Targeting staffing agencies works for law enforcement
By Jason Cato
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, December 26, 2008


The federal case against the owners of Pittsburgh-area staffing agencies accused of illegally hiring more than 100 immigrants from Eastern Europe represents the ideal method for combating the problem, say people on both sides of the immigration debate.

"Going after employers is by far the most effective way to use federal enforcement to combat employment of people here illegally," said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with Washington-based think tank Migration Policy Institute and a former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

For the past several years, the Bush administration has cracked down on illegal foreign workers, most notably through workplace raids that rounded up thousands of immigrants. Some of the larger raids occurred in May at a kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa, which resulted in 300 arrests, and a Houston-based pallet company that had more than 1,100 illegal workers arrested at its plants nationwide in 2006. That company, IFCO Systems North America, last week reached a $20.7 million settlement with the government.

The U.S. Attorney's Office this month unsealed indictments against six men, including two who ran a number of businesses in Allegheny County, for knowingly hiring workers from Russia, Ukraine, Estonia and Lithuania even though the workers did not have valid work visas. The workers were provided housing and transportation to work sites in Pittsburgh, Monroeville and Ohio.

A federal judge earlier this week arraigned Gregory Kucher, 62, and Yaroslaw Rochniak, 51, both of Brooklyn, N.Y., on 37 charges of conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens, money laundering and tax evasion. Kucher and Rochniak are accused of running four businesses, out of a Green Tree apartment, that were involved in the ring.

"This sounds to me like it's the kind of case where prosecutors have a chance at winning," Meissner said. "A lot of us hope the next administration will pursue those kinds of cases and put heat on employers."

President-elect Barack Obama has said he supports immigration reform, including an expanded guest-worker program and legalizing workers already in the United States. Promises to address those issues within his first year in office, however, might not be feasible because of the economic crisis he will inherit Jan. 20, Meissner and others said.

"This is a problem that's not going to go away on its own, and I do think it's something they're going to address," said Michele Waslin, a senior research analyst with the Immigration Policy Center in Washington. "But the economy is going to be a big factor in the timing."

Waslin's organization supports immigration reform, including fewer workplace raids, and believes efforts to crack down on illegal workers largely has not worked.

"There is a lot of pressure from the American people to do something about the broken immigration system," Waslin said.

The Center for Immigration Studies supports stricter controls on all immigration and believes recent enforcement efforts have worked to reduce illegal immigration, said executive director Mark Krikorian. The Pew Hispanic Center reported in October that there were about 11.9 million illegal immigrants in the country, about 500,000 fewer than its 2007 estimate.

Krikorian attributed the drop first to workplace enforcement, then the economy. He applauded federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh for their efforts.

"It's starting to have an effect," Krikorian said.

However, he questioned whether the Obama administration will continue going after employers who knowingly hire illegal workers and whether immigration reform will be possible in the near-term.

"Calls for reductions in legal immigration and tougher measures against illegal immigration are going to get louder as the economic situation gets worse," Krikorian said.

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