Illegal Immigration: Helpful Solutions and Harmful Pursuits
Is illegal immigration as unsolvable a problem as social security?
This past week it seemed almost certain that Congress would pass and President Bush would sign a bill granting amnesty to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in America.
Most Americans appear to support tightening the borders and establishing guest worker programs, but granting amnesty to law breakers does not sit well with us. Lawmakers were somehow genuinely surprised at the strong backlash they heard from constituents against the amnesty program. Lawmakers will not call it amnesty, but they cannot truthfully deny what it is.
Why isn’t a strong guest worker program created? I think the issue as so important and so not going away that we should have a cabinet-level department dedicated to running guest worker programs. Think about it, not only would a “Department of Guest Worker Optimization” deal with millions of Hispanic manual laborers, they could also help control the controversial H1B visas granted for information workers. These issues are not going away, and I think centralized controls are necessary.
What are some ideas being considered in immigration bills that you think are harmful pursuits? I think the amnesty proposal is extremely harmful for several reasons. The first reason is that illegal immigration will throttle up to unprecedented levels as many try to get in before a deadline. The second reason is that amnesty amounts flipping off every current legal immigrant. The third reason is it flips off every American striving to follow the daily rules of living in our country. What precedent does illegal immigration amnesty establish in our society?
What are some things being considered in immigration bills that you think are helpful solutions? I think tightening the borders is helpful, because it then forces illegal immigrants into the legal channels for immigrating to America. I think increasing the legal immigration flow is important if the borders are going to be tightened. I would say open the flow from Mexico to almost no limits, so long as everyone that comes through is documented.
I think a helpful solution is one Newt Gingrich suggested several months ago. Since the legal immigrants would be documented, they could be granted a special guest worker certificate, authorizing them to work in America. Employers would have to devote 10-15% of the worker’s pay to a special government guest worker savings account, just like employers now have to funnel employee taxes to the government. When the guest worker returns to Mexico, they get that 10-15% back to them with some interest. The check could be cut right at the border.
There are other issues thrown in this mix. One of those issues is the stark poverty in Mexico, which drives so many illegal immigrants to jobs paying much more. How much is our foreign aid to Mexico right now? It may not really be our responsibility to help Mexico, but helping Mexico develop better can help stem the tide of illegal immigrants.
Another issue is agriculture’s dependency on illegal immigration. One aspect is if small family farms are using illegal immigration more or less than corporate farm conglomerates. Is illegal immigration honestly helping America’s farm production, or is it just increasing profit margins for corporations?
And yet another issue is the split amongst conservatives. Conservatives tend to split between wanting to crack down on illegal immigration vs. wanting to help big farm businesses. Look no further than the split between Senators Mike Crapo and Larry Craig for an example of this.
What do you think is a smart solution for illegal immigration? What do you think is a harmful pursuit for illegal immigration?
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Comments
It seems to me that if half these illegal immigrants spent half as much time, half as much money, and half as much effort trying to solve the problems in their own country as they spend coming here and then trying to change America into a pseudo Mexico (press one for English, two for Spanish), there would be less of an argument involving the reason they want to “leave” Mexico. Of course, that doesn’t fix the reason they want to “come” to America. Two very different issues. They want to come here because we give them everything for free and allow their first act in this country to be an illegal one and grant them a free pass. Hmm, how many American citizens just walk away with amnesty on their first illegal act?
Yeah, if I had to I probably would. However, that does not mean that the host country that I came to should bend over and give me everything I want and then some.
We have limited resources as it is. We can’t absorb more persons coming in and staying. Our quality of life is suffering now. Try adding 15-30 million more illegals to the roles. Will it effect your children? Yes it will. Healthcare costs that have to be provided by law will be paid for by all of us. Water and food use will increase. Water is already scarce. School class size will increase. Just because these other countries don’t have all the luxuries in the world doesn’t mean we have to be forced to provide it for them. Would it be nice? Sure. However, I don’t want to pay for it monetarily and in the other social costs. This is like some global socialism in play…turn us into one big village and take care of each other. This never works and drags everybody down the toilet. Remember all those failed socialist states in Eastern Europe? The Soviet Union? This country has every right to it’s spoils and we have every right to protect those spoils from those that would try to take them. If you disagree, let me know what your address is so I can come over to your house and steal from you. Would that be okay with you?
