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**Remarks of Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers**

**(as prepared for delivery)**

**at the**

**American Payroll Association 26^th^ Annual Congress**

**Austin Convention Center**

**Austin, TX**

**Saturday, May 17, 2008**

Thank you, Jane *(Holmes, APA Vice President).* I am delighted to be
with all of you this morning.

In every job I've ever had, I have always been grateful to the payroll
professionals who have made sure I got paid on time every two weeks,
that my paycheck didn't have any more deductions than it had to, and
that very careful track was kept of how much vacation time I had taken
-- and more importantly, how much I had left.

You have one of those jobs that people only tend to notice when
something goes wrong. As someone working in a high-profile government
job, I know the feeling. But that doesn't make the work you do any less
indispensable. In fact, I think it's safe to say that no company or
organization could retain its employees for very long if it didn't have
a top-notch payroll operation making sure its employees got paid.

No question \-- the work you do is indispensable to the organizations
you work for and serve. Quite frankly, it is also indispensable to the
work of the agency I head, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or
ICE.

One of ICE's most important missions is enforcing the nation's
immigrations laws by among other things, promoting compliance with those
laws by responsible employers -- and by enforcing the law on those who
break them.

This association and its members are a vital part of America's business
community. Your companies depend on you. So does your country.

Payroll may be considered a back-office function, but you are on the
front lines of America's effort to combat the hiring of illegal workers.
Each and every day, payroll professionals work to ensure that American
jobs are filled only with American workers or with foreign nationals
authorized to work. Every day, payroll professionals ensure that I-9's
are completed properly. And every day, payroll professionals ensure
their bosses understand that compliance with the INA is critically
important to ensure stability of their workforce.

I'm here this morning to thank you for all that you do and to seek your
help as partners in the federal government's effort to put an end to the
very real economic and human toll the hiring of illegal aliens is taking
on our country.

As a bit of background, it's still not as widely known as it should be,
but ICE is the federal government's second largest investigative agency.
Only the FBI is larger. Our mission is both broad and deep.

ICE's 16,500 employees target everything from document fraud and illegal
arms trafficking to financial crimes and protecting intellectual
property rights. And we are working to promote increased levels of
compliance by employers with the nation's immigration and customs laws.

To that end, I was pleased that earlier in this conference ICE and our
sister agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, offered a
workshop on both the E-Verify and IMAGE programs. I hope many of you had
the opportunity to attend that workshop.

E-Verify and IMAGE provide very useful resources that you can use to
help ensure that the employees you serve are working in the United
States legally. For those of you who were unable to attend that
workshop, let me give you a quick rundown.

E-Verify is a web-based program that allows employers to take the
information they collect on an I-9 form and compare it electronically
against more than [425]{.underline} million records in the Social
Security Administration's database and more than [60]{.underline}
million records in the Department of Homeland Security's immigration
databases.

E-Verify provides employers with data that takes much of the guesswork
out of determining employment eligibility. Employers using E-Verify
report that they are more willing to hire work authorized non-citizens
than before they joined E-Verify because the system increases their
confidence in their ability to distinguish work authorized non-citizens
from those who are not.

We want to make sure this tool works for you. To that end, DHS is
constantly working to increase the universe of information available
through E-Verify and to improve its accuracy rate.

Last fall, E-Verify expanded to include a new photo-screening tool to
help employers compare the identity information on an employee's
Employee Authorization Document or green card against the image for that
card that is contained in DHS databases. With just one look, this will
help employers tell whether the person pictured on the document they
have in front of them is really the person who lawfully acquired that
document.

DHS is working to add additional photos to the photo tool, including
visa photos and U.S. citizen passport photos. We also are in discussions
with several states that are considering adding their state drivers
license photos to the photo tool.

With respect to E-Verify's accuracy rate, more than 99 times out of a
hundred, someone who is legally authorized to work, and who has already
taken steps to correct any errors if they existed, is correctly
verified. And most of the mismatches are either people who were aware
there was inaccurate data and have done nothing to fix it or people who
are, in fact, not legally authorized to work in the United States.

Because this program is working - to date, more than
[65,000]{.underline} employers representing over 250,000 worksites are
enrolled in E-Verify. About [1,000]{.underline} more are joining the
program every week. E-Verify is free and fast -- 94 percent of all
queries generated are returned, "work authorized," within three to five
seconds. By anybody's standards, that's quick turnaround.

ICE wants to work as partners with America's business community and to
create a culture of compliance within. That's why we also conduct
training for employers all around the country. The success of those
training efforts, and the growing demand for such training, led to the
creation of our IMAGE program. Because in government we love acronyms,
IMAGE stands for the ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and
Employers.

IMAGE is designed to help employers strengthen their hiring practices to
build a legal workforce. ICE provides participants in the IMAGE program
with extensive education and training on such useful skills as proper
hiring practices, detecting fraudulent documents, and properly
completing the I-9 form.

