? That’s just a real bad idea,” Monson said. “That’s going to get you in trouble if you tell your employees and your sister employees how to escape or to leave when ICE comes knocking at your door.”
Knowing rights
Many problems can be avoided by having properly completed I-9 forms for every employee, experts say. That, and knowing their rights, can help companies overcome government strategies designed to instill fear and confusion. For example, employees do not have to speak to ICE agents.
“We should all just kind of stand up for our businesses and say, ‘Hey, wait a second. We have rights, too,’” Wheelwright said. “Even all of our employees have rights and those rights need to be respected.”
Even undocumented people have rights, he noted. The U.S. has many laws that are intended to protect U.S. citizens, permanent residents, asylees and refugees that have permanent status in the country.
“There is no right to exploit,” he said of some employers. “There’s plenty of them out there that are taking advantage of this population and it’s sickening, what they’re doing. And that includes those who are here legally, who are coming here under temporary work visas. … There’s definitely protection against exploitation of any human being.”
Wheelwright also suspects that in addition to high-profile raids by ICE, companies can expect to see more inspections of I-9 forms and perhaps a broadening of enforcement actions and investigations by state and local law enforcement.
A new type of chaos
Michael Judd, a shareholder at Parsons Behle & Latimer, said immigration enforcement actions were just one of “what has been a very, very hot, active start to this administration, that touches almost every area of society and it certainly touches employers and HR.”
He noted that one comedian has described Trump’s presidential actions as being chaotic and akin to “a horse in a hospital.”
“I think to a certain degree, I think it’s very fair to say that for HR folks, for employment lawyers, every change of political administration brings chaos. We were saying this 20 years ago,” Judd said. But the chaos then was with a lowercase “c,” while now it sports a capital letter, he added.
“The speed and the severity with which changes are happening in this new administration is a new thing,” he said. “It’s like a horse loose in a hospital, and nobody is quite sure of what’s going to happen or how to proceed with it.”