Going After Migrants, but Not Employers

Just to be clear about this. If I were living in Mexico I would hop the border in a hot second so I do not blame the folks jumping the border for that. The things I blame the jackass (mostly Mexican) immigrants for is their unswerving love for an absolute armpit of a country.

Having said that I still don't think they have a right to come here illegally. The only true way to stop this problem is employer sanctions. In '86 the IRCA (amnesty) promised heavy employer sanctions that never materialized, which is why we went from a couple of million illegal aliens to 11-20 millian illegals.

Check this out...

AS they fanned into the Vidalia onion fields of Georgia, the 45 federal agents were doing exactly what they thought they were supposed to do. It was 1998, and they had just arrested 21 illegal immigrant farm workers and were about to round up hundreds more.
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The New York Times

But the raid met with a stinging rebuke from what might have seemed a surprising source: two powerful Republicans from Georgia's Congressional delegation.

Saxby Chambliss, then a representative and now a senator, accused immigration officials of using "bullying tactics," while Senator Paul Coverdell denounced "a moonshine raid" against "honest farmers who are simply trying to get their products from the field to the marketplace." The Immigration and Naturalization Service backed down, granting temporary amnesty to illegal onion pickers in 19 Georgia counties.

Today, Mr. Chambliss, as the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is leading efforts to pass tougher measures than many of his Senate colleagues favor to rein in illegal immigration.

So why did he fight a crackdown in his own backyard? Asserting that he has always supported enforcement against employers, Mr. Chambliss said he protested the 1998 raid because he considered it too heavy-handed, with agents wearing camouflage and waving .357's. Moreover, he said, arresting immigrants in a few onion fields would result in other immigrants replacing them and would do nothing to deter the flow.

"Going into one field or plant and arresting 30 or 40 people is not a solution to the problem," Mr. Chambliss said.

But Doris Meissner, who was immigration commissioner under President Bill Clinton, had a different explanation: members of Congress, particularly Republicans, do not want to antagonize business.

"There was hypocrisy," Ms. Meissner said. "On one hand, you say you want enforcement, and then you see it's not so easy to live with the consequences in your own district."

Indeed, the lack of vigorous enforcement against employers who hire illegal workers has been widely viewed as the main reason that 850,000 immigrants cross the border illegally each year. Facing little in the way of penalties, employers feel few qualms about hiring them for meatpacking, construction, agriculture and janitorial work.

"You had a lack of political will to carry out the enforcement component, and that was in part because of the demands of certain interests to enjoy cheap foreign labor," said Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican who has long supported strict limits on immigration. "We are paying the price today for a lack of enforcement for the last 20 years."

And so it goes. A question I've been contemplating lately is this: Should businesses be driving our social policy? Should businesses put profitability ahead of our having a stable nation? Because that is exactly what's happening today and will continue to do so until their told no in unequivocal terms and made to pay the price for their willful undermining of this country. A couple of perp walks should do nicely, I think.

Keep calling your reps folks, this needs to change.

H/T FAIR

Technorati Tags: illegal immigration, employer sanctions, same old