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Some Amazon Warehouses are Losing Hundreds of Workers After Changes in Legal Status (seattletimes.com) 84

Posted by EditorDavid from the stopping-a-job dept.
At an Amazon warehouse that employs 3,700 people, hundreds of workers recently lost their job, reports the New York Times.

"They are among thousands of foreign workers across the country who have been swept up in a quiet purge, pushed out of jobs in places where their labor was in high demand and at times won high praise." While raids to nab workers in the country without legal permission in fields and Home Depot parking lots have grabbed attention, the job dismissals at the Amazon warehouse are part of the Trump administration's effort to thin the ranks of immigrants who had legal authorization to work... Such dismissals are happening at many of Amazon's more than 1,000 facilities around the country, including in Massachusetts and the warehouse in Staten Island that fills orders for millions of New Yorkers. At one fulfillment center in Florida, hundreds were let go, a person familiar with the site said... "We're supporting employees impacted by the government's recent changes in immigration policy," Richard Rocha, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement. The company has pointed workers to various resources, including outside free or low-cost legal services...

The dismissals came with remarkable speed. On May 30, the Supreme Court granted temporary approval for the Trump administration to revoke a program known as "humanitarian parole," which had allowed more than 500,000 migrants feeling political turmoil in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to quickly get work permits if they had a fiscal sponsor... On June 12, the Department of Homeland Security said it had begun notifying enrollees that the program was ending, saying the immigrants had been poorly vetted and undercut American workers...

On June 22, Amazon told managers around the country in an email, which was obtained by The New York Times, that it had "received the first list from D.H.S. identifying impacted Amazon employees" from the parole program, as well as "some employees outside of this specific program whose work authorization is similarly affected." Amazon let the managers know that the next day, the affected workers would receive push notifications in the employee app about the change. Unless the workers could provide alternate work authorization documents in the next five days, they would be suspended without pay and ultimately dismissed.

Some Amazon Warehouses are Losing Hundreds of Workers After Changes in Legal Status More | Reply

Some Amazon Warehouses are Losing Hundreds of Workers After Changes in Legal Status

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  • Most notably the h1b. So if you make good money you can expect that none of this is going to have any effect on you. We are rounding up a whole bunch of Mexicans and Hispanics, honestly mostly Hispanics Mexico's median income has been going up, who work in low tier shit jobs but we are still bringing in a fuck ton people to take middle class jobs.

    Also Trump is already working on figuring out how to bring in more people on little skill work visas without pissing off his base. The bill he passed that cuts

    • There's YT videos saying effectively the same thing. Not that blacks will. All of them can go out of business, and big ag can buy them up.

    • I wouldn't be surprised if we'll see a name change in a few years, USA becomes United Republican States of America.

      • Your optimism amuses me, that you think there's gonna be a United States of anything. The MAGAdiots and their Republican enablers have been crying "Democrats this" and "the left that". There is no "left" in this country. There is far-right and less right. The ACTUAL leftists in this country are biding their time. The anarchists, the communists, the revolutionaries. You know, the ones that will BURN IT TO THE GROUND and bring out the cake detectors. You know, the things they use to check if rich people are m

        • There's a step inbetween. Fascists are incompentent and disloyal. When on fascist regime secures power, another faction is planning a violent takeover. Thst's just how these guys are. When it is time to hand the keys to the country over to J.D. Vance, someone close to Trump is going to be like: "No! It's MY time. I am the one that DESERVES to rule."

          After a cycle of lunatics off each other, and America is in tatters. Then maybe some of my family members will agree that we shouldn't have put these dopes in po

    • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:5, Informative)

      by m00sh ( 2538182 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:13PM (#65518146)

      H1B hasn't changed. I don't know what you mean by "Trump has expanded the high skill work visas". He hasn't.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kqs ( 1038910 )

      Do you have a reference for that? All I've seen is visas for the ultra-rich.

      Besides, since trump has been happy to cancel student and work visas for people who say things he doesn't like, more visas would not help.

      • To me that is the big issue with trying to manage immigration; isolationism doesn't work, but now you are making it completely undesirable for people to immigrate given the potential treatment at the whims of the government.

