The RealPolitik of Illegal Immigration
Villaraigosa warns ICE to back off immigration raids

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is asking federal officials to rethink their policy on workplace immigration crackdowns that involve established businesses and to focus on employers that mistreat workers instead.

The mayor said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that work-site raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have "severe and long-lasting effects" on the local economy, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
It's the same-old same-old political dance. Citizens scream for immigration enforcement, hoping to cut down on tax expenditures on illegals and open up employment some for themselves. Feds and ICE comply, raiding workplaces with high levels of "undocumented workers." Employers who have their political donations paid up get on the phone to their favorite politicians, screaming about how their honest and scrupulous and upstanding businesses are being hurt badly for having a very very few people of questionable status slip by the documentation process with phony papers...and politicians scream bloody murder to agency heads. In the more usual process, that means Congresscritters leaning on ICE to leave their big donor businesses alone, or risk funding cuts and endless committee hearings on "agency abuses."

But it's an election year and illegal immigration is a hot-button issue with the Great Middle, so Congresscritters are a little reluctant to do too much leaning right now. Result? Villaraigosa goes on point, much as Michael Bloomberg did during the immigration-bill debates two years ago. Because our largest metros truly DO depend on exploiting the hell out of illegal immigants to maintain their economies, and businesses that do so DO make sizable ongoing donations to local politicians.

And yes, that truly DOES come at a goodly cost to their (our) own (legal) underclasses. It depresses wages and employment opportunities for the (legal) poor of their own area. So how upstanding and honest and responsible are some fo these businesses being raided?

More than 130 undocumented workers were arrested at a San Fernando Valley manufacturing company in February and over 60 workers were arrested for immigration violations at South Bay-area warehouses last week.

...Villaraigosa accused federal officials of targeting "established, responsible employers" in industries that rely on "workforces that include undocumented immigrants."

"In these industries, including most areas of manufacturing, even the most scrupulous and responsible employers have no choice but to rely on workers whose documentation, while facially valid, may raise questions about their lawful presence," he wrote in the March 27 letter.
So "scrupulous and responsible" that 130 "undocumented workers" slipped past the screens at that one plant, a quarter or more of that "established, responsible employers" entire workforce.

As usual, follow the money, and don't believe what the politicians say.
http://stubbornfacts.us/domestic_policy ... mmigration