I probably would too, given their situation in Mexico.
One of those “30 days” episodes features a Minuteman militia guy (the ones that volunteer to patrol our border) who is dead-set against illegal immigrants. He lives with an illegal immigrant for 30 days, and for 2 weeks just rants about it and how he’s going to turn in the host guy when he’s finished.
In the third week he takes up the offer to visit the alien’s hometown and old home in Mexico. He sees how ghastly the poverty is down there, and the final week shows him saying he realizes why they come over, there there need to be different solutions, and that he is quitting the minuteman organization.
I agree, while I probably would try to do it also, I would not expect the new country to start giving me rights or forgiving my crime of illegal immigration.
I think it all just points to the fact that we need a strong guest worker program, a cabinet-level department. Crack down on illegals while making the guest worker avenue more lucrative and attractive.
I do not think amnesty is the correct signal to send.
Interestingly, I learned of a distinction in the law that not many people are thinking about or knowledgeable about: Legal vs. Citizenship distinctions.
Many of the illegals now would get Legal status if the immigration bill passes. This is different than becoming a citizen. There are no fines or other cumbersome restrictions built into an illegal gaining legal status. Once they get the Z visa they just keep on reapplying for renewal. They have no fines to pay, no need to return to their home country, no need to wait in line for citizenship, i.e. go to the back of the line.
Most illegals would merely stop the application process for citizenship once they had legal staus in the country. They would be able to access all services of a citizen. Nobody is talking about this. Nobody seems to understand that the people that wrote this bill did this very intentionally.
So, for all the talk about holding these people accountable with fines and waiting their turn in line…it is pure BS.
Look for it to get resurrected soon. Bush is going to the Senate today to talk about reviving it.
Unbelieveable….all these people trying to keep this bill alive so they can say they did something.
A new poll out said that the majority of Americans want existing immigration laws enforced. Once again, the pols are not listening.
Why not pass smaller bills that tackle these issues incrementally?
First pass a border security bill, close those borders up tight. Check for success benchmarks.
If that works, the government will have gained our incremental trust that they can handle at least one aspect of immigration reform.
Next pass the guest worker program that processes immigrants coming into the country. Make the process available only through our embassy in Mexico, so currently illegal aliens would not be able to legitimize their stay.
Again, check for success benchmarks. If the government can handle this aspect, they again gained our incremental trust to handle the issue.
Next pass crackdowns on employers, landlords, city utilities, etc. to check for guest worker status identification. Doing this will purge out the illegals, and give them incentive to go back to Mexico and come back the legitimate way.
Trying to pass one comprehensive bill when our government is notorious for failure is asking to much of the American people.
Bush said he demands results from our teachers and schools. We demand the same results from our government before handling immigration reform.
The supporters of that failed bill tried to run it again, but were 14 votes short of forcing a vote, which pretty clearly shuts down the bill for now. Supporters were saying they’ll try again at something in a year or two.
Why did it fail?
For the reasons we’ve talked about in this discussion thread.
Our current political leadership has failed America too many times, and they no longer have a blank check on promises.
A Republican Senator was quoted in CNN as saying the bill’s defeat “sent a crystal clear message … the American people want us to start with enforcement, both at the border and at the workplace, and don’t want promises. They want action, they want results, they want proof, because they’ve heard all the promises before.”
The remaining question is if our leadership will pay attention or keep playing games?
What do you think of the Florida sheriff who pulls up to construction sites with a bunch of police cars, and they watch who runs?
The cops chase the runners down, and arrest them for trespassing or loitering (usually found in people’s yards) or reckless driving (usually peeling out to get away).
They then run all the people they rounded up against INS.
Since the sheriff started doing these raids in November, he’s helped deport more than 500 illegal immigrants from dozens of raids.
The construction builders are upset because they are losing labor in a housing boom (and are thus losing money).
What do you think?
Why don’t Idaho law enforcement try this tactic?
Sounds to me that this is a good tactic to use when the federal guys either won’t or don’t do enough to round these folks up. However, I think what would have a real impact is focusing efforts towards the businesses that hire these folks. Hit them in the pocketbook and jail time for the Company President(s) for repeat offenses. That way, we don’t have to worry about ‘targeting’ a group based on skin color and we can just enforce the law equally. This would also require less jail space for those we pick up and we could spread our resources out to check more businesses for compliance. Otherwise, this is a drop in the bucket approach that looks good in the media but has no meaningful impact on illegal immigration.
