The franchise holders have been organizing to oppose these changes, so corporate has been sending complaints about illegal workers to ICE to allow it to pull the franchises of people it finds difficult:

Most of America’s 9,000 7-Eleven stores are owned by franchisees, many of them immigrants; the owners’ contracts with 7-Eleven corporate allows the company to pull their franchises if they violate US law.

The current CEO of 7-Eleven is Joe DePinto, a West Point grad who got the job in 2005 and has spent his tenure slowly tightening the screw on franchisees, demanding business practices that return more profit to corporate HQ at the expense of the independent operators. As the franchisees have felt the sting, they’ve fought back, suing the company over DePinto’s policies.

DePinto has become legendary for his dirty tricks campaign to get rid of his least-favored franchisees, from hiring private eyes to making secret recordings.

Now the franchisees allege that DePinto has started snitching on his own franchisees to ICE, directing government immigration raids against 7-Eleven stores. If these franchise owners are found to have illegally hired undocumented immigrants, DePinto can cancel their franchise agreements and kick them out of the business and take over their stores.

Obviously, some 7-Eleven stores have probably hired illegals, but using INS to settle scores so that you can cheat your franchise holders?

That’s just evil.