Republican senators probe Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub after Post report on migrant workers
Three Republican US senators have a special order for Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub.
Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Mike Braun of Indiana and Ted Budd of North Carolina blasted out letters to each of the food ordering platforms Thursday demanding to know what steps they are taking to prevent illegal immigrants from unlawfully working for them.
This past September, The Post reported that newly arrived migrants to New York are paying current delivery workers to piggyback on their accounts and immediately snag gigs using the companies’ respective apps, despite a lack of vetting and federal law requiring them to wait 180 days for a work permit.
“We write to express our concern regarding reporting from the New York Post that food delivery
services are being hijacked by illegal immigrants intent on gaming the system,” the senators wrote to the heads of the three companies on Wednesday.
“Working illegally—especially in these circumstances—creates the potential for exploitation, abuse, and even modern-day slavery.”
Blackburn, Braun and Budd added that the lack of screening measures in place to prevent illegal immigrants from cashing in on those platforms has led to a “black-market economy riddled with abuse and danger for your users.”
“These illegal immigrants are delivering food directly to consumers’ doors without ever having undergone a background check and often without even using their real names,” they wrote.
As part of the inquiry, the three senators are demanding details of steps the companies are taking to bolster security, specifics about the consequences for users who sell access to their accounts, the number of users who have been suspended for selling access to their accounts, and whether the company had received reports of consumer issues with the situation.
“Account sharing is completely unacceptable on Grubhub and will result in immediate termination,” a Grubhub spokesperson told The Post Thursday. “Delivery partners on our platform must pass an extensive background check and agree to the Grubhub Delivery Partner Terms of Use, which require maintaining the confidentiality and security of their account at all times. If we find anyone misrepresenting their identity or granting unauthorized access to an account, they’ll be removed from the platform.”
“All couriers who deliver with Uber are required to hold a valid right to work in the US, pass a criminal background check, and be over the age of 18,” an Uber rep said.
“If a courier is found to be sharing their account or using a fraudulent account, we remove their access to our platform, no exceptions.”
A DoorDash spokesperson similarly stressed that “there is no place on the DoorDash platform for those that can’t or won’t verify their identity.
“To help ensure that Dashers are who they say they are and prevent access by individuals looking to abuse our platform, we’ve built a robust, multi-layered identity verification and safety screening process for anyone who wants to deliver through our platform.”
Revenue from the online food delivery sector is estimated to surpass $350 billion this year, according to Statista.
Meanwhile, there have been 1,733,496 migrants encountered at the Mexican and Canadian borders between Oct. 1 and March 31, according to data from Customs and Border Protection. Of that figure, more than 1.3 million have been stopped at the southern border.
“As a result of the Biden administration’s open border policies, millions of illegal immigrants have flooded across our southern border since he took office,” the three senators wrote.
“Rather than detaining and deporting these individuals, President Biden has allowed them to remain in our communities and, at times, has even used taxpayer funds to fly them to their desired location.”
Blackburn, Braun and Budd also praised the three companies, saying, “Your services have improved the lives of so many Americans.”
But they underscored the need to “inspire consumer confidence and crack down on this underground system of illegal work.”