I often wonder what would happen in the tables were turned and the American economy tanked while the Mexican economy boomed and there were plentiful manual labor jobs in Mexico ripe for the picking. Would Americans cross the border illegaly in order to feed their families and have a better life?
Too often I think we label all illegal immigrants as “criminals” in the pejorative sense. Yes, they are breaking the law. But there are, I believe, many many cases in which I do not begrudge them for doing so. I’ve met and become close with literally hundreds of illegal immigrants in my lifetime. Many of them are exploited, but even then, they have a better life than they would in Mexico.
Talk to them. Get to know them and their stories. You’ll be touched. You’ll be moved by the things they’ve gone through in order to keep their family fed and give them better opportunities. Yes, there are the bad apples, as in every society, and yes, they place a burden on our economy in some places. I do believe that these issues need to be addressed.
But we also need to remember that this is America. A land where people come to have a better life. We are selfish to try and shut the door on that for millions of hard-working immigrants who, because of bureaucracy and frustrating politics, have a mountain of red tape they must attempt to push through in order to try and take part in the American dream.
I find it sad that while we enjoy the bounties of our great land, we at the same time begrudge those who want those bounties for their own families, oftentimes just because they have a different color of skin than us.
I hope that changes. And changes soon.
We could all sit around the campfire and swap emotional stories about how families are uprooted due to deportation. We could all sit around and lament the fact that we would like to be able to allow everybody to come into America and prosper.
However, when we all get done singing Cumbiya the reality slaps all of us in the face: There is no right to come to America, there is no right to work here if you are illegal, and there will not be enough resources for all of them to come here. It is about economics. An truthfully, it has to be. We cannot support an influx of Russians, Germans, Mexicans, Chinese,etc…it is not about skin color…it is about the fact that we don’t enough water for everyone. We don’t have enough raw materials to provide the goods and services for an out of control immigration problem. Resources are finite. This point often gets lost in the debate. Any country that has not taken care of an immigration problem has suffered doom and defeat.
You can consider it selfish all you want. However, think of it this way. If your house is meant to hold a maximum of 6 people and you keep getting people coming to your house how long will it take before the quality of life suffers for everyone in the home? How long will it be before there is no privacy, no peace and quiet, no hot water, the electric use increases, the more cars needed (and more pollution that comes with more people). Pie in the sky ideals don’t pay the bills and preserve the American way of life. Preserving our borders and limiting the amount of legal immigrants is a reasonable and absolute necessity both for the short and long term health of the United States. I do not want my children to live in conditions that are harsh and devoid of the rightfully earned fruits of America. The old saying there is no free lunch is coming home to roost. In this case, if the government does not secure the borders and stem the tide, there will continue to be eroding support for legal immigration by the public. People will become more protective and less giving when their existence and/or way of life is threatened. That of course is not the “American” way, but it is human nature and we need to recognize and respond to that distinct possibility before our society crumbles under the weight of population gains that it cannot support.
Excellent rebuttal Mike! You make some very good points.
I believe with a little hard work and some government subsidies, Mexicans for one, have plenty of land they could be using for agricultural prospects. It’s basically all about irrigation down there. They’ve got tons of wide open space that isn’t being utilized. If they dug some wells and set up a proper irrigation system, they wouldn’t have to come across the border to be a farm hand in southern California, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, even Idaho. They could work in their own country doing the same work and they wouldn’t need to leave their families, risk being arrested and deported and having a criminal record, etc.
And the same goes for many a nationality. Someone once said, “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime”. (or something to that effect)
I agree with Mike….it’s not about skin color or a racial issue that many make it out to be. It’s about the resources that we’re losing little by little each day.
What about all the millions of jobs that have been outsourced to other countries? Since the early 1980’s record numbers of corporations have moved their plants to Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, etc.
Our middle class population has been slowly declining over the years. And these are just some of the reasons why.
I say teach these other countries to live off their own land.
I’m not about closing off the borders to everyone, but lets be reasonable here folks. Illegal immigrants are taking away so many of our jobs from people that are here legally. And its gone on for far too long.
imo
Hey JP,
Take a look at this link:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1523.cfm
The Heritage research criticized by the White House made the following basic points about immigration and its costs:
Individuals without a high school degree impose significant net costs (the extent to which benefits and services received exceed taxes paid) on taxpayers.
