Thread: ICE Gears up to start busting those who employ entrants

Published: 10.05.2006

Immigration gears up to start busting those who employ entrants
By Thomas Stauffer
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
By the numbers
11 million
Estimated number of illegal residents in the U.S.
7.2 million
Estimated number of illegal residents working in the U.S.
668
The number of business owners or managers arrested nationwide for employing undocumented workers, through August of the federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
143
Business owners or managers arrested in the seven prior years combined.
Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Immigration officials have the funding and personnel to bust Arizona businesses that willingly hire illegal workers and are on the verge of at least one criminal indictment of a major state employer, a spokesman said.
"We have what I would prefer to characterize as a fortunate change in circumstances where we finally have the personnel, budget and staff to enable us to enforce laws that should have always been enforced," said Russell "Pete" Ahr, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix.
"I can't give away the whole house here, but we've got very significant investigations open in Phoenix, Tucson and employers on the border. We're reaching a point where at least one of them is imminent."
Ahr said federal authorities have long faced "chronic shortages" in funding and personnel and were forced to prioritize enforcement to only the most egregious offenders. But a new commitment to worksite enforcement will soon be evident, he said.
"In the very foreseeable future, there are going to be significant work-site cases going down in Arizona," he said. "The days when you can run illegals in and out of your business with complete impunity are going to come to a close."
The director of research for a Washington, D.C.-based group that favors tighter immigration controls said any real increase in work-site enforcement needs to be put in perspective.
"Yeah, they're stepping up a part of the enforcement, but they're stepping it up from almost zero, so anything is improvement," said Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies.
The increase in work-site enforcement amounts to a strategy on the part of the Bush administration to appear tough on illegal immigration, while at the same time seeking acceptance for broadening guest-worker programs and granting amnesty to illegal workers, said Mark Krikorian, the center's executive direc-tor.
"The strategy is a spoonful of enforcement helps the amnesty go down," Krikorian said.
While Ahr refrained from naming specific companies or industries or a timeline for when indictments could be announced, he cited three examples of better enforcement strategies that have been developed since 2005:
● A fugitive-operations unit to pursue illegal entrants who have not complied with orders to leave the country;
● A compliance-enforcement unit that focuses on those who came to the U.S. through legal channels but who have since become illegal due to expired visas or violations of the stipulations of their visas;
● A reorganized employer-sanctions unit that is "aggressively focused" on investigations that can result in criminal indictments.
Experience has shown that fines against employers who hired illegal workers did not serve as a deterrent, which has prompted a shift from fines to criminal indictments, Ahr said.
Increased enforcement by ICE will target employers who willfully hire illegal workers, as opposed to business owners who hire illegal workers due to the use of fraudulent documents, he said.
"We're focusing intensive investigations against employers who represent the worst examples, and by that I mean an employer who consistently and systematically seeks and actively recruits persons they already know are undocumented aliens," he said. "We want to distinguish between those guys and honest employers who may be employing illegals and truthfully don't know they're doing it."
Fake social security cards seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection show the cards' complex details. By the numbers
11 million
Estimated number of illegal residents in the U.S.
7.2 million
Estimated number of illegal residents working in the U.S.
668
The number of business owners or managers arrested nationwide for employing undocumented workers, through August of the federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
143
Business owners or managers arrested in the seven prior years combined.
Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
● Contact reporter Thomas Stauffer at 573-4197 or tstauffer@azstarnet.com.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/149641

Messing with these little companies will do nothing. If they were serious about enforcing the laws all they would have to do is to hit a couple of big businesses and it would stop.

"gears up to start" says it all. How many years has INS been starting? How long before they do anything? The results are poor at best.

The big companies in this area who manipulate wages to their liking have been featured on national new shows for the practice. That was years ago. Since these big companies claim failure over increased wages, state government protects farms by catering to processing businesses to prevent impact to the raw product producers. Of course the farms and everyone else suffer from the bending of law and the state covers with increased taxes from people paying into the system.

The issue has been allowed to grow for so long that it has become deep rooted (by plan). Maybe it is time for States to take over economic critical big businesses that hire illegal immigrants to keep local economy running until proper competition can be re-established in place of monopolies running at high level organized crime. Too many business (including retail, colleges, etc) have shifted reliance to illegal immigrants. Removing bilingual packaging, signage and advertising would set the tone that there is unity in one language. Why isn't taking advantage of a problem by making it easier for a problem to exist considered aiding the problem?

A secondary issue is communities have allowed themselves to be extended into bank loans (involving illegal imigrants) to move low cost housing and promote construction (more loans) to people selling out of the low cost housing. Suddenly pulling illegal imigrants would put hardship on these banks and businesses. But to a degree, they have it coming for taking advantage of illegal activity. Still, the communities will be hard hit in a high exodus.

Point is that we also need to deal with the impact, quit trying to profit from the problem and not shoot ourselves in the foot. Pecking at the bottom sends a message to the top. The top just has to realize change is coming and best be on the right side of the change. They need to do their own house keeping before ICE gets there...provided they "start".

Welcome. I agree with alot of what you're saying.

Seems they just can't get to the problem or do anything that matters to fix the problem.

Busting a kid for having 2 asprins at school isn't doing squat for the "war on drugs" when the border is wide open and drug cartels are going strong. Strip searching a student for possible drugs isn't helping the "war on drugs" and makes getting the issue of child molestors even harder to monitor. Busting an old lady for hiring an illegal to mow her lawn isn't going to curb illegal immigration when major companies are funding it. Busting a kid for a doodle that depicts a teacher in an unflattering way isn't going to stop the "war on terror". We dressed our kids like clones and that hasn't stopped the gangs. We've become more aware of our streets and took the risk to report wrong doings and nothing is done except put ourselves and our families in jeopardy for retaliation or be called racist. All symptoms of a much deeper problem.

"We have what I would prefer to characterize as a fortunate change in circumstances where we finally have the personnel, budget and staff to enable us to enforce laws that should have always been enforced," said Russell "Pete" Ahr, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix.

They suddenly have the money and the people to do their job? I must have missed something somewhere.

The question still standing is: What guarantees do we have that ICE will actually perform their job as opposed to making up excuses (or merely shrugging their shoulders) when they fail to get even one illegal out of the country but instead allow her to stay indefinitely in a church?

I'll believe it when I start seeing results.