Thread: CA: Employers back plan to target hiring of illegal workers

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Employers back plan to target hiring of illegal workers
Homeland Security will focus on employers who hire illegal workers.
BY CINDY CARCAMO
The Orange County Register
Comments 34| Recommend 3

When immigration officials audited Mark Louvier's Santa Ana business for illegal workers about two years ago, he wasn't too worried, he said, because he follows state and federal laws in hiring.

Sure enough he never heard back from officials.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced a renewed focus on targeting employers who hire illegal workers. The government's new direction is a departure from the mass workplace enforcement operations during the last few years of the Bush administration.

Louvier, former president of the California Association of Specialty Contractors, said he still isn't worried but hopes officials won't penalize business owners who unknowingly hire illegal workers.

"I don't believe I'm in the business of reading forged documents," said Louvier, who provides carpentry services for the homebuilding industry. "I've got an H.R. Department and they don't go through police training to tell the difference between (fake and real documents)."

Matt Chandler, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said the revamped guidelines focus on employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. However, he wouldn't specify what defines "knowingly."

"These guidelines reflect a new department-wide focus to target, through criminal prosecution, abusive employers who cultivate illegal workplaces by breaking our country's laws and knowingly hiring illegal workers," he said in a written statement. "At the same time, ICE will continue to arrest and process for removal any illegal workers who are found in the course of these worksite enforcement actions."

The prospect for employment in the U.S. continues to be one of the leading causes of illegal immigration, Chandler added.

"This is a clear message to the millions of businesses who play by the rules, but find themselves competing against others who enter the illegal labor market that help is on the way," Chandler stated.

Barbara Coe, who heads California Coalition for Immigration Reform, a Huntington Beach-based anti-illegal immigration group, called it an "excellent strategy."

"Quite obviously if the employer is going to get nailed, they are not going to be hiring a lot of the illegals and are going to be leaving hopefully to go back to their countries of origin," Coe said.

However, she said she's skeptical as to whether the effort will actually take place.

While Louvier and others in the Orange County business community have applauded the government's new direction, they also say they wonder how heavy-handed Washington bureaucrats will be with business owners who find themselves in a gray area.

"We think if they go after willful employers who are breaking the law and exploiting the system, that makes sense," said Anaheim Chamber of Commerce President Todd Ament. "If they go after those convoluted legal situations where the employer is trying to do everything they can to check the identity or are being given forged documents and go after those companies, that doesn't make sense and I don't think that's right.''

Some employers use E-Verify, a free federal program that checks the work status of new hires online by comparing information from an employee's I-9 form against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security databases.

However, the system isn't widely used by employers and it has come under fire from critics who contend it is full of errors that could hurt legal workers and potentially open up employers to lawsuits. The program is not mandatory in California.

In Orange County, the most recent and public workplace enforcement action took place in February 2007, netting about 20 workers in Anaheim, Orange and Irvine at places including ESPN Zone, House of Blues, La Brea Bakery, and Dave and Busters.

The pre-dawn roundup was part of a national Immigration Customs Enforcement action at restaurants in 17 states. It resulted in the prosecution of executives at janitorial and grounds-keeping service Rosenbaum-Cunningham International (RCI), a Florida-based company that also operated in Michigan. .

The investigation eventually resulted in the seizure of bank accounts, vehicles, boats, real estate and currency worth roughly $3.5 million and led to prison sentences as high as 10 years for RCI president Richard Rosenbaum.

"There was a lot of publicity and a lot of damage done as a result of those raids but overall there wasn't a particularly effective approach to interior enforcement," said Donald Kerwin, vice president of programs at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., a non-profit think tank that studies the movement of people worldwide.

Kerwin has co-authored studies that suggest that the prior administration targeted unauthorized workers more than those who employed them.

For instance, out of the estimated 6,000 workforce employment arrests in 2008, only 135 were employers, according to Department of Homeland statistics.

"The impact of these raids in certain communities has been absolutely devastating,'' he said. "The costs, particularly to the community, have been unbelievable. These massive work raids separated families, pulled kids out of schools…I don't think anyone is saying not to enforce the law but how to enforce it is the question -- how to enforce it most effectively and with the least collateral damage."

www.ocregister.com

Whatever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Target both the illegal aliens and the employers! D'oh!

Why on earth don't they get this? WHY, WHY, WHY???

Azzhats!

Knowingly

That is the loophole excuse that sunk enforcement after the last big amnesty in 1986. This gave rise to the flood of fraudulent documents

The objective is to stop the illegal aliens from coming to our country and get the ones who are here out of our country. I support arresting employers, but the objective is to arrest the workers and get them deported out of our country, so they send the message home, crime doesn't pay in America. So any of these groups whining about they arrested 6,000 people and only 135 of them were employers ... well, geez, Dude, do the math. 1 rotten illegal employer = 400 illegal aliens. Duh.

The way I see it is this: anything which pisses off the illegal alien advocacy is good news.

And, apparently, they are not very happy about any of this so that should tell us something at least.

Louvier, former president of the California Association of Specialty Contractors, said he still isn't worried but hopes officials won't penalize business owners who unknowingly hire illegal workers.

The solution for this is a federal program called E-verify. If the contractors are serious about hiring illegal aliens they should be backing this program.

Larry

Governor Bill Richardson of N. Mexico said, "If you want to get the Hispanic vote, you have to give them more social services." The democrats would rather expand their voter base to hispanics and illegals (who the democrats would like to give amnesty to) then do what is right for American citizens and legal immigrants.

This is the reason behind the Democratic party's unwillingness to tackle illegal immigration on all fronts.



Imagine what would happen if the following people were fined and went to jail:

1. Hospital STAFF for admitting illegals.

2. Landlords for renting to them.

3. Employers for giving them a job.

4. Social service agency employees for aiding and abetting illegals.

5. 7-11 cashiers for selling them beer.

6. etc., etc.

Then imagine a wall on the border, a real wall, from sea to shining sea.

Then imagine Social Security administration checking applications.

In other words, imagine if everyone did their job, the illegal alien problem would be fixed in a year, two tops. But the Democrats screw everyone over trying to expand their voter base.

The illegal problem

These business owners claim they are unknowingly hiring the illegals; this I don't think is true. When someone shows up wanting a job and they don't speak English, it's pretty clear their social security number should be verified.
Also, these employers get "no match" letters from the SSA when the numbers don't match the name-another clear sign for the employer that the employee is not legal.

jonhaloi:

Thanks for the viewpoint.

Your post is spot on... It all seems so academic if they would just do their jobs. I am cognizant of the Dem's strategy...

I pound my representatives in a respectful manner. I virtually beg them to force the various agencies to do their jobs. I call. I fax. I email. I won't quit. I can't quit. My conscience won't permit it.

I request they revisit the interpretation of the 14th Amendment. I ask them "If I were somehow born in your yard, would that make me a member of your family?"

Anyhoo, sorry for the slightly off topic drift. Keep up the pressure on the "elected officials"! (D)REAM Act needs a beat down yet again...