The net fiscal cost of families of immigrants who lack a high school degree is not markedly different from the net fiscal cost of families of non-immigrants who lack a high school degree.
Immigrants are disproportionately low skilled; one-third of all immigrants and 50 to 60 percent of illegal immigrants lack a high school degree.
Unlike low and moderate skill immigrants, immigrants with a college education will pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits; therefore. immigration policy should increase the number of high skill immigrants entering the country and sharply decrease the number of low skill, fiscally dependent immigrants.[3]
Heritage research has shown that low skill immigrants (those without a high school degree) receive, on average, three dollars in government benefits and services for each dollar of taxes they pay. This imbalance imposes a net cost of $89 billion per year on U.S. taxpayers. Over a lifetime, the typical low skill immigrant household will cost taxpayers $1.2 million.
Additionally, links to agricultural concerns relevant to water supplies are on Wikipedia under the category overpopulation:
Despite advances in agriculture, the fresh water supplies that it depends on are running low worldwide. Some argue that this water crisis is only expected to worsen as the population increases. Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute argues that declining water supplies could well have future disastrous consequences for agriculture.
I would like to point out that it does not take a study or statistics to figure this out. If your population grows….and especially if it grows illegally, you have no way to plan for it….there will be more demand on services: education, food and water, welfare, transportation (and the accompanying pollution that goes with it). Greenpeace even recognizes this fact! This is not a left or right issue, it is a national security issue for all Americans. Thanks for the opportunity to consider the facts. I appreciate your ability to be open and not closed off.
Article in this morning’s paper suggests illegal immigration may be decreasing. Border agents said their captures are down 38% from a year ago, even with the heavily increased surveillance and patrols.
I think Bush finally realized Americans don’t want to give him any more big programs until he proves he can do at least the basics right.
This year may be a roller coaster as a result of decreased illegal immigration. Farmers need the labor, and will be forced to pay higher wages, which will then force consumers to pay higher prices, which then might result in the immigration bill being debated again.
But at least this time we might be starting from the point of our basic immigration laws being enforced, not the get-out-of-jail-free-become-a-citizen card they were talking about handing out.
I agree with Joe. This is just another scheme to bring the immigration bill back up again. Making for strange bed fellows, Bush and some of his Democratic supporters on the immigration bill, i.e. Ted Kennedy, are looking to resurrect a vote on this issue. They want the farmers to scream bloody murder and pass costs onto consumers–who will also scream bloody murder–
This approach gives them more ammo to get a bill passed. I seriously doubt Bush has had any conversion to protect the border vs. protecting business interests. This smells of quid pro quo.
Good story on the front page of today’s Post Register, interviewing a Shelley farmer who relies on immigrant labor to get his annual agricultural work done. He appears to do it legally, working through the system, despite the H-2A guest workers system being bogged down by slow bureaucracy.
The article mentioned our Senator Larry Craig is going at the problem again with his Agriculture Job Opportunities and Security Act. I like that the H-2A process could be streamlined, but I don’t think anyone around here likes the idea of illegal aliens being given a path to citizenship until they go back to country of origin and star there.
It seems Senator Mike Crapo thinks this way also, expressing support for fixing the immigration process but opposing a “system that gives illegal workers easy access to legal citizenship.”
Why can’t Craig get on the boat with us? He is halfway there with his constituents in wanting to streamline the immigration system, but he keeps clinging to the idea of rewarding illegal aliens for illegal behavior with one of our most precious rights: citizenship.
Why does Craig think our citizenship is so cheap that it should be given away to wrongdoers?
Craig has been back in Washington for too long and has been rubbing elbows with the wrong folks.
Seriously though, it seems to me that he has stayed on board with these nutty bills to appease ag interests here. They pay him the cash and he is their mouthpiece.
Interestingly, the immigration bills address citizenship down the road. The main focus of the bills was to create a Z visa without citizenship attached. It was a fraud because everybody said they would have to pay fines and return to their country of origin and file application for citizenship. What they didn’t tell us is that the gaining the Z Visa DID NOT REQUIRE any of this. Most illegals that obtained Z status wouldn’t give a hoot about getting citizenship because they get all the benefits of citizenship without the cost of fines, taking english classes, and could just be deported if they committed a crime vs. going to jail for longer periods if they were a citizen.
