Posted on 08/04/2008 5:33:09 AM PDT by theothercheek
Last May’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid of kosher meatpacking plant Agriprocessors in Postville, IA, not only found that nearly half the employees at Agriprocessors were found to be illegal immigrants, and 20 of the 389 who were rounded up were under-age - some as young as 13-years old, reports The New York Times:
[I]n the aftermath of the arrests, labor investigators have reaped a bounty of new evidence from the testimony of illegal immigrants, teenagers and adults, who were caught in the raid. In formal declarations, immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors executives, labor law experts said. …The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies are also looking into complaints that “female employees … were offered promotions in exchange for sexual favors,” reports New York Magazine, as well as allegations that the plant housed a methamphetamine lab.Because of the dangers of the work, it is illegal in Iowa for a company to employ anyone under 18 on the floor of a meatpacking plant.
In a statement, Agriprocessors said it did not employ workers under 18, and would fire any under-age worker found to have presented false documents to obtain work.
The immigrants may also sue under the Fair Labor Standards Act for wage and hour violations. According to an affidavit by Elmer L., an illegal alien from Guatemala who said he was 16 years old when he started working at the plant: he regularly worked 17 hours a day, with no breaks; he made $7.25 an hour, but was not routinely paid overtime; he only had time to work and sleep, and felt like he was “a slave.” Elmer L. also said, “They told us they were going to call immigration if we complained.”
After learning of these egregious labor – and human rights – abuses, Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Albio Sires (D-NJ) and Joe Baca (D-CA), members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who went to Postville on a “fact finding” tour, were horrified. Sires said, “We don't want it to ever happen again."
But he didn’t mean: “We don’t want employers ever again to hire illegal aliens so they can abuse them, knowing they are too afraid to go to the authorities.” He meant: “We don’t ever want ICE to investigate and raid a workplace known to break immigration law, no matter what else is going on in there.”
Just as liberals don't get that a drug dealer will not scruple to obey gun control laws, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the ACLU, Hispanic activists and other other pro-illegal immigration shills don’t understand that employers who knowingly hire forged documented aliens will not scruple to obey other labor laws. The only way to uncover abuses such as those allegedly occurring at Agriprocessors – which are tantamount to indentured servitude – is to keep raiding workplaces suspected of immigration law violations.
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Forged documents?! Outrageous!! Has Obama staked out a position For or Against this?
Hmmmm . . . who’da thought that egregious breaking of immigration laws might lead to other offences? Guess ya kin larn sumpin’ new ever day!
Anyone they can prove used the threat of contacting immigration authorities to threaten workers, needs to go to jail.
If they were violating labor laws buy not paying required overtime, they need to be punished according to those laws.
However, I would also be cautious to believe the words of people who would like nothing more than to be granted residency because they were treated unfairly.
They provided false documentation and lied to gain employment. Their credibility is questionable at best. There needs to be evidence that confirms their stories.
I'm not saying the management is innocent. They can't have had half of their workforce be illegal aliens and not have known. However, I'd still be cautious about believing the extent of their stories.
You have two groups of dishonest criminals pointing fingers at each other. The media is likely to choose the most sensational stories, but they aren't likely to care to dig enough to discover if how much truth there is to them.
I don’t like the idea of “fining employers”... not yet.
If someone is hiring illegal aliens who have forged documents, it is really NOT up to the employer to verify this.
In fact, I don’t know how many of you have actually tried it, but I have. The Social Security Administration won’t give you information and won’t HELP you period.
Therefore, UNTIL the GOVERNMENT gets off its ass, closes the borders and makes it impossible for people to get into this country illegally, then we round up the illegals, kick them OUT of the country - leave the employers ALONE.
Once we have closed the holes, THEN look at people who hire illegals.
There's the key. Mere fines are just a cost of doing business. Losing managers or supervisors is too bad, but they can be replaced. But, Dear God, don't send any of the upper echelon to jail - that would be, well, UnAmerican!
The chill that would sweep through Corporate America would bring on another Ice Age.
However, IF the stories are true about the employer threatening workers with calling immigration, then they know many of their workers aren't legal. You do however need to prove they knew individual workers were illegals, not just that some had to be illegals. Such proof is going to be hard to come by, so it will be possible to prosecute very few.
If the employers are clearly exploiting the workers' illegal status, then those employers should not only be facing fines but jail terms.
However, the mere presence of illegal aliens isn't evidence of guilt since the government does make it very difficult for employers to verify the identities and legal status of employees.
The government has an E-Verify program. Does all the work for you.
E-Verify apparently allows a participating employer to verify the authenticity of a Social Security Number.
I've never used the system, but I suspect that as long as the fake documents use a valid SSN and the person uses the name that matches the SSN, the E-Verify system won't catch them.
If that is how it works it makes it a little more difficult to forge documents, but that's about it.
The system is also voluntary. I don't honestly know what hoops the government has employers jump through to use it, so I don't know if employers have a legitimate reason not to want to use the system or not.
However, unless the use of such a system is mandatory, employers really can't be held accountable for not using it. The solution to that is make a decent system that is as easy to use as possible and as reliable as possible and then require its use.
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