        I will be curious how long this can be sustained... by the administration, businesses, and communities alike. As I look back on my career it is interesting to imagine just how many great engineers I worked with would never bother with the US if they had to tolerate this type of treatmen

        • To add to your point, appreciate how hard it is for the manager at a store where a bunch of people lose their jobs. As a manager of that store it is your responsibility to open and close that store if you don't have anyone to do it. A store manager can easily end up working open to close if their staffing levels change too quickly to find new hires.

    • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jason4jas ( 10468937 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:01PM (#65518246)
      H1B visa requirements should raise the minimum amount of pay to $500k a year. Currently it is a minimum of $60k with a difference in cost of living. This is why you see a lot of H1B workers in lower CoL areas.

      If you can't find a person in the United States that can do a job then the non-American person(s) taking that work must be top-talent and/or have skills nobody possesses.

      • Great idea... and that'll offset everything so much that everything has to go up in price.
        How about the unemployed American's get those jobs? Is that such a bad thing?
        Oh, wait... I can go back to school and get in tons of debt (even though my credit is crap because I've never done anything with it, and no bank this side of the universe would even talk to me about school loans), of course, after I decide on what I should spend the the rest of my life doing before "AI" takes that whole job class over... oh,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      We are rounding up a whole bunch of Mexicans and Hispanics

      We actually are not. Trump's ICE raids might look tough to some, but the number of deported people hasn't significantly increased. There are about 15k deportations per month, and at this rate it'll take a _decade_ to make a dent in the overall illegal immigrant population.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TheSync ( 5291 )

      No, the H1-B program has not changed this year under Trump. The number of new visas issued annually remains capped at 65,000, plus an additional 20,000 for people with a masterâ(TM)s degree or higher.

      Under Trump's first term, there was increased scrutiny and stricter enforcement on H1-B, leading to higher denial rates (24% vs. 6%) and more requests for evidence. Much of that was overturned in the courts, and the denial rate is back to normal.

      Prior to 2004, H1-B numbers were legislatively higher (195,00

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 )

      There is still a LEGAL temporary guest worker program. Folks are also free to jump through the hoops to enter the country legally. I think a lot of people have zero issue with immigrants as a whole, but are sick and tired of the free-for-all at the border. In most countries, if you hop the border and get caught, you wind up in jail and then get deported.

      • Re:Trump has expanded the high skill work visas (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13, 2025 @11:24PM (#65518466)

        You should read the SUMMARY - these people were here legally, and legally employed.

        Trump changed their status, arbitrarily.

        • YOU should probably try reading the summary, they were not here legally, but were given forbearance because of supposed hardships where they came from - but no one really vetted the claims they made. They could still apply for legal immigration.

          • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward

            From the summary: "immigrants who had legal authorization to work"

            That means they were here legally. It's unambiguous.

            Many of these people were applying for a more permanent status, and possibly for citizenship. The Trump administration has been changing people's status when they have been showing up for for hearings that were part of the byzantine mess that is that process, and deporting them from there. So people that were following the rules, and providing testimony for their asylum claims, have been sum

        • Here "legally", according to who... their "Advocate" who helped fill out all the paperwork to look as legal as possible?

      • In most countries, if you hop the border and get caught, you wind up in jail and then get deported.

        In most countries (at least western ones) the processes and policies are the same as the USA. Just because you hopped over the boarder doesn't mean you're there illegally. Asylum seeking isn't illegal, it's a defined legal process and not crossing at a registered point of entry doesn't invalidate that process. Likewise elsewhere if you're caught somewhere illegally you are deported. If you were being processed through the immigration system your status was "legal" until such a time as the process concludes.

  • Workaround? (Score:3)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:18PM (#65518158)

    Amazon should reclassify their warehouses as package farms and their employees as package pickers -- might? help?. /s

    (Trump said he'll exclude farm workers from ICE raids... then Stephen Miller (guy who *wishes* he was Voldemort) said they wouldn't... then ...)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by m00sh ( 2538182 )

      They had "work permits" or "humanitarian parole" or whatever.

      They just got their permits revoked.

      So, nothing to do with ICE raids.

