From the Justice Department:

The Justice Department today reached a settlement with Brand Energy and Industrial Services and its subsidiary, Industrial Services LLC (ISI), resolving allegations that ISI, which provides craft services to industry, engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against non-citizens in the hiring and employment eligibility verification process.

The department’s investigation was prompted after a work-authorized immigrant lost his job when he could not comply with ISI’s request to provide specific employment documentation beyond what was required by law. Further investigation revealed that ISI’s Prairieville, La., office required all newly hired non-U.S. citizens to present documents issued by the Department of Homeland Security upon hire. The company did not require U.S. citizens to present any particular documents. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act’s (INA’s) anti-discrimination provision, employers are not allowed to discriminate against work-authorized employees during the hiring and employment eligibility verification process.

In addition to ending its impermissible document requests, ISI has agreed to pay $43,560 in civil penalties and $7,200 in back pay, plus interest, to the injured party.

Brand and ISI have also agreed to monitoring provisions, as well as training for their human resources personnel.

This is one of the highest profile new members yet for the new IMAGE compliance program.

From ICE:

Following an investigation and audit of Form I-9 documents by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), 14 New England employers have been fined this fiscal year for various violations that enabled companies to hire illegal aliens. The inspection of the employers' documents are part of ICE's worksite enforcement strategy, launched in 2009 to reduce the demand for illegal employment and protect employment opportunities for the nation's lawful workforce, by focusing its resources on the auditing and investigation of employers suspected of cultivating illegal workplaces by hiring workers who are later determined to be employed illegally.

Fines in the New England region include:

• Jasper Wyman & Son, a company in Milbridge, Maine, accounted for $118,000 of the fine settlements;
• Commercial Cleaning Service of Allston, Mass., was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine; and
• D'Agostino Associates, Inc., Newton, Mass., was fined $22,792.

The owner of a chain of Mexican restaurants is sentenced to 46 months in prison under federal alien harboring rules.

Louisiana's GOP Governor Bobby Jindal has just signed two immigration laws, one of which is probably unconstitutional.

HB 342 requires all contractors seeking to do business with the state use E-Verify. That's something we've been seeing in other states and is likely constitutional under the Whiting Supreme Court case. HB 646 allows the state to fine employers hiring unauthorized workers. The use of E-Verify would be a defense. The problem with this law is that the only sanction states can make on employers is the suspension or revocation of a business license. Fines are not allowed under IRCA. So get ready to pay, Louisiana taxpayers, for a lawsuit is in your future.

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