Motor Vehicles Become A Focus For Immigration Enforcement

As I commented the other day, one big circumstance in which ordinary police agencies encounter illegals is on traffic patrol, where on one hand, the illegals don't obey traffic laws, while on the other, they either don't speak English or refuse to speak it when pulled over, and they frequently turn out not to have drivers licenses, registration, or insurance. What some agencies see as a problem has turned out to be an opportunity in other situations.

For instance,

Florida officials announced that under a new immigration enforcement program, truck weigh stations in the state will be used as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checkpoints.

Truckers without valid licenses or who don't speak English are referred to immigration enforcement. The recent accident involving Harjinder Singh highlighted how frequently illegals cause traffic accidents, especially when they aren't properly licensed or don't follow traffic laws.

This has turned out to be a key feature of Trump's crackdown on DC crime:

Federal agents and officers from the federalized Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) recently conducted a joint operation in Washington, D.C., targeting delivery drivers across the city. Witnesses say officers in tactical gear seized scooters and mopeds, loading them into trucks already filled with impounded vehicles.

The MPD says the operation is part of an effort to address unsafe driving. According to officials, more than 1,200 scooters have been impounded and 139 arrests have been made since the initiative began. However, the department did not address the visible involvement of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

. . . “It’s very clear ICE is targeting delivery drivers because they’re outdoors, which makes it easier to do warrantless arrests. It’s a population that ICE is aware is very immigrant-heavy. And frankly, it’s easy for ICE to go after them,” said Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. He added that many of those arrested are recent Venezuelan immigrants and could be subject to fast-tracked deportation.

. . . A growing number of food delivery workers in the D.C. area are illegal immigrants, especially from Venezuela, who often lack work permits, insurance, and vehicle registration. Many of these workers use unregistered mopeds and scooters while waiting for legal asylum or work authorization. Locals have expressed concern about reckless scooter driving.

So far, major food delivery platforms such as Uber Eats, Grubhub, and DoorDash have not commented on the arrests or the broader issue of illegal alien workers on their platforms.

In fact, the food delivery apps have been aware of the problem nationally at least since last year:

Online food delivery platform DoorDash has adopted changes to its driver verification system months after U.S. lawmakers questioned whether it and similar services were being co-opted by illegal migrants "gaming the system." Some wonder whether it will be enough.

On December 12, DoorDash announced more rigorous safeguards to better deter "bad actors" from profiting off deliveries and the platform. In April, Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun and Ted Budd sent letters to DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats as part of a probe demanding to know whether illegal migrants are "gaming the system" while using fake identities. Immigration was a top campaign issue for President-Elect Donald Trump.

Venezuelan migrants told The Daily Mail that food delivery is a good way to integrate into the U.S. and make quick money, while others online flaunt driver IDs for sale on social media sometimes for hundreds of dollars.

The Daily Mail covered the story a year ago:

Hundreds of Venezuelan migrants are illegally working as food delivery drivers across America, DailyMail.com can reveal, showing up to your door under names and identities that don't belong to them.

The troubling development is a consequence of the one million Venezuelan citizens who have flooded into the US, largely illegally, during President Joe Biden's time in office, with many entering through the US-Mexico border.

It raises huge concerns about the safety of the home delivery apps and the consumer's ability to trust who is actually delivering food to their home and family - with customers' personal information potentially placed in the hands of dangerous street gangs.

In February of this year, the problem had reached the financial press:

While DASH represents a successful Silicon Valley story, one of its key risks has been underplayed in more of the coverage it has received. The platform is highly reliant on migrant labor and a significant chunk of them have been operating illegally in the US. These employees pose a serious threat as they have access to the personal information of US citizens. The minimal verification allows these dashers to operate with fake names and registration numbers. With the Trump administration cracking down on illegal immigrants, it is only a matter of time before DASH is held accountable for the burgeoning count of such employees.

This latest attention to immigration enforcement in DC suggests the food delivery apps haven't made a serious effort to address the problem, while the high public visibility of the drivers makes them an easy target for ICE, especially when their mopeds and scooters are unregistered and uninsured.

Defenders of the migrant delivery workers insist they're doing honest work and aren't criminals, but their reckless driving and frequent lack of insurance raises insurance rates for everyone else, while those who rent accounts under false names create a continuing risk for the customers.

The upscale DC residents who complain that ICE enforcement is creating a shortage of DoorDash drivers are actually unhappy that it's suddenly become harder for them to exploit illegal immigrants -- but the same applies to the empoloyers like DoorDash. who tolerate and enable the system that allows the account owners to skim the earnings of the illegals by renting the accounts.