The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is auditing Hennepin Healthcare’s employment records, causing fear among employees that the agency is looking for undocumented workers.
According to a statement from Hennepin Healthcare, DHS issued a subpoena to begin inspecting the organization’s I-9 forms on Jan. 8. Hennepin Healthcare “has supplied the information required by the subpoena,” the statement says.
Upon starting employment, all employees in the United States are required to complete an I-9 form to verify their identity and work authorization. An I-9 form contains information such as the employee’s citizenship or immigration status. Employers retain the I-9 form records, and the federal government may request them in audit. Hennepin Healthcare employs about 7,000 people across its hospital, Hennepin County Medical Center, and several neighborhood clinics.
Sara Franck, president of AFSCME Local 2474, which represents workers at Hennepin Healthcare, said the organization employs a diverse workforce, and employees are “deeply concerned” about the audit.
Health care workers already have stressful jobs, and this audit, as well as recent news surrounding immigration, are adding to that stress, Franck said.
“You’re worried about your patients, you’re worried about your fellow co-workers,” she said. “It’s pulling at your heart.”
Franck said the union asked Hennepin Healthcare to not supply the information. But the organization is required to supply it by law, according to immigration employment attorneys.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
The audit comes as health care workers and Minnesota leaders speak out against the ICE presence in HCMC.
“I do not think it is a coincidence,” said Matthew Webster, senior immigration attorney at the Minneapolis law firm of Fredrikson & Byron.
Last week, advocates said that ICE agents shackled a patient to their hospital bed and guarded their bedside. The agents eventually left “after Security asked for documentation to support their continued presence,” according to a statement from Hennepin Healthcare. About 100 people, including HCMC workers, advocates and elected officials gathered outside the hospital demanding better policies surrounding ICE access to hospitals.
Earlier this week, health care workers spoke at a Hennepin County Board of Commissioners meeting. Some asked for Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies to remove ICE officers from the hospital if they don’t show a warrant. Health care workers and an advocate from Unidos Minnesota also told Sahan Journal that ICE has been guarding the bedside of another patient.
Webster said that he’s seen a substantial increase in I-9 audits in Minnesota since thousands of federal immigration officers came to the state. He said that I-9 investigations are typically targeted, but the recent surge has been “indiscriminate.”
“Just like ICE officers going door-to-door in neighborhoods like we’ve been seeing in the Twin Cities, the same is true with the service of these I-9 audits, we’re seeing it pretty indiscriminately,” he said.
Ana Pottratz Acosta, a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and a clinical professor of law at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, said the audits put businesses “under a microscope,” and they can face significant fines during an I-9 audit if they have issues with their paperwork or are employing someone who does not have work authorization.
The campaign of I-9 audits may be part of a “weaponization of the power of the federal government to come after the state of Minnesota,” she said.
In the first year of the second Trump administration, humanitarian protections have been terminated for individuals from many countries, which had granted those immigrants work authorization.
“I don’t think that’s kind of the impetus for the I-9 audits, but I will say that has significantly complicated employers’ ability to do these I-9’s,” Webster said.
In response to the audit and local immigration impacts, Franck said that health care workers are planning to participate in a statewide day of action to stand against ICE on Jan. 23. As essential workers, Hennepin Healthcare workers are unable to strike, but will stand in a “unity break” outside the hospital.
“I think we’re just taking it day by day,” she said.