So, Craig wasn’t really giving away citizenship–he was giving away something just as tangible and sought after–legal status. The fact that the politicians weren’t out front talking about this was just another indicator that special interests were trying to force this bill down our throats. I will not vote for Larry Craig ever again. He is a pandering fool.
Mexicon presidente vincent fox admitted on larry king live he and george bush agreed on the amero as a commmon north american currency adn that a north americn union is inevitable. america sold out by bush http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=49877
Why in the world wouldn’t our lawmakers pass such a bill? I used to live in a community where there was a lot of illegal immigrant hiring, everyone looked the other way and the farmers knew very well they had plenty of illegals.
What’s up with this?
—————————–
Friday, March 07, 12:58 PM
Idaho kills bill that would penalize employers who hire illegal immigrants
Associated Press
BOISE — For a second straight year, Idaho lawmakers have killed a measure that would crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
The House State Affairs Committee unanimously rejected a bill today that would have required employers to verify workers? immigration status. Companies could have had their business licenses suspended or revoked for hiring people unauthorized to work in the United States.
The proposal is modeled on a law passed last year in Arizona to weaken economic incentives for immigrants to sneak across the border. That law, which took effect on Jan. 1, has already caused scores of immigrants to go to other states or back to their homelands.
“It?s a problem not being dealt with in the way it should be,” said Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, one of the bill?s supporters. “If (the employer) can show that he did make a good faith effort, there would be no penalty.”
I read somewhere the other day about reporters photographing a press event in the capitol, flashbulbs going off, it was right next to a restroom. A senator from Hawaii walked out of the restroom right into the flashbulbs going off. He said, “Whoaa you got me,” then turned around to the restroom door again and said, “Come on out Larry, it’s all over.”
It looks like our Idaho senate has killed the second bill this year which would have tackled illegal immigration.
http://www.kidk.com/news/local/16751721.html
This one was modeled on an Arizona bill which supposedly has reduced illegal immigrants in Arizona.
Heard on AM news radio the other day that Colorado farmers are in a bit of a crisis as they can’t find enough immigrant labor to work the farms. Perhaps not so coincidentally Colorado is the home state of Tom Tancredo is the most anti immigrant congressman there is. Tancredo is about to learn that he reaps what he sews when farmers either cut production or raise wages to hire American workers because either way food prices go up. There are certainly negatives to illegal immigration but the country also benefits in other ways.
One of the best ideas for immigration I’ve heard was Newt Gingrich’s plan to allow as many guest workers as farmers and industries request, and garnish 10-20% of the guest worker wages, to be repaid to those workers when they go back to their countries at the end of their work stay.
Whatever happened to that idea? Can someone tell me the problem with it? It seems like such a great solution.
Great in theory. Bad in practice. Reason: there is no guarantee that if they supposedly leave the US they stay in Mexico. With a porous border nothing is a sure thing. For instance, why don’t deportations work? Obviously, it is because the border is too open and people re-enter illegally.
Post #35 is right on the money. Conservatives don’t like to talk about the costs of limiting illegal immigration anymore than liberals like to talk about the costs to limiting global warming. It is a side note in most discussions, but in my view, it is the sole reason why the United States has not gotten tough on illegals. Cheap food prices and the boon it brings to business has been good enough reason for every US President, Democratic or Republican to do nothing about the border.
All great comments and definitely what’s really happening out there. But no politician wants to be honest about it or they’ll get jumped for being soft on crime, soft on wages, soft on national security.
Even Bush, who had a decent approach (because it hit home to him and his corporate buddies, plus his Latino family members) was excoriated for his position.
Everything escalated after 9-11. But probably the worst dirty deed was the emergence of the opportunity for the political bedfellows, because the racists who hated “Mexicans” now had a ready-made reason to fence that border, and trumpeted their “security” issues loudly in the media.
Then the moderates who knew of the bigotry that fueled these groups refused to look beyond the racism to see the many other valid reasons it would be a good idea to secure that border.
We really need a sound policy for guest workers. Allow as many as are needed to come here as long as they go home when the job is done. Give guest pass workers a front row seat when consideration of legal permanent status is applied for. Deny those that do not go home (and get caught) their rights to get guest worker passes the next year, or their right to get LPR status for 5 years. Levy huge fines if employers are caught hiring illegal workers.
