25 Puerto Rico companies become 'IMAGE certified'

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Twenty-five businesses representing the automotive, retail, healthcare, restaurant, security, agriculture, food, banking and telecommunications industries became the latest employers to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to strengthen their hiring practices, reduce fraud and ensure they employ a legal workforce.

The 25 companies officially became members of ICE's Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) Thursday during the largest IMAGE signing ceremony since inception of the program. IMAGE is a voluntary program that allows private sector businesses to partner with ICE to reduce unauthorized employment and the use of fraudulent identity documents. As a result, a participating employer is able to maintain a more secure, stable workforce.

"I am pleased to welcome these companies as IMAGE partners," said Angel M. Melendez, special agent in charge of HSI San Juan who has been working closely with company officials in the IMAGE participation process. "This action sends a strong message to the thousands or Puerto Ricans who do business with these companies that the company places a priority on hiring and employing a legal workforce. Our IMAGE partnerships enable us to recognize the highest level of employment integrity and foster best hiring practices. When employers make a commitment to hire and maintain a lawful workforce, it's good for their business and it's good for the community. In tough economic times, companies like these, who join IMAGE have made a commitment to protecting our nation's lawful workforce."

Undocumented workers create vulnerabilities in today's marketplace by presenting false documents to gain employment, completing applications for fraudulent benefits and stealing identities of legal U.S. workers. To combat this, ICE initiated the IMAGE program in 2006.

The following companies became the latest IMAGE partners:

  • Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Saulo Rodriguez
  • Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Naguabeña
  • One Corps Inc.
  • Toyota de Puerto Rico Corp.
  • B-Club Inc.
  • The Good Business Corp.
  • Club Babylon Inc.
  • Di Vino Wine & Tapas Inc.
  • Restaurant Acquisition LLC
  • The Rose Club Corp.
  • Eternal Lobby Lounge Inc.
  • Autogermana Inc.
  • Mitsubishi Motors Sales of Caribbean Inc.
  • Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Hatillo
  • JMB Food Inc.
  • Municipio de Cidra
  • Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito del Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico
  • Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito de Aguada
  •  Multi Coop del Oeste
  • Cooperativa Ahorro y Crédito Oriental
  • Cooperativa Centro Gubernamental Minillas
  • Banco Cooperativo de Puerto Rico
  • American Lawn Maintenance
  • Empresas de Gas Inc.
  • Tecno Gas Inc.
As part of the IMAGE program, ICE provides private companies with education and training on proper hiring procedures, including use of employment screening tools such as E-Verify. IMAGE certified companies also undergo an audit of their I-9 forms to ensure current employees are eligible to work in the United States.

Puerto Rico employers interested in learning more about IMAGE membership may call the ICE IMAGE coordinator in San Juan at 787-729-5151 or visit www.ICE.gov/image.



You may also visit us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, or access this news release on your mobile device.

25 Puerto Rico companies become 'IMAGE certified'

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IMF Executive Board Discusses the First Assessment of Eligible Countries under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative

On December 21, 2005 the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) established the list of countries that qualify for debt relief from the Fund under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). Debt relief delivery, which could start as soon as January 3, 2005, is now conditional on getting the consents of all the contributors to the Subsidy Account of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) Trust, whose contributions help finance the Initiative. The MDRI will deliver debt relief from the Fund to qualifying members countries with an annual per capita income at or below US$380, and to countries above the threshold that have reached the completion point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The implementation of the MDRI will reduce the external debt burden of a number of the world's poorest countries and will provide additional resources to help them reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Background The Executive Board appro...
Read more

Oil’s chaotic collapse deepens; stocks drop worldwide

Image
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices crumpled even further Tuesday, and U.S. stocks sank to their worst loss in weeks as worries swept markets worldwide about the economic carnage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The market’s spotlight was again on oil, where prices have plummeted because very few people are flying or driving, and factories have shut amid widespread stay-at-home orders. Global demand is set to drop to levels last seen in the mid 1990s. At the same time, oil producers can’t slow their production fast enough, and all the extra crude means storage tanks are quickly running out of room. The cost for a barrel of U.S. oil to be delivered in June plunged 43% to $11.57. That’s the part of the market that oil traders are focused on and trading most actively. For oil to be delivered next month, which is when storage tanks could top out, the cost of a barrel stood at $10.01. A day earlier, it fell below zero for the first time, meaning traders paid others to take oil off their hand...
Read more

Mapping Extreme Poverty Around the World A new report from the

Image
A new report from the  World Bank  just landed, finding that a record low of 10% of humanity now live in extreme poverty, down from 11% in 2013. But poverty rates aren’t anywhere close to equal between continents or even countries, as our new series of maps clearly demonstrates. The World Bank provides an in-depth explanation for its methodology, which you can find in Appendix A of the full report  here . We focused on the percentage of people in each country living below what the World Bank defines as extreme poverty, or $1.90/day. We’ll let the researchers defend this definition on their own, but there is one caveat to keep in mind. It can be extraordinarily difficult to collect reliable data from so many countries on a regular basis, and in fact we used the latest year in which numbers were available whenever possible. For example, in some of these maps we compare 2011 figures against 2015. In short, our maps provide the clearest possible apples-to-apples compa...
Read more