Editorial: Using safety as a trap

Sunday, April 2, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

A Homeland Security Department official said the agency no longer will host fake health and safety meetings at job sites to nab illegal immigrants, a decision made after critics assailed use of the ruse at an Air Force base in North Carolina.

Marcy Forman, director of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, wrote a letter to the United Food and Commercial Workers union saying her agency had stopped hosting such meetings, which were advertised as mandatory workshops by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That agency, known as OSHA, is in charge of making sure America's workers have safe and healthy working environments.

In an operation at Seymour Air Force Base that was not coordinated with OSHA, Forman's agency arrested 49 contract laborers, such as carpenters, who showed up for meetings in which they thought they would learn about workplace safety. In her letter to the union, Forman said, "It was a mistake and should not have happened," and added that steps had been taken to prevent such stings in the future.

But it is outrageous that this operation happened at all. We wonder how many illegal immigrants working high-risk jobs, involving power tools and other devices that can cause grave injuries, have avoided attending legitimate safety meetings or failed to report unsafe conditions out of fear of being arrested.

Granted, employers should not be hiring undocumented workers.But Homeland Security officials can devise other means of checking out employers' records. Undermining the credibility of the federal agency that is responsible for protecting America's workers - and possibly creating unsafe working conditions for everyone - is unthinkable.