I mean, it is out of line for police to question someone when they have reasonable suspicion to believe that they are in the country illegally (that is the criticism of the Arizona law), even though the police routinely question everyone when they have reasonable suspicion to believe that they are breaking the law. That’s what police do! But immigration law is different.
A child can admit to the First Lady that her mother is in open violation of the immigration laws and the Homeland Security department scoffs at the idea that they would pursue the case, even though they have a name an address. Those parents of the “balloon hoax” did got in trouble because he blabbed on TV, but immigration law is somehow different. We simply cannot enforce the law because there is no will to do so; by anyone.
What IS an acceptable way to enforce the immigration laws? Should we repeal these laws and open the borders? If not, then why not, since we aren’t enforcing them anyways?
But my point is: do you agree with the law that says it is illegal for that Peruvian girl’s mother to need paperwork to be here legally? If so, then why should Homeland Security give her a pass?
Because the government is currently run by lefties, and lefties tend to think emotionally, not logically.
This kind of stuff is what created the frustration that cause the Arizona law in the first place. Holder is out there screaming that Arizona has no right to enforce immigration status or border security, that’s a Federal job. Then a pretty blatant case drops right in their lap and it gets ignored.
We certainly shouldn’t do it by rounding them and sending them home, since they’ll come back anyway.
Instead, we require employers to use the federal e-verify system - one part of SB 1070 I do agree with. We impose draconian penalties on employers who fail to properly verify their employees’ legal right to work in the United States, with some sort of grandfather clause for existing employees. We impose criminal penalties on the officers of companies who systematically evade the law.
Of course, we’d need some sort of exemption for “occasional” domestic work. I don’t particularly want to be fined if it turns out the guy mowing my lawn is an undocumented worker from Guatemala.
Yes, for the most part.
Because public policy and its enforcement are generally agreed to be based on something more concrete than the testimony of seven-year-olds.
Of course, we do occasionally think logically, which puts us miles ahead of righties.
Interestingly there is now a line diplomats coming from Latin American countries to the White House to condemn Arizona’s law. I take that as a compliment to Arizona.
Mexico says that Mexico doesn’t stop at its borders, wherever there are Mexicans, there is Mexico. I’m guessing that they don’t consider that principal to apply in reverse since they regularly deport Cubans and other illegal immigrants in Mexico from neighboring Central American countries. Pot meet Kettle.
The overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of us enforcing our immigration laws. But it is a costly and sometimes futile effort.
Come on, now. Do you really think if she had said something like “My mom takes money from men to let them play with my private parts” that the local police would say something like you just did? Or would they investigate it thoroughly?
Or like the balloon hoax boy. They didn’t let that go as crazy sayings of a kid. They took it, rightfully so, as good evidence that laws were being broken.
As mentioned earlier we should go more after employers. Since a single employer can hire multiple illegals then it is a lot more effective to go after the employers.
I also think our current system is broken and underfunded. We should be issuing more work visas and making it easier to become a citizen. Of course this will require better equipment and more manpower.
I’ve never understood this discrepancy. If we know that enforcing our law is both costly and futile, then why insist on enforcing it? Why not insist on changing the law to something that we can actually manage, like we did when we ended prohibition?
This pretty much. Go after the employers. If Wal-Mart is caught with illegal immigrants on their staff, they are fined, something huge like $100000 per employee, and whoever hired them along with their managers go to jail. You’ll see illegal immigration and illegal hiring dry up pretty quick if the employers are the ones to take a hit.
Right now, if employer gets caught, he can get off almost scot free. He can threaten to have his workers deported with no reprocussions. The only way to combat that is to make it less financially beneficial for them to use illegal immigrant labor. Thus, the high fine and the jail time
The employer could turn that right back around on the feds. If THEY were enforcing the law properly, then there would be no illegal immigrants standing inside this country applying for jobs. Why make honest employers become the police when the police themselves aren’t willing to do the job?
And what are the illegals that are here supposed to do for money? Starve to death because of the crackdown on employment? What about private day laborer? Can I hire a guy at Home Depot to help me with yard work, or do I have to check his citizenship papers?
People come here illegally for work. If we ramp up enforcement and penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants to the point that it’s no longer worth it for them, the jobs will dry up and people will stop coming here. Focusing on enforcement on the worker end is an exercise in futility – as long as the job is there, someone will get here and do it.
Of course, we’ll have to immediately put some sort of guest worker program in place if we don’t want California’s agriculture and service sector to collapse overnight. Which is the reason nothing has been done or will be done apart from token measures to appease the xenophobes – our economy needs cheap labor, and there’s no political reward for punishing employers and legalizing a path for guest workers.
Plus what about sub-contractors? All you need is 1 shady criminal type to set up “Al’s Discount Migrant Labor, Inc” and rake in a bunch of money for doing nothing. He gets caught, you probably bankrupt him but unless you’re going to enforce some draconian punishments he’s not gonna do more than a couple years in jail, and that’s totally worth the risk when there are hundreds of similar operations.
Ever fill out a W-4 when you started a new job? Is that making honest employers become the IRS? Ever get carded going into a bar? Is that making the bar owner become the police to enforce local liquor laws?
I’m right in line with everyone else here. You go after the enablers.
Stiff fines for employers of illegal immigrants. Stiff fines for renting or selling homes/apartments to illegal immigrants. Stiff fines for providing services to illegal immigrants like health services.
If you take away the draws you don’t even need a border patrol. If word got out that “sure, you can easily cross into the US” but there was 1. No work to be found, 2. No where to live, 3. Impossible to get service at a hospital, why would they want to come here?
Anyone can fill out a W-4, and just about anyone can put a valid SSN on there as well. Sure, the IRS will eventually figure it out, but the employer can’t possibly be at fault for not catching that, and by the time the IRS figures it out the employee has probably moved on to a new job. E-verify was supposed to fix that, but lord knows that’s got its own problems.
And this still does nothing to halt hiring a sub-contractor who swears to god that all of his employees are legal.
Not getting your point. As long as the employer holds up their end and collects residency information from the workers, it’s off the hook in terms of penalties if said workers are later found to be illegal residents who supplied false information. Just like they’re off the hook if someone supplies a fake SSN on their W-4.
Obviously, this isn’t a magic bullet (the subcontractor issue being one that will undoubtedly require its own set of rules), but if one feels that illegal immigration is a problem, it seems like by far the most effective type of action to take.
Let’s say I want to rent my house, and Juan Carlos Guiterrez comes and says he wants to rent from me. What must I, as a private citizen, do to keep from going to jail?
You are going to tell a man that’s bleeding to death in the ER lobby just to go ahead and die?
For the first thing, I’m just saying that if you’re an illegal alien and you memorize a “fake” SSN, you can bounce from employer to employer every 6 months, submitting new W-4s at every job and waiting for the IRS to catch up and let your employer know that you’re not using a legitimate SSN. The employer is therefore off the hook and the employee gets to keep working indefinitely, pretty much.
I’m not sure what kind of “residency information” you would expect an employer to collect.
The only solution is E-Verify or something like it, but even that doesn’t get around the sub-contractor issue.
It seems to be the “my hands are clean” non-solution to the problem. At least in the other examples you gave, the police work in conjunction with the private sector.
It would be like punishing the employer for not submitting a W-4 in a timely fashion, but letting a tax cheating employee slide without an investigation.
