Thread: Sen. Wilder says he does not employ illegal immigrants

Wilder says he does not employ illegal immigrants
By John Rodgers, jrodgers@nashvillecitypaper.com
April 11, 2007

Former lieutenant governor and current Sen. John Wilder said Tuesday that as far as he knows, he does not employ illegal immigrants on his West Tennessee-based cotton gin.

The clarification comes one day after he declared he had a conflict of interest on a bill relating to the employment of illegal immigrants.

Monday, on the Senate floor, Wilder declared the Senate’s “Rule 13,” which lawmakers are supposed to declare when they have a conflict of interest on a particular piece of legislation.

“I couldn’t run my cotton gin without Mexican help and I’ve done this for a long time,” Wilder (D-Mason) told his Senate colleagues Monday.

Later during Monday’s floor session, Wilder extrapolated on his previous comment:

“Let me apologize. Because of my personal relationship with these employees that we’ve had for these many years that have come back year in and year out, it’s personal, and that’s one reason I feel like I do. They are trustworthy. They work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

“They are hard-working people and they are good people and they are Christian people and they are family people and that’s the reason I feel like I do.”

Not one of Wilder’s Senate colleagues asked the 85-year-old Wilder for an explanation Monday. No one else in the body publicly declared that they had a conflict of interest.

Asked Tuesday whether he actually does employ illegal immigrants on his West Tennessee cotton gin, Wilder said he employs “Mexican workers” who are from “somewhere down there in Mexico,” but they are “not illegal people.”

“We’ve never had anybody say anybody’s illegal,” Wilder told The City Paper. “We’ve been doing it a long time, and a lot of them come back often and so forth.”

Wilder said his son, John Shelton Wilder Jr., run the cotton gin, which uses seasonal workers for about two-month periods.

“As far as I know, it’s not illegal,” Wilder said.

Sen. Jack Johnson (R-Brentwood), the sponsor of the bill, said he didn’t know why Wilder declared that he had a conflict of interest.

Johnson’s bill would require all employers to verify their employees’ immigration status during the hiring process by using a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Internet database, which is currently in the pilot stage.

If Johnson’s bill passed, Tennessee would be the only state in the nation to require its employers to use the system to verify legal status.

“My constituents are telling me, ‘I’m tired of you waiting on the federal government, they’ve let us down, let’s do something about Tennessee,’ ” Johnson said.

The bill, however, does not impose state punishments on those caught hiring illegal immigrants.


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Sounds like a typical political gas bag. Of course they're illegal....and he knows it.

Doesn't want to give up his cheap labor you know!

“We’ve never had anybody say anybody’s illegal,” Wilder told The City Paper. “We’ve been doing it a long time, and a lot of them come back often and so forth.”

Yeah, like they're going to tell you that they're illegal aliens. Looks like the senator uses the "don't ask, don't tell" system.

Come on, someone from Tennessee needs to report this guy to ICE. Then we'll see how serious ICE is about enforcing the law.