Thread: GA: Gwinnett companies hiring illegal immigrants avoid...

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Gwinnett companies hiring illegal immigrants avoid scrutiny

By MARY LOU PICKEL, BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/08/07

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have moved to Gwinnett County in recent years, drawn by an abundance of jobs at hotels, restaurants and construction sites.

Their arrival has helped transform a county long cast in black and white. Now one in four people in Gwinnett was born abroad — a higher proportion than any other county in metro Atlanta. Their numbers include an undetermined number of illegal immigrants working numerous jobs.

It's a violation of federal law to knowingly hire an illegal immigrant, but companies that do so in Gwinnett and beyond hardly ever get in trouble.

Immigration authorities say they use limited resources to protect national security and target employers who abuse immigrants, skirt tax laws or forge documents.

"The sheer volume of our work requires us to prioritize our response among our investigative duties," said Ken Smith, special agent in charge of the Atlanta office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In the 1990s, the feds fined hundreds of companies a year for hiring illegal immigrants, but the number of such fine notices plummeted from 1,461 in 1992 to three in 2004.

Federal authorities say the drop is due, in large part, to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The attacks shifted the focus of immigration work site enforcement toward protecting sensitive targets, such as airports and nuclear power plants, and away from cracking down on average employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The feds say now they also target employers who commit crimes, such as abusing workers or committing fraud.

The new focus led authorities to detain seven people in Gwinnett County in February.

Agents detained four janitors at Jillian's restaurant on Sugarloaf Parkway in Lawrenceville and three janitors at Dave & Buster's on Venture Drive in Duluth.

The seven were among nearly 200 suspected illegal immigrants nationwide who were taken into custody amid a national investigation into the janitorial-services company that employed them, Rosenbaum-Cunningham International Inc. of Palm Beach, Fla.

The government charged the company with evading $18.6 million in employment taxes.

As a result of the government's focus on national security and cases involving crime, most businesses that hire illegal immigrants in Gwinnett County and beyond rarely get in trouble for doing so.

Nationwide, local governments, including Gwinnett, have stepped into the void with policies of their own.

"The federal government has obviously ignored the problem for too long," said Gwinnett Commissioner Lorraine Green.

Green pushed a change in Gwinnett's contracting policies in June that requires companies with county contracts to verify that their new hires can legally work in the United States.

Yet the new statute has no effect whatsoever on many employers in Gwinnett that don't seek county contracts.


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FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION IN GWINNETT

Reliable estimates of the illegal immigrant population are elusive. Here's a look at the foreign-born population in Gwinnett and a few nearby counties, which includes illegal immigrants as well as foreign-born U.S. citizens and immigrants who are in the United States legally.




One in four people in Gwinnett were born outside the United States




County
Foreign-Born
Total population
Foreign born (% of total)


Gwinnett
185,449
757,104
24.5


DeKalb
115,997
732,602
15.8


Cobb
102,184
679,325
15


Fulton
117,007
960,009
12.2



How many foreign-born residents are U.S. citizens?



County
Naturalized /U.S. citizens
Non-citizens


Gwinnett
31.4%
68.6%


DeKalb
32.6%
67.5%


Cobb
32.5%
67.5%


Fulton
27.6%
72.5%




Where foreign-born Gwinnett County residents were born:\

• Latin America: 96,983 (52.3% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• Asia: 54,996 (29.7% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• Europe: 16,333 (8.8% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• Africa: 13,981 (7.5% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• North America*: 2,940 (1.6% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• Oceania: 216 (0.1% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

SOURCE: U.S.Census Bureau (2006 estimates)

* Canada and some islands

www.ajc.com

There could be a simple fix to the lack of fear of illegal aliens or those who hire them in Gwinnett County. Start making the calls to the IRS fraud hotline and to the Social Security fraud number and something might break loose and things start changing.

Get on local blogs and suggest this to others. Encourage employees to whistleblow on their employers. You can connect the IRS and Soc. Security anonymously.


Psalm 91

Get on local blogs and suggest this to others.

COUNT ME IN. THIS IS ALWAYS AN EXCELLENT WAY TO FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE AND MOBILIZE THEM. LETS GET TO WORK.

GeorgiaPeach,
You are right! There is a lack of fear. People need to know that they can make an anonymous call and report the law breaking employers.

I called a small landscaping company to come out to my home and give me an estimate on doing some fall work in my yard. I asked him if he uses illegals or hispanics. His response to me was that he did use hispanics but they are legal or have a green card. I asked him how he knew they were legal and he said because you can tell if the card or drivers lic. is a fake.
I told him that if they came to my house they would not do the work and that his company would not do the work.
I'm going to call anyway and say that I believe this company is hiring illegals.

Well, we do know that document fraud is rampant and that many employers do know or they do suspect that their workforce is illegal or otherwise they would be paying a real wage to attract American citizens and legal residents that must make a wage to live and support a family if necessary. Illegal aliens are living piled on top of one another in one home or one apartment and they are paying a pittance to rent a space.

Employees who work alongside suspected illegal aliens will generally know and volunteer to tell you, so it is good to have as much accurate information as you can when you call ICE, the IRS, the FBI or Soc. Security Administration. Names, numbers of suspected illegal aliens, addresses, tag numbers, hours of business, etc. will help in making a report.

When you contact officials say that you suspect they hire illegal aliens if you do not know for a FACT that the person or business does for sure.

It is good to ask employers or others whose services you desire to use if they hire illegal aliens. Let them know we are paying attention and that we do not want this occurring.

Psalm 91

For what this guy wanted me to pay to have this work done he can afford to pay American citizens a decent wage!

As you know rwright, he profits more when he pays less to the illegal aliens, without passing the benefit on to others. This is the whole idea of the Corporate businesses and others who use illegal alien labor. They simply want us to pick up the tab for free healthcare, education, incarceration and crime while their profits grow larger.



Psalm 91

Support public subsidies for displaced American citizen workers to work in an ICE Auxiliary.