We launched IMAGE in January 2007 with nine charter members, ranging
from General Dynamics to National Association of Foreign Trade Zones.
One of the charter members, the Atlas Pallet Company in Boise, Idaho,
joined, according to the owner, Gary Crane, because they "needed to be
part of a solution rather than a problem. I don't have to look over my
shoulder and worry whether our people are documented, because we know
that they are."

You can find out more about IMAGE at our web site at
[www.ice.gov](http://www.ice.gov/). Just click the heading "Partners,"
and then click on IMAGE program. You will find a great deal of useful
information, including a listing of industry best practices with respect
to sound hiring processes.

We are already finding that our IMAGE partners and others are finding
the help we're providing on best practices particularly valuable. And,
we are working to provide a variation of the IMAGE program so we can
include even more partners.

A third area where we have been seeking to provide information relates
to No-Match letters. As you know, for many years, Social Security has
informed employers when the name and Social Security number they
provided for an employee did not match Social Security's records.

Receiving a No-Match letter for an employee could mean something as
simple as the employee recently was married or divorced and changed his
or her last name.

However, a No-Match letter could also be an indicator that there may be
a problem with that employee's work authorization. Yet, far too many
employers were uncertain as to appropriate follow up on these letters;
some even just threw them away.

In response to numerous requests from businesses that approached ICE
asking for specific guidance about how they should respond to No-Match
letters the Department of Homeland Security issued a proposed No-Match
Rule last fall. This guidance lets employers know what steps to take
within 90 days of receiving a no-match notification.

I should point out that the proposed rule [does not impose new
obligations]{.underline} on employers; it simply outlines the steps they
can take. But it's also worth noting that under the rule, employers that
act in good faith and follow those steps within the 90-day time frame
will have a safe harbor from the no-match letter being used against them
in an enforcement action. The rule is currently in litigation. But we
are hopeful we will be able to resolve the litigation soon.

As I hope these examples show, our preference, of course, is always is
to find ways to work with employers, encourage them to meet their legal
responsibility and to provide incentives to comply with the law. But
there are always those who either knowingly break the law or recklessly
disregard the law. In those cases, we fully and aggressively enforce the
law.

We want to ensure that honest American businesses are competing on a
level playing field, instead of being undercut by unscrupulous criminals
who use illegal workers to cut costs and gain a competitive advantage.

Unfortunately, the extent to which people will go to break the law and
try to avoid being caught is limitless. These criminal enterprises are
always finding new, more sophisticated ways to hide their business model
of hiring illegal aliens. These efforts often result in other crimes
such as human trafficking, tax evasion, money laundering,
counterfeiting, smuggling, and identify theft.

We called it Operation Paycheck because it targets the methods used by
unscrupulous employers to pay their illegal aliens without raising any
red flags. Frequently, they use complicit money service businesses and
even shell corporations to pay their illegal employees and evade various
reporting requirements.

One of our most successful Operation Paycheck activities was our
investigation of a business called "Pronto Cash," operating out of
Orlando, Florida. We uncovered an extensive conspiracy involving
construction companies, various shell companies, contract fraud, phony
workers compensation, and a money service business.

All of this criminal activity took place to hide the hiring of illegal
aliens. In the end, more than \$3.8 million was seized, along with
property such as computers, and the owner of Pronto Cash pled guilty to
a federal money laundering crime.

Since launching Operation Paycheck in 2006, we have seized more than
[\$10]{.underline} million worth of cash, monetary instruments, and
assorted property. These cases have returned [59]{.underline}
indictments and resulted in [30]{.underline} convictions, with cases
still pending. And this is just part of our overall enforcement effort.

So far during just the current fiscal year, in worksite enforcement
operations alone ICE has made 542 criminal arrests, including 70
business owners, corporate officials, supervisors or managers, and 468
employees. In addition, four of those arrested have been human resources
managers.

Let me be clear, these are criminal arrests, not the administrative
arrests which describe the beginning of removal proceedings. These
arrests charge individuals with federal crimes related to illegal hiring
and employment, and if convicted, they will face huge fines and
potential jail times.

Among those recently arrested on criminal charges were nearly 100
employees at five poultry processing plants in Texas, Florida,
Tennessee, Arkansas, and West Virginia.

At these plants, we found aliens impersonating real U.S. citizens, and
so we charged them with false use of a Social Security numbers and
document fraud -- crimes they committed in order to get their jobs.

We've spoken with a number of these people whose identify was stolen by
the illegal aliens we arrested at these plants. They have described a
wide array of hardships they've suffered as a result, including mistaken
tax liens, denial of medical benefits, and damaged credit ratings. It
will take these innocent victims months if not years to straighten
everything out.

In a similar case, earlier this week we conducted an operation at a meat
processing plant in Iowa, where we arrested nearly 400 illegal alien
workers and have charged more than 300 of them with crimes, including
aggravated identity theft and fraudulent use of a Social Security
number.

These examples involve aliens who are arrested. How do arrests like
these affect payroll professionals? At a minimum, these arrests mean
their HR departments will be a lot busier as they try to find workers to
replace the aliens who were criminal charged. We often find that after
arrests, HR and payroll professionals often examine their policies anew.

