Thread: Fish in a barrel

Fish in a barrel
ICE raids on workplaces net undocumented workers while letting most employers off the hook
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Comments (7)

This year the Fourth of July dawns on a nation deeply divided over immigration policy. Rounding up millions of illegal immigrants, as many Americans wish for, is not physically possible and, if it were, would drive the U.S. economy straight into the tank.

In Houston, a recent raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on an East End rag factory resulted in the detention of 166 women suspected of being undocumented workers, including 10 who were pregnant. The lines of Action Rag employees marched to ICE vans made for a dramatic media photo-op, but missing from the show were the company managers who had hired them.

ICE Special Agent Bob Rutt told the Chronicle the arrests of the women were "a collateral part" of an investigation targeting the employer. Yet, in a previous raid on Shipley's Do-Nuts in Houston in April where 20 workers were detained, no managers or company officials were arrested.

A week after the raid on Action Rags, several factory owners and managers were arrested and charged with knowingly hiring illegals. But that's atypical of ICE raids, reports Chronicle Washington Bureau reporter Stewart M. Powell. Although more than 3,700 undocumented workers have been swept up in ICE raids over the last eight months, only 75 owners or managers of the firms that employed them have been charged with knowingly hiring illegal aliens. That's about 2 percent of those arrested.

Immigration officials told Powell that it is legally difficult to prove employers knew their workers' status, and arresting them could require complex, lengthy investigations. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was equally unenthusiastic when asked about prosecuting employers, noting that when widespread hiring of illegals is suspected, "We're going to try to build a case against the employer if there's a case to be built."

As U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, recognizes, raids that scoop up a few hundred undocumented workers in a city that is home to a quarter-million while largely ignoring their bosses accomplish little. He called the strategy a waste of time if "we don't go after the business owners who are knowingly hiring illegals."

Several hundred ICE agents and helicopters were involved in the Action Rags raid, an astonishing display of scarce law enforcement manpower to arrest a crowd of women with no criminal records. Afterward, nearly half of those detained were released for humanitarian reasons, including pregnancy or their status as sole caregivers of children. Such purposeless use of resources prompted congressional leaders to press the Bush administration to focus enforcement on illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes rather than on workers.

Some members of Congress have suggested that the real thrust of the ICE raids is to put pressure on Congress from local business leaders and elected officials to enact an immigration reform package that the White House unsuccessfully sought last year. If so, the strategy is clumsy, inhumane and likely to further poison the political atmosphere rather than produce reform.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/edi ... 70874.html

Taxpayers in our country pay more than $100 billion every year on health care and other services for illegal immigrants, including education, law enforcement costs, and housing.
-U.S. Congressman Dean Heller-Jan. 2008

Are you nuts, Houston Chronicle?!? Arresting and deporting millions of illegal aliens IS THE ANSWER. And contrary to your wailing bleeding heart, our economy won't tank, it will have been relieved of over $100 billion in cost.

What the Chronicle's myopia doesn't see, I will clarify:

By the very nature of being an illegal alien, you cannot make a positive contribution to the community or economy. The lawbreaking, criminal background they engaged in to get here, the continued lawbreaking to remain and operate here using fraudulent, fictitious and stolen ID's avoiding paying taxes or, if paying any at all utilizing maximum and untrue deductions so tax take from paychecks is minimal and availing themselves to public services including health care, education, housing assistance, welfare and food stamps ARE NOT POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE COMMUNITY OR OUR ECONOMY.

MANDATE THE ENFORCEMENT OF E-VERIFY FOR ALL EMPLOYEES!!!

Southwest Border Facts and Figures
http://www.capsweb.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=43

As U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, recognizes, raids that scoop up a few hundred undocumented workers in a city that is home to a quarter-million while largely ignoring their bosses accomplish little. He called the strategy a waste of time if "we don't go after the business owners who are knowingly hiring illegals."

Rep Poe has it right. The raids and deporting illegal aliens is working, but its a slow process. Lawmakers need to go after the businesses that hire illegals and give these employers stiff mandatory fines and sentences. Employers would save alot of time, harrassment, and could prevent the raids by simply using E-VERIFY.