http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/2006 ... /112170114

Still more must be done: Businesses must be punished for hiring illegals


Letters to Editor
December 17, 2006



I want to express my support for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on meatpacking plants on Tuesday in pursuit of illegal immigrant workers using stolen identities. I sincerely hope this is the beginning of a movement by our government officials to enforce our laws and more importantly to start obeying the majority of the citizens in our democracy regarding immigration.

Officials of both parties have refused for decades to obey the people regarding this issue.

I, however, agree with some who protested the raids in Greeley that the federal governments did not complete its enforcement duties on Tuesday. Any business that has van-loads of undocumented suspected workers is by definition a criminal enterprise. I believe that the FBI should conduct a thorough investigation of all supervisors and corporate executives of Swift & Co.

Businesses that hire large numbers of illegal immigrants are responsible for luring millions of poor people into this country. They are also guilty of inflicting great social services and enforcement costs regarding these exploited workers on average Americans, and the trauma that poor illegal workers experience when they are apprehended and deported. We should begin to severely punish politically connected owners and managers of this kind of organized crime. This would greatly reduce illegal immigration without spending additional billions on insulting political gestures like the border wall.

Winthrop Staples, Fort Collins

Sen. Salazar just wants cheap labor to keep coming into the United States

Sen. Ken Salazar, R-Colo., either doesn't understand the immigration issue, or he thinks the voters are stupid. He is absolutely wrong to describe the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown as "chaos and lawlessness." It's the enforcement we've been demanding for two decades! He is also wrong to call for an amnesty (or "comprehensive" reform). There's nothing to reform. We just need politicians who are willing to enforce the laws already on the books.

More crackdowns (and fewer pandering politicians) will reverse illegal immigration. Add border security and employer sanctions, and the problem is solved.

A big business, guest-worker amnesty will only result in more illegal immigration. It is precisely such a program that got us into this mess in the first place.

Because Salazar is already decrying basic enforcement of immigration law, why should we believe he has any desire to enforce the border and employer sanctions? All he wants is a continued flow of cheap labor.

J.D. Feere of Greeley is temporarily residing in Washington, D.C.