Of course, any time a criminal conspiracy exists to recruit and use
undocumented aliens for purposes of finding cheap labor, the likelihood
of exploitation is enormous. People who find themselves in those
positions are unlikely to report their employers if they aren't paid
minimum wage or overtime or if they're working in unsafe conditions.

Such schemes are not only illegal and unfair to law-abiding employers
and workers; they are also criminally unfair to the undocumented workers
who are being taken advantage of.

Such cases are not about people coming to America in search of a better
life. They are about criminals exploiting those who are searching for a
better life.

That's why, in contrast to how worksite enforcement was handled before
the creation of ICE, we don't just identify and begin administrative
proceedings against the undocumented workers, we also file criminal
charges against the owners of those businesses who exploit those workers
and use the sweat from their brows to illegally enrich themselves.

The Kawasaki Sushi case is a perfect example of this new approach.
Kawasaki is Baltimore's best-known sushi restaurants. They even had a
location at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The owners were exploiting cheap, illegal area to maximize their
profits, making them work more than 40 hours a week, underpaying them,
and failing to forward payroll taxes to the government. They were then
using those ill-gotten gains to purchase such items as luxury vehicles,
real estate and various extravagant purchases.

The owners pled guilty to several serious federal charges, agreed to
forfeit nearly one million dollars in cash and property, and are looking
at serious jail time.

These cases are just a few of ICE's most recent operations. But we've
been targeting criminal behavior and going after employers who knowingly
hire illegal aliens for several years. Let me share with you just one
more example -- one that I think you'll find especially interesting.

In April 2006 we conducted a worksite enforcement operation at 45
different facilities of the Pallet Management Division of IFCO Systems
North America, including here in Texas.

We launched the investigation into IFCO Systems based on a tip from an
IFCO employee in its Albany, New York plant. According to curt
documents, this worker had witnessed a number of his co-workers ripping
up their W-2 forms as soon as they were given them.

When he asked a manager what was going on, he was told that since those
employees were illegal aliens, and didn't intend to file tax returns,
the W-2s were meaningless. Outraged, this employee called ICE -- and
that was the beginning of the end for this illegal scheme.

According to an affidavit filed in this case, the Social Security
Administration noted that in 2004 and in 2005, at least 13 written
notifications were sent to IFCO headquarters in Houston, TX. Despite
being informed of [thousands]{.underline} of mismatches, less than 1%
was corrected.

As a result of our investigation and the subsequent worksite operation,
we arrested nearly 1,200 illegal aliens who were on IFCO's payroll,
including a majority of the facilities' foremen and manual laborers. The
indictment charges that, in fact, "nearly all of the pallet workers and
foremen ICE encountered at the new IFCO plants were illegal aliens."

Since the beginning of 2007, a total of 12 officers and managers of this
company have been charged criminally. Seven have already pled guilty to
charges related to the employment of illegal aliens. Five were charged
earlier this year, including two executives, on charges related to the
conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal alien laborers at IFCO
plants. These five defendants are currently awaiting trial.

I am convinced that drying up the job market for illegal workers would
be the single most effective thing we could do to push back the tide of
illegal aliens coming into the country. By encouraging voluntary
compliance through outreach and by requiring it through enforcement
efforts, we can begin to reduce the power of the "jobs magnet" that
attracts illegal workers to the United States.

It's a fundamental matter of employment supply and demand; the vast
majority of those who enter the United States illegally do so in the
hopes of finding work. If the jobs aren't there, the reason for coming
isn't there. That's where business leaders can stand up, do the right
thing, and make an enormous difference. And because each of you is on
the front lines in your work, you can make an enormous difference.

In addition to using E-Verify and joining as an ICE partner through
IMAGE, you can make a difference just by visiting our web site.

For example, our "Know Your Workforce " brochure is a four-page, easy to
use guide that provides case studies, red flag indicators, and best
practices that everyone who works in any aspect of human resources
should be familiar with.

It can be found on our web site, [www.ice.gov](http://www.ice.gov/) by
clicking on the Worksite Enforcement Program link on our home page. I
strongly urge you to visit it when you get back to your offices. Each of
us at ICE, and at the Department of Homeland Security, truly does want
to enlist you in our shared effort to reduce the influx and the hiring
of illegal aliens.

As you know, employers have an affirmative obligation to verify that
their employees are legally able to work in the United States through
the I-9 process. But we'd like to take things a bit further by engaging
you in going that extra step, on your own, to ensure that the letter and
the spirit of the law is being met in your organizations, and ultimately
to make your lives easier and your companies more successful by
maintaining a stable workforce.

I have no doubt that the people for and with whom you work are committed
to obeying the law. And I recognize that you deal with a complex array
of federal, state, and local laws that affect every aspect of your jobs
and how you do them. The last thing we want to do is make it harder for
you to do your job. Our goal is to give you the tools to make it easier
for you to do your job in accordance with the nation's immigration laws.

By doing so, you are truly indispensable, not only to your company, but
also to your country.

Thank you.