US hotel chain bans employees from reporting undocumented migrants

Hotel management prohibited employees from 'voluntarily providing daily guest lists to ICE'

LOS ANGELES: The Motel 6 hotel chain has banned its workers from reporting suspected undocumented migrants to authorities after some employees were found to have sent regular reports to ICE agents.

In a statement on Thursday, the popular budget chain said that "certain local Motel 6 properties in the Phoenix [Arizona] area were voluntarily providing daily guest lists to Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE]." This took place "without the knowledge of senior management. When we became aware of it, it was discontinued," the statement added.



The hotel management said it will be issuing directives "making clear" that employees "are prohibited from voluntarily providing daily guest lists to ICE."

While the Motel 6 statement did not say how long this had been going on for, the Phoenix New Times newspaper reported that between February and August, ICE agents made at least 20 arrests at Motel 6 hotels.

ICE spokesperson Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe told AFP that the agency "does not typically disclose... information related to the source of its enforcement leads" due to "operational security."

However she did say that "hotels and motels, including those in the Phoenix area, have frequently been exploited by criminal organisations engaged in highly dangerous illegal enterprises, including human trafficking and human smuggling."



In their statement, Motel 6 said that protecting "the privacy and security of our guests are core values," apologised for the incident, and vowed to "continue to work to earn the trust and patronage" of their customers.

In US fiscal year 2016 - which ran from October 2016 to September 2017 - ICE said it deported 240,255 undocumented migrants, mostly from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

President Donald Trump has vowed to crack down on undocumented immigration and build a wall on the border with Mexico.