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Keep pressure on at workplace
Best strategy against illegal immigration is to go after businesses, cut off demand


Published on: 08/06/06

The Bush administration's newfound interest in enforcing laws against hiring illegal immigrants is no doubt politically expedient.

But it is also the right thing to do.

In the House debate late last year over its get-tough-on-illegals approach to immigration reform, and in the more recent Senate debate on the issue, far too little attention was paid to what is really causing the huge influx of undocumented workers — American employers who are exploiting immigrants for cheap labor.

Instead of discussing substantive reforms to out-of-date policies, the nation has been treated to recurring waves of immigrant bashing. The phony "hearings" orchestrated by the House leadership this summer — two of which are coming up this month in Dalton and Gainesville — are designed to whip up anti-immigrant sentiment and convince voters that the real problem is border security and illegal immigrants who contribute too little and demand too much.

Spending on border security has tripled over the last decade and is set to increase by at least another 50 percent by 2012. Yet the illegal immigrants and their families keep coming.

That tidal wave of illegal immigrants — 12 million nationally and up to 800,000 in Georgia — has disrupted communities. Dozens of Georgia school districts, county health departments and other local government agencies have to shoulder the burden of providing social services needed by the low-wage immigrants and their families.

The response to all this from Washington, including all of the Republicans in Georgia's congressional delegation, is still more talk of hiring even more Border Patrol agents to deploy against wannabe chicken plant workers, roofers, landscapers and their children.

In contrast, the recent deployment of more workforce agents by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency holds more promise at getting to the root of the problem.

Last month, customs agents busted the Garcia Labor Co., a temporary worker firm in Cincinnati that is accused of providing thousands of low-wage, illegal workers to businesses from Pennsylvania to Texas. The 40-count indictment against the company, including racketeering and money-laundering charges, should send a shiver through all big businesses that hire contractors to find cheap, illegal laborers.

If convicted on all counts, the owner of the company, Maximino Garcia, could serve 20 years, forfeit his company headquarters and pay a fine of $12 million. Not that long ago, Garcia might have gotten off with a citation and a civil fine and had a handful of his illegal workers deported. That is, if any action had been taken against him at all.

In all of 2003, according to Senate testimony, the customs enforcement agency reported levying only three civil fines for workplace hiring, down from 417 in 1999. Customs officials acknowledged that fines alone have never been an effective deterrent. Companies simply built the fines into their cost of doing business.

But already this year, the agency has pressed charges against 445 employers and deported about 2,700 workers as a result of renewed enforcement efforts. The action against Garcia Labor is typical of what is happening.

Large employers are attempting to shield themselves from responsibility by contracting with temporary labor firms, which are responsible for verifying their workers' legal status. In some cases the illegal workers pay the temporary labor firms to smuggle them across the border and pay off the debt by turning over some of their wages.

Over a six-year period, Garcia Labor sent about 1,000 illegal immigrants to sort freight for ABX Air, a cargo company in Wilmington, Ohio. According to the indictment, the Social Security Administration warned Garcia that 186 of its employees working at ABX Air had mismatched Social Security numbers, but the company continued to supply laborers to the cargo firm.

While the latest indictment is against Garcia Labor, an employment manager for ABX has already pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of hiring illegal immigrants and agreed to a $10,000 fine.

In April, similar charges were brought against temporary worker firms in Canton, Ohio. That same month, agents also rounded up nearly 1,200 workers at IFCO Systems plants in 26 states, including Georgia, and arrested seven company executives for allegedly conspiring to recruit illegal workers and provide them phony documents. In June, customs enforcement said it would start requiring employers to investigate mismatched Social Security numbers and will hold them responsible if they continue to employ workers who cannot explain the discrepancy.

The difference between the current enforcement effort and those in the past is that employers, specifically the big bosses, are now the target. The fines they would have to pay if found guilty would almost pay for the enforcement effort.

The question now is whether the newly enhanced enforcement effort is a permanent commitment or just a temporary response to a political situation. The president, who has backed a comprehensive reform approach similar to that passed by the Senate, is trying to persuade the House to go along with the Senate proposal. Some of his critics fear that this new get-tough approach toward workplace enforcement is merely designed to appease conservative House members until a bill is passed.

Let's hope not. The most serious abuses of immigration law are taking place in the payroll offices of large American employers who have flouted the law for years to suppress wages and enhance their profits. That has to change, regardless of what Congress does.

— Mike King, for the editorial board (mking@ajc.com)