If companies can hire all the legal guest workers they want, they won’t bother with the illegal ones anymore. And if you can’t get a job illegally, you have more incentive to adhere to the rule that you must go home when the job is done.
Not a perfect system but it seems folks could work together to arrive at a workable solution, instead of throwing hot words at it and never really doing anything, or doing something drastic that later bites you in the fanny.
If we increase penalties on business owners and hiring managers, they will not hire illegal workers and thus will reduce the market demand. How about one month in prison for every illegal worker caught under your employment, with penalties both for HR/hiring managers and for the business owner, regardless if the owner claims they did not know. Just like Sarbanes-Oxley, no excuse for feigned “ignorance”.
You think that would get business owners’ attention? Yeah, I think they would start towing the line on not hiring illegal workers. What kind of slap on the wrist do these farmers around here get now if they are busted with illegal workers? I bet one month in jail for every worker would snap them out of it.
If we think about it, what is the difference between a farmer hiring illegal workers and a prostitution pimp? Both are hiring people for illegal work, both are degrading our society and economy, and both are contributing to the problems rather than the solutions.
Along with harsh punishments for employers, we need to provide legitimate paths for legal guest workers. If we have harsh prison sentences for hiring illegal workers, and honor unlimited guest worker requests from employers, we have solved the illegal immigration problem. Employers won’t hire illegal workers and illegal immigrants won’t have incentive to cross over and work; they will have incentive to stay and get guest worker permit, then they will have incentive to return to home in order to reclaim their 10-20% wage garnishment.
I think it’s a perfect plan, so long as all components are in place: stiff employer punishment, unlimited guest worker permits, and 10-20% guest worker wage garnishment paid upon return to country of origin. Where’s the hole in that?
Joe, I agree with penalties on employers. Too bad the United States Attorneys aren’t prosecuting under existing laws that have been around since 1986. Check out the references below. IT IS ALREADY IN LAW THAT EMPLOYERS CAN BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIRING ILLEGALS….5 years for each illegal!!!!!!
Section 8 USC 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv)(b)(iii) Read all under 1324
“Any person who . . . encourages or induces an illegal alien to . . . reside . . . knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such . . . residence is . . . in violation of law, shall be punished as provided . . . for each illegal alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs . . . fined under title 18 . . . imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.”
Section 274 felonies under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, INA 274A(a)(1)(A):
A person (including a group of persons, business, organization, or local government) commits a federal felony when she or he:
assists an illegal alien s/he should reasonably know is illegally in the U.S. or who lacks employment authorization, by transporting, sheltering, or assisting him or her to obtain employment, or
encourages that illegal alien to remain in the U.S. by referring him or her to an employer or by acting as employer or agent for an employer in any way, or
knowingly assists illegal aliens due to personal convictions.
Penalties upon conviction include criminal fines, imprisonment, and forfeiture of vehicles and real property used to commit the crime. Anyone employing or contracting with an illegal alien without verifying his or her work authorization status is guilty of a misdemeanor. Aliens and employers violating immigration laws are subject to arrest, detention, and seizure of their vehicles or property. In addition, individuals or entities who engage in racketeering enterprises that commit (or conspire to commit) immigration-related felonies are subject to private civil suits for treble damages and injunctive relief.
I only read in your bit that folks assisting illegal aliens to get employment get in trouble, not that employers get in trouble? Is it taken as the same thing, or is there another law specifically addressing employers?
I think I heard about a raid or two last year at a potato plant and a farm. Anyone remember them? So what happened to the owners? Where is the ball being dropped?
Did the cops not arrest the owners? Did the prosecutor’s office not press charges? (I suspect this will be the case.) Is this a state-level prosecution or a federal-level prosecution, or can there be charges on both levels?
Didn’t our legislature vote down a proposal last month for business owner penalties on hiring illegal aliens?
I’m so tired of hearing the illegal immigration complaints that go in circles, I want to know where the real problem is, and I’m betting it’s prosecutors who don’t file charges.
Illegal immigration laws are federal. Your local police, and this is true across most of the US, aren’t empowered to enforce anything except state laws and city codes. In other words you have to be a fed to enforce a fed law like immigration. Ditto with prosecution - you have to be a federal prosecutor to prosecute immigration laws. Which might be why you didn’t see charges against those employers you mention Joe. It just isn’t a big enough deal to get attention from an already busy fed prosecutor.
