The illegals crackdown

Pittsburgh Tribune Review
November 23, 2009

Consequences particularly harmful to a U.S. work force hit hard by high unemployment make clear that initial optimism about the Obama administration's change in immigration enforcement emphasis was unwarranted.

With fewer raids arresting illegals, too many illegals are keeping jobs that Americans otherwise would hold. Criminal and administrative arrests, indictments and convictions of illegals stemming from work-site enforcement all fell by more than 50 percent from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009.

Audits of another 1,000 businesses' hiring documents can lead to fines but will do little, if anything, for American workers who need jobs now. Such fines also fail to deter hiring of illegals by too many employers who consider such penalties just another cost of doing business.

The new data come just days after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared border security has improved enough that Congress should focus on one of the president's stated 2010 goals: creating a new path toward legalization for illegals. Amnesty is a bad idea -- period.

But with hundreds of thousands of illegals continuing to elude Ms. Napolitano's vaunted "border security" and adding to unemployed Americans' woes, legalizing illegals is utterly preposterous.

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