Immigration Agents Target 7-Eleven Stores in Push to

Punish Employers

Federal immigration agents descended on dozens of 7-Eleven convenience stores

across the country before daybreak on Wednesday, arresting undocumented
workers and demanding paperwork from managers, in what the Trump
administration described as its largest enforcement operation against employers so
far.

The sweeps of 98 stores in 17 states, from California to Florida, resulted in 21

arrests, according to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which
signaled intensified efforts against businesses that hire unauthorized workers.
“Today’s actions send a strong message to U.S. businesses that hire and employ
an illegal work force: ICE will enforce the law, and if you are found to be breaking
the law, you will be held accountable,” Thomas D. Homan, the acting director of the
agency, said in a statement.
Mr. Homan, the nation’s top immigration-enforcement official, has promised more
scrutiny of businesses that knowingly violate federal laws requiring employers to
verify the identity and employment eligibility of their workers.
Under President Trump, ICE has significantly expanded immigration enforcement,
arresting undocumented immigrants in their homes or

In a statement, 7-Eleven Inc., based in Irving, Tex., distanced itself from the
situation, saying that the individual stores are franchises that belong to
independent business owners, who “are solely responsible for their employees,
including deciding who to hire and verifying their eligibility to work in the United
States.”

“7-Eleven takes compliance with immigration laws seriously and has terminated the
franchise agreements of franchisees convicted of violating these laws,” the
company said.

If ICE hoped to make a bold statement, it could hardly pick a more iconic target
than 7-Eleven, a chain known for ubiquitous stores that are open all the time and
sell the much-loved Slurpees and Big Gulps. Many a 7-Eleven franchise has been
a steppingstone for new legal immigrants who want to own and run their own small
Not all franchisees have been scrupulous about whom they hire. ICE called its
Wednesday sweep a “follow-up” of a 2013 investigation that resulted in the
arrests of nine 7-Eleven franchise owners and managers on Long Island and in
Virginia on charges of employing undocumented workers. Several have pleaded
guilty and forfeited their franchises, and have been ordered to pay millions of
dollars in back wages owed to the workers.
“This definitely sends a message to employers,” said Ira Mehlman, the spokesman
for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors more limits on
immigration and stricter enforcement.
According to ICE, federal agents served inspection notices to 7-Eleven franchises
in California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan,
Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania,
Texas, Washington State and Washington, D.C.

Employees at two 7-Eleven stores on Staten Island said that immigration agents
visited the stores on Wednesday. But the agents were shown valid employment
records with Social Security numbers, two workers at each of the stores said, and
no one was arrested.

In all, 16 of the 98 stores visited on Wednesday were in the New York City area,
according to an ICE spokeswoman, Rachael Yong Yow, who would not specify
their locations.

In Miami Beach, an employee at one 7-Eleven said that while no agents showed
up at her store, her boss asked workers to make sure their employment records
were up to date, in case ICE continued its visits. Agents dropped in on 7-Eleven
stores in seven cities in southeast Florida, including Miami Beach, according to
Nestor Yglesias, an ICE spokesman; he, too, declined to identify specific stores.
Under President George W. Bush, ICE grabbed headlines by rounding up
unauthorized workers at meatpacking plants, fruit suppliers, carwashes and
residences. In a shift, the agency under President Barack Obama focused on
catching border crossers, deporting convicted criminals and pursuing employers on
paper, by inspecting the I-9 forms that employers are required to fill out and keep
to verify their workers’ eligibility.

By targeting 7-Eleven franchisees and their workers on Wednesday, ICE under Mr.
Trump appeared to be melding the approaches of his two predecessors: Go after
employers while also detaining employees whom agents encountered without work
authorization.

One of the biggest workplace immigration raids, in May 2008, resulted in the
detention of nearly 400 undocumented immigrants, including several children, at an
Iowa meatpacking plant. Sholom Rubashkin, the chief executive of the
Agriprocessors plant, which was then the largest kosher meatpacking operation in
the country, was eventually convicted of bank fraud in federal court.

President Trump commuted Mr. Rubashkin’s 27-year prison sentence last month,
after years of lobbying by a number of prominent lawyers and politicians who
considered his term unduly harsh, and perhaps even anti-Semitic.