Most of the time whats illegal under state law is also illegal under federal law and vice versa so your local police never have to worry about not being able to enforce a law since they can use a state code. Immigration is one of the exceptions as laws about it mostly only appear in federal law. Same with a lot of the gun restriction laws that get passed - only feds can enforce them making them largely meaningless.
I spoke with an ICE guy a few years back, and he had a story about the local police…he said that they used to have a custom (long ago) of arresting a person they ‘knew’ to be illegally here…on a bogus charge-say spitting in the street or something equally as silly but at least something they could hold the guy on.
Then, they’d call the feds and ask them to come get ‘em for deportation.
The federal guy was quite annoyed, he didn’t like that the cops were trying to do their bit to enforce the immigration laws in a roundabout way. Even though the person was here illegally, the ICE guy thought it wasn’t right to trump up a charge to hold him.
I would think it would be pretty frustrating to have two sets of laws and limitations on who could do what, so that you couldn’t take action on some of them.
KIDK reports on some local businesses unable to get workers because Congress has choked on granting H-2B visas so there are fewer legal immigrants.
http://www.kidk.com/news/17756849.html
On one hand, this is a problem because the whole problem causing illegal immigration is Congress’ failure to enact a working legal worker immigration program. I wonder if Mike Simpson’s or Mike Crapo’s office could help us understand what the problem has been with H-2B visas this year?
On the other hand, why do these eastern Idaho companies need immigrants only to work? Isn’t Idaho’s unemployment rate going up? What kind of work do they do that they cannot find and pay normal pay rates?
I don’t think eastern Idaho companies need only immigrants to work for them, but according to a news report I saw last night, their the only ones who WILL work for these companies. Most local people who are looking for work don’t want to do the kind of work the immigrants have been doing for so long. ie: farm work, laborers, etc.
I agree with CR_67, most of the work traditionally done by laborers is done dirt cheap. We’ve enjoyed the fruits of this labor by having cheaper farm products.
If we don’t have them do the work, then our citizens could do it but it’s mostly hard, backbreaking work and the pay is very low…so why bother when you can get the same pay with better hours at a fast food place? Plus it’s seen as grunt work and beneath many people, so when you’re thinking about looking for work, you don’t even consider that kind of work, unless you were raised on a farm and are used to it.
I think the illegal immigrant policy and the farm labor issues are going to cause quite a problem in the very near future if we don’t get guest worker status soon.
I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble here but CR67 and Nemesis are right. The drain on our resources is coming far more from our third and fourth (and probably fifth) generation welfare recipients who spend 40 hours per week trying to figure out how to get more out of the system. You must have a valid SSN to apply for Medicaid so please don’t blame it on illegals. It is your big businesses like Walmart who sell cheap, but hire on at minimum wage forcing employees to rely on the system for necessities like healthcare, assistance with utility bills, food, etc. If we are going to place blame, place it in the right area. Then force your wealthy business owners to pay their employees a living wage, and get the deadbeats off their butts and insist they join the workforce. Then maybe we can get back to decent living, lower taxes, and provide jobs for all, including illegals who are willing to work harder than we lazy Americans are.
Crystal, I’m presuming in #55 that you’re being facetious. We don’t need to tax big oil, we just need to take away the artificial supports (corporate welfare) we gave to them years ago when oil was $22 a barrel…even Bush said, when it reached over $50 per barrel, that the supports weren’t needed anymore, because at that price they had all the incentives they needed to go after more supplies.
Well, now that it’s more than 6 X that supported price, they should be weaned off that government teat.
Ah, to heck with it. Let’s pay to educate the illegal immigrants so they can work on that alternative energy manhattan project…and get er done.
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I know many conservatives will naturally resist a cabinet-level department to deal with immigration, because they naturally resist bigger government.
However, sometimes government is needed to centralize our efforts and make them more efficient.
We live the results of haphazard immigration policies and enforcements with our current illegal immigration situation.
I think it’s time to try a big government solution.
I would suggest making the department’s performance a criteria for continuing the department. We have sunset provisions on many laws, why don’t we try sunset provisions for entire departments? If the department does not do its assigned jobs adequately, the sunset would dismantle the entire department.