      • Re:Workaround? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:54PM (#65518226)
        Their immigration status just went from legal to illegal as a direct result of this policy change. Now that these people are considered illegal immigrants, and jobless at that, do you really think that ICE is just going to stand around and not pursue them? ICE is already having trouble meeting their quotas and now they have a ton of new people to target.
        • Stephen Miller wants them arresting 3,000 people a day when they're barely doing that in a month. It's why they keep pulling actual US citizens off the streets.

          Seriously if you have a tan you could easily find yourself locked up for two or three weeks. Let alone if you are actually Latino or Hispanic. And they could care less if you are a US citizen.

          Also the whole thing is really there to get us used to having a heavily militarized police just kind of walking around. We are gradually being condition

  • Wonder if it's targeted (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cusco ( 717999 )

    I wonder if enforcement is targeted at Amazon workers. I wouldn't be surprised to find it were true, since Rump is jealous of anyone more successful than he is. Even worse, Bezos got to be the richest person in the world by his own hard work and competence, he didn't inherit it like Rump's clique did.

  • Morons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13, 2025 @08:29PM (#65518182)

    Between firing hard workers and the stupid tariff insanity, Trump is trying really hard to crash the US economy.
    And I'm not even talking about the science or health or anything else that Trump touches.
    They are rounding up non-citizen, but don't worry citizens, they're trying hard to come for you too, are you really a citizen ? Do you deserve to be a citizen, especially if you are being unpatriotic in calling out the lack of clothes on the emperor ? Does it even matter if you are a citizen if you are kidnapped and wake up in a foreign gulag with no access to help ? Do you have tattoos, you must a in a gang, which are conveniently considered terrorists, so you have no right, enjoy.
    America Land of the Stupid.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by owlaf ( 5251737 )
      Seems to be the Elon approach. Wreck then you can control it, what he learned with twitter. Then used that idea for the govt cuts to keep the govt away from Tesla. Trump wants far more ICE, which will be his SS. Look how they can just yank anyone off the street. Concerned there will come a point they are yanking native born citizens because they don't like them for whatever reason

    • Re: Morons (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mhajicek ( 1582795 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:13PM (#65518276)
      Let me ask you this; if Trump were a Russian asset, would he be doing anything differently?

      • Let me ask you this; if Trump were a Russian asset, would he be doing anything differently?

        If Trump were a Russian asset then he'd not likely allow Ukraine to have any military aid.

        It appears that since Trump took office they've been getting supplies of Patriot missiles, towed and self propelled artillery, artillery shells, and likely more. I don't know how much of the armor and anti-armor shipped to Ukraine was during Trump's administration but Ukraine has been supplied with M1 main battle tanks, M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, shoulder fired anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, and likely more

        • If Trump were a Russian asset then he'd not likely allow Ukraine to have any military aid.

          He already tried that. The problem Trump is facing is juggling the expectation of the wider international community with that of Putin's hand up his arse.

        • He has to look like he is defending the US or he would have bigger problems. He wouldn't have the support of the house and Senate if he just let Russia cake walk all over Europe.

    • Do you deserve to be a citizen, especially if you are being unpatriotic in calling out the lack of clothes on the emperor?

      Or simple be someone he doesn't like ... Trump says he’s considering revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship [cnn.com] -- noting that she was born in New York, and her parents were U.S. citizens. I mean, *maybe* he thinks saying mean things about him could be considered "treason" (a reason born citizenship could be revoked) but I doubt that would fly even with this SCOTUS.

    • Simply put the additional debt with out tax increases that goes straight to the 1% is going to spook the bond market.

      The government can borrow as much money as it wants as long as it's pouring it right back into the economy because it comes right back out.

      The trouble with Trump is that he's going to borrow $5 trillion dollars and just hand it to the top 1%, who will use it too by a competitors and jack up prices.

      The bond market rightfully understands that's a recipe for disaster so they will in

  • The Slope Keeps Getting More Slippery (Score:4, Insightful)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:04PM (#65518254)
    So did they finish rounding up all of the immigrant criminals and gang members or did they just completely lose focus on them to chase quotas? Trump isn't shy about celebrating accomplishments and I haven't heard anything about all of the criminals being caught, so I'm assuming it's the latter. And in this case, these people were here legally but Trump altered the deal, which changed their status to illegal.

