http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... GUA8T1.DTL

Waking the sleeping business giant
- Louis Freedberg
Monday, April 24, 2006


LET"S HOPE the Bush administration's declaration that it might invade workplaces across the United States in search of illegal immigrants is more carefully thought out than its invasion of Iraq.

At the most delicate moment in the efforts to solve the immigration problem, the administration has decided to barge like a bull, or an elephant, into the most sensitive arena of the debate: the uncomfortable fact that hundreds of thousands of Americans are employing illegal immigrants.

Let's face it. Without the prospect of work, the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States almost certainly wouldn't be here.

Almost any employer in California might be justified in being nervous about just what the intentions of the Bush administration are. An astonishing 1 in 20 workers in the United States are here illegally. In California, where millions of undocumented workers are embedded in almost every sector of the state's economy, they are represented in far greater numbers.

If the Bush administration is serious about rooting out illegal immigrants from our workforce, you'd see work stoppages beyond the wildest dreams of some pro-immigrant protesters who are trying to organize exactly that for May 1.

I doubt many employers found it reassuring to hear Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announce last week that his department plans only to go after employers who "knowingly and recklessly" employ and abuse undocumented workers.

On display was the government's spectacular arrest at wood-product plants in 26 states of more than 1,000 employees and seven managers whom Chertoff says knowingly hired illegal workers for the purposes of exploiting them and cheating the government out of taxes.

Against employers such as these, Chertoff said his department would use the same laws, investigative techniques and sanctions as it does against organized crime or big-time drug dealers. In addition to violating immigration laws, employers might be charged with money laundering and other crimes, which could result in multimillion-dollar fines or sentences of up to 20 years.

Chertoff was asked about whether the administration would use these tactics against agricultural employers. "You may well see something like this in the agricultural area," he replied, in an answer that surely scare some California growers. "No one should assume any area is off limits."

Clearly anyone who blatantly and knowingly violates the law needs to be punished. But the problem is that most employers of illegal immigrants choose not to verify the status of their employees, nor are they required to. Even if they wanted to, no national verification system exists to help them do it.

A closer reading of the Bush administration's plans suggests it intends to go after more than just a few of the most abusive lawbreakers. Rather, "strong worksite enforcement" is a central part of its proposed "Strategic Border Enforcement Initiative." Details of the $1.3 billion plan -- on top of the $4 billion already being spent on border controls -- are just beginning to emerge.

"The strategy is designed to look at every element of the business of illegal migration, and attack that business at every point of vulnerability," Chertoff said last week.

Until now, business groups have been relatively quiet in the debate over illegal immigration -- even though they have been its major beneficiaries. It's just possible that the administration's tough new campaign against employers may be a tactic to rouse the business community to pressure Congress far more heavily to approve some form of immigrant legalization program.

"Rather than the debate being about how immigration impacts neighborhoods, schools and hospitals, maybe you'll now see discussion about how it impacts the business sector," said Abel Valenzuela, a UCLA professor and visiting fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco, who studies immigrant workers.

If Congress responds, the Bush administration's war on employers who exploit immigrants will have a happier outcome than its disastrous adventure in Iraq has so far. If Congress does nothing, we'll be left with a lop-sided immigration policy that won't possibly solve the immigration problems confronting the nation.

Louis Freedberg is a Chronicle editorial writer. E-mail him at lfreedberg@sfchronicle.com