The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has revealed their strategy for securing the nation’s interior in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement press release.  The three-pronged initiative will focus on removing undocumented immigrants from the workforce, strengthening the workplace to deter future immigration, and shutting down the criminal infrastructures that support undocumented immigration.  These plans are the second phase of the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) which will complement the border strategy by reducing the toleration with which undocumented immigrants are enjoying in employment in non-border states.

To help in the removal of undocumented immigrants from the workforce, DHS has issued five proposals.  The first step will be to quickly identify and remove those individuals who have been incarcerated.  Prior to this initiative, criminal immigrants have not been identified and deported prior to completing their sentencing.  By increasing funding to ICE’s Criminal Alien Program, DHS hopes to catch undocumented immigrants before they are released back into society.  All of the proposals issued by DHS are aimed at removing undocumented immigrants who have broken the law or pose security threats to the nation.  Other proposals include removing visa violators and immigration fugitives.

In order to deter illegal immigration in the workplace, DHS hopes to work with Congress in order to pass legislation that will stop the relative ease with which companies can engage in illegal employment.  One goal is to give ICE officials access to social security data in order to catch employees working under false or stolen social security information.  A non-legislative plan involves increasing criminal prosecutions on employers who hire undocumented immigrants.  DHS hopes that cracking down on employers will dissuade them from hiring undocumented immigrants in the future.

The final part of the interior enforcement strategy will be the dismantling of criminal organizations that support undocumented immigration.  The primary focus of this goal will be in stopping human trafficking and smuggling organizations.  These criminal rings pose a threat to not only the country’s security, but the immigrants whom they propose to help as well.  In order to combat the problem, ICE will institute a new program called Border Enforcement Security Task Forces (BEST) to increase communication and intelligence concerning cross-border criminal organizations.  ICE will also open new divisions of “Document and Benefit Fraud Task Forces” to crack down on the surging document and benefit fraud cases occurring around the country.