Last Updated: June 23. 2010 1:00AM
Manny Lopez
Labor Dept. aids and abets crime of illegal immigration
Agency provides a job help line for use by illegal immigrants

Illegal immigrants in America have long flouted the law. And why not, since it's seldom enforced.

Expect that to get worse now that the Obama administration is offering its assistance.


That's right, specifically the Department of Labor. The nation's top work force agency no longer is simply turning its head as hordes of people break the law and enter the United States each day, it now is offering a helping hand.

"Every worker in America has a right to be paid fairly whether documented or not (emphasis added), " Labor Secretary Hilda Solis says in a public service announcement posted on the agency's website. "So call us. It is free and confidential."


There it is, folks. Your tax dollars at work.

Solis is not imploring legal workers who are beaten or denied access to water or suffer some other abuse at the hands of an unscrupulous employer to call.

She's telling illegal immigrants in America -- criminals who have crossed the border without regard to our laws, often repeatedly -- that if they don't think they are being paid properly, they can get help from the federal government.

I'm not making this up. Go to the Department of Labor's website ( http://www.dol.gov/wecanhelp/psa.htm) and watch it for yourself.

Solis is joined in her call by actors Jimmy Smits, Esai Morales and Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers.

"You work hard and you have the right to be paid every cent of the money you earn," Morales says in another video. "Our laws protect you whether you're documented or not."

Improper advocacy
As a technical matter, the "wage and hour" division of the Department of Labor where the videos are being pitched may be within the law, but that doesn't make the campaign to help criminals confidentially rat out their employers -- and "protect" their illegally earned wages -- any less egregious.

Don't get me wrong, businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers should also be held accountable.

If legal workers aren't being paid properly or are working in sweatshops, let's protect them. But tax dollars shouldn't be used for government ads advocating further abuse of the system.

Motives unclear
I doubt this campaign is a sting operation to go after businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

It certainly isn't a ploy to round up border crossing scofflaws. After all, Attorney General Eric Holder is expected next week to file a lawsuit against Arizona's immigration law, bolstering the case for amnesty advocates.

The Labor Department didn't return calls to explain its position, and when I called the toll-free number that Solis said was "free and confidential" and told the nice woman who answered that I had questions about using tax dollars to produce these videos to help criminals get more money, she asked me a lot of questions about who I was and why I was calling.

Perhaps if I had said I was an illegal immigrant I would have gotten faster answers.

Manny Lopez is opinion page editor of The Detroit News.

http://detnews.com/article/20100623/OPI ... mmigration