Dive Brief:
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed 800 workers who didn't have proper immigration documents from Cloverhill Bakery in Chicago earlier this year, leaving the company scrambling to replace a third of its workforce, the Chicago Tribune reports.
- Cloverhill, which is owned by a Swiss company and makes baked goods for fast-food chains and supermarkets, said it incurred €16.3M of losses, according to the Tribune.
- The parent company said a job-placement agency supplied the workers and Cloverhill didn't know that the workers didn't have proper documentation.
Dive Insight:
Coverhill found out the hard way that when using vendors, it's still up to HR to ask the right questions. With the Trump administration promising to quadruple its site visits with a particular focus on the food industry, it's now especially important to make sure all employees are eligible to work.
The means ensuring that all employees have properly completed a Form I-9 and potentially taking a look at your onboarding workflow to ensure nothing's falling through the cracks.
In the meantime, employers also may want to perform an I-9 self-audit and train front-facing employees on what to do and say in the event of an ICE visit.
