Immigration Audit Takes Toll

Janitorial Firm Harvard Maintenance to Lose Over Half of Minnesota Work Force

Wall Street Journal: Harvard Maintenance Inc., a national janitorial company, will lose over half its Minnesota work force after an immigration audit, making it the second major business in that state to be hit by an Obama administration crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants. The audit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will result in about 240 workers losing their jobs, the Service Employees International Union said on Monday. J. Daniel Duffy, an executive vice president of the closely held New York-based janitorial company, declined to comment. Harvard Maintenance began issuing dismissal letters to employees in early March and is in the process of terminating workers, according to the SEIU, which represents the workers. Harvard Maintenance gave workers 90 days to rectify irregularities in their employment-eligibility documents before informing them they could no longer work there, the union said. "You are not legally authorized to hold employment in the United States," said a company dismissal letter to an employee that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Obama administration has made employers the cornerstone of its immigration crackdown that began in 2009.