Immigration and Airline Safety: A Bad Combination

Posted by Bobby Eberle
July 8, 2009 at 7:11 am

Most of the time when one thinks about illegal aliens and the services being performed by them, a number of jobs come to mind. Perhaps we think of construction or farm labor or maybe food service. In the list floating around in your head, does the job of airplane mechanic come to mind? It should.

In a new investigation of airline mechanics by a television station in Dallas, Texas, reporters found that aliens are being brought into the country so that they can be paid less than American workers. However, their experience "may be in question," and many cannot speak English to relay problems to their supervisors.


As noted in the report by WFAA-TV in Dallas, the investigation "has found hundreds of mechanics who are imported into the U.S. to fix aircraft using legal visas. They are brought in to save money because they can be paid less than American workers, but they may not speak English and may not be able to communicate with their supervisors."

They start out with a legal visa, but once it expires, many do not leave.

Aircraft workers enter the United States on TN visas and H2 visas. That gains them a document which lets them file for a Social Security number.

Once they have that, immigration lawyer Michelle Scopellite says it's possible for them to become permanent — but illegal — residents of the United States.

"They can use that number for as long as somebody would give them a job, without everifying whether they have the right to work or not," Scopellite said, "and there are a number of employers who do not verify."

Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) wants the FAA to be investigated because of these practices. In the report, Poe notes, ""We understand that 60 percent of the people in the United States illegally got here legally. ... Once they're here, they get in the work force, they move around freely without anybody being concerned about who they are."

In a follow-up report, http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=376361 the WFAA looked into one of the companies responsible for importing these workers into the United States. The investigators found that these companies "are so eager to make money, they are overstating their qualifications." The result "may be a threat to safety made worse by lax enforcement of immigration laws."

++ Check out the follow-up video here http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=376361

As I have written many times, illegal immigration is wrong, and we need to get rid of our so-called leaders in Washington who keep trying to push amnesty (which they call "immigration reform") down our throats. We see jobs such as construction and farm labor being taken by people who are not Americans... now we see jobs such as aircraft repair going to people whose resumes are padded and who may not be up to the task.

I'm all for a company making a buck, but that dollar must be earned legally and not at the expense of American safety. We aren't talking about picking a tomato here... we are talking about the structural safety of the airplane in which you may be flying tomorrow or next week.

http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/?p=1710