Thread: Illegal Hiring Penalties Fall

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/bu ... 962628.htm
Posted on Thu, Jun. 23, 2005

Illegal-hiring penalties fall

Agency's focus since 9/11 has been protection of U.S. infrastructure
By Lisa Friedman
LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS

WASHINGTON - Penalties against employers who hire illegal immigrants have all but disappeared since 1999, a federal homeland security investigator told Congress.

Three U.S. employers were threatened with sanctions in 2004, compared with 162 the previous year and 417 in 1999, Richard M. Stana, director of the homeland security and justice team at the Government Accountability Office, testified Tuesday.

Meanwhile, he said, the number of agents devoted to enforcing employer sanctions has dropped by more than half.

"Worksite enforcement has been a low priority," Stana told a House Judiciary Committee panel on immigration.

A top reason, he said, has been high-level decisions since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to devote immigration enforcement resources toward protecting critical U.S. infrastructure, such as airports and nuclear plants.

But although those efforts have led to increased deportations, no employers who were found to have hired the illegal immigrants faced any kind of financial penalty.

He said that a program called Operation Tarmac, in which the Justice Department conducted sweeps of airport workers, identified 1,000 undocumented workers "but perhaps not as many terrorists as they thought they might identify."

The focus on national security-related investigations, Stana said, "has taken resources away from workplace enforcement."

Sanctions as well as workplace arrests of illegal immigrants have fluctuated since the attacks, dipping sharply in 2002, rising again a year later and deflating once more in 2004.

Also contributing to the lax enforcement, Stana said, is the availability of fraudulent Social Security cards and other documents. Stana said some employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers avoid sanctions by going through the motions of compliance: certifying to federal authorities that they have reviewed work eligibility documents that appear genuine.

Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., said the worker sanction program has "failed dramatically," adding, "it's not very easy for something to succeed if it's never implemented."

Front Pager!

http://www.alipac.us/article-490--0-0.html

AIRPORT SECURITY!!

Pleeeeease. Guess who is in charge of Airport Security? Foreign workers who can barely speak English.

EXAMPLE:

I just returned from Dallas...a business trip....hadn't flown for a while.

While digging for my driver's license my cigarettes and bic lighter fell out and airport security took the lighter. On April 14 a new security procedure was implemented to prevent having lighters and matches on airplanes. Disgusted, I challenged and inquired what, why, how, when and where. I usually need a cig on the curb as soon as I get off the plane. Realizing that without a lighter, this will be problematic, I was very annoyed.

So, the Hispanic Security Person who did not speak good English showed me the sign past his station right about the place where you enter the metal detector and I'm reading it and he says, "see you can take matches on board" "just not the lighters". I read the sign and said, "it says "LIGHTERS AND MATCHES ARE CURRENTLY NOT ALLOWED".

He says, "right...matches are currently allowed".

I clenched my jaw, rolled my eyes, and realized....as I walked through the metal detector that....we are alone in a foreign land and completely on our own. All this money being wasted on airport security being performed by foreign workers makes us MORE VULNERABLE, NOT SAFER.

I'm not sure what the lighters and matches have to do with anything unless they are afraid they would be used to light a bomb, which only goes to show....they fully expect a bomb could get on board and are "hoping" they are using some ancient ignition technology involving lighters and matches and by keeping the lighters and matches off the plane, would never be able to ignite the bomb that did get on.

THE IRONY AND INCOMPETENCY OF THE POLICY....gave me a headache that lasted 3 days!!

Dont yo remember the case in which a suicide bomber was found to have plastique hidden in his sneakers. He was trying to light a fiber fuse but could not get his lighter to work easily. He was caught before it did.

In the absence of pursuit and penalties on employers of the illegal aliens by the ICE we are left to go after them by private civil action.

Richard, I do remember that. Both the "bomber" and the "explosive" got on the plane. I think that's why we take off our shoes now and send them through the baggage check. I didn't remember about the lighter. Well...anyway, now, hopefully the baggage check of the shoes will prevent the explosive from getting on the plane in shoes.

And you're right...I think private civil action appears the first line of defense and resolution at this point.

I no longer fly period. I won’t take off my shoes and walk where thousands of dirty feet have been. Can you say disease?

I thought the SAME thing and when I got back and told my Mom and ex about it, they both went, MY GOD ATHLETES FOOT, and my ex added or God knows what else.

It's Third World.

Better idea? Keep the people out of the country to begin with!!

Novel idea? Apparently.

Hey, JP, maybe ALIPAC can "copyright" this innovation to our political system!!

Because the law only requires employers to check documents, but not determine their authenticity, illegals have continued to be hired using fraudulent papers – and employers have been able to plead ignorance.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there were 7 million undocumented workers in the U.S. last year – 55 percent of whom were hired using documents with fabricated or stolen Social Security numbers, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

The government's web-based employment verification program could seriously reduce those numbers, say those who want the program mandatory.

"If it's applied to everyone, all the businesses would be on an even playing field," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., research organization that favors tighter limits on immigration.

"That's the real problem with this," adds Thompson, of Bar-S. "If a person is illegal and doesn't have the proper documents, then they just go down the road to the next employer."

Nationally, only 4,385 companies of the 5.7 million counted by the U.S. Census are using the program, says Chris Bentley, spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – less that 1/10 of 1 percent of all employers.

They have to want to stop it!

Until their political careers are routinely trashed, it will be same ole, same ole!

The President's Song (sung to the tune of the scare crow in the wizard of oz)

I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the lobbyists
Consultin' with Carl Rove.
And my head I'd be scratchin' while
my thoughts were busy hatchin' a bunch of new crapola
If I only had a brain.
I'd unravel every riddle for any individ'le,
In need of cheap labor.
With the thoughts I'll be thinkin'
I could be a reverse Lincoln
If I only had a brain.
Oh, I could tell you why The Illegals come here by hoards.
I could think of payoffs I never thunk before.
And then I'd sit, and count my money some more.
I would not be just a nothin' my head all full of stuffin'
My pockets full of cash.
I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry,
If I only had a brain.

Defens, what a neat song! BRAVO!!