    Every dictator-wannabe needs a group of people to vilify and subjugate so that they can normalize the terrible treatment of a specific group of people. Once that is normalized, they can shift that behavior to their ideological opponents and begin suppressing opposition. It's so weird watching this in real-time and seeing people who are either willfully ignorant or actually support dictatorship (since it's their guy).

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by migos ( 10321981 )
      Apparently only 6% of undocumented convicted murderers have been detained. Too much work or too dangerous for the cowards.
      • Careful there. That 6% was one of those pre Trump lies bandied about by Trump and Fox leading up to the election. The actual full data point is only 6% in ICE custody as ICE don't consider those that are under other means of detention in those numbers. The majority of the remaining 94% were either in US prisons or had already served their sentence, but that wasn't a good talking point pre election.

    • So did they finish rounding up all of the immigrant criminals and gang members or did they just completely lose focus on them to chase quotas?

      That was *never* the actual goal, especially with Stephen Miller's 3,000/day quota. He wants *all* undocumented people out -- even those doing work no one else wants, like farm work (US agriculture secretary says Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers [theguardian.com]) -- and everyone with temporary permission out (hence all the legal-status revocations), and ... -- let's just say everyone who's brown. Trump's just along for the golf-cart ride at this point.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Draeven ( 166561 )

        He wants *all* undocumented people out

        Just to correct a small point of error. He wants all immigrants out, even documented, and they're willing to change legal status at any point to meet quotas.

    • So did they finish rounding up all of the immigrant criminals and gang members or did they just completely lose focus on them to chase quotas?

      They never even tried.

      The problem with the gang members and criminals is they try to stay under the radar, so the government doesn't really know where they are.

      The undocumented immigrants who are meeting with ICE officials? Trying to go through the asylum process? Following the law and looking for a path towards legal status?

      Now those folks are easy to find, and therefore deport.

      The obvious outcome? Undocumented immigrants stop interacting with the government and start looking for the kind of work where the

  • While I feel sympathy for the workers, (Score:3)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:16PM (#65518282)
    My response to the effect on my own country is “shrug. cause and effect will play out one way or the other”. If Amazon can easily replace them with US citizens or automate the jobs away, then we never really needed them in the first place. However, the MUCH more likely outcome is that these people are NOT easy to replace, and Amazon’s business will suffer. This will degrade the quality of their service and affect their profits, reducing their stock price. Which will affect anyone who buys from Amazon or has exposure to Amazon stock, which is probably pretty much anyone with a retirement fund.

    Additionally, most immigrants pay more $ in taxes than they consume in services, despite what conservatives say. So, every 1000 legal immigrants that we kick out causes our economy to tick down. Aka we get poorer and weaker as a country.

    A few thousand workers is a drop in the bucket. If the number climbs into the millions, we’ll feel it economically. Basically, everything we do as a country rests on our economy. If we choose to ignore it, it’ll hurt.

    • Re:While I feel sympathy for the workers, (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ndsurvivor ( 891239 ) on Sunday July 13, 2025 @09:25PM (#65518298)
      The thinking is that "somebody else" is the cause of America's "problems". I agree with you that immigrants are a net asset. They also commit less crime than 3rd generation Americans, but they are today's scapegoat. My guess is that Amazon will automate the jobs away, and there may be longer delivery times for awhile. MAGAs will find another "somebody else" to blame if their living situations don't radically improve. I can probably list them in order... they are predictable.

  • I am shocked that a company run by an oligarch would employ people whose immigration status is precarious. I am truly gobsmacked that such a company would think to make use of such an imbalance of power to keep its employees under its thumb.

    I can't wait for the unionization of Amazon warehouses, which surely will come any day now now that they're forced to hire Americans who know their rights...

    Bwahahahaaaa.....

  • Now, let's see if Amazon wages rise at that factory. If they don't, the entire argument against immigration has fallen apart.

  • No matter which side of the political spectrum you are on this a complete moronic act. If you are a Trump supporter and believe the immigrants are just criminals then you have just taken away legitimate ways for these people to support themselves through legal means...geez I wonder what these now desperate people will do to feed their families?
  • > .. the job dismissals at the Amazon warehouse are part of the Trump administration's effort to thin the ranks of immigrants who had legal authorization to work ..

    What evidence do you have for such a such a statement?

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