Industries Back Illegals Plan (Employers Before All Else)

The Washington Times ^ | 3-11-04 | Patrice Hill

[NewRomeTacitus]

Important American industries including top Republican campaign contributors see President Bush's proposal to create a foreign guest-worker program as the best way to address labor shortages in their fields. Employers from farm and construction work to restaurateurs and Main Street stores say the current system that allows millions of illegal workers to enter the country and work under the table for subminimum wages is not serving businesses or workers well. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents 3 million small businesses across the country, supports the plan as a simple acknowledgment of reality: Despite strict rules against hiring illegal workers, the practice is widespread and growing. "Our immigration system is broken," said Randel Johnson, a vice president at the Chamber of Commerce. "Our immigration and visa policy must ensure employers are able to fill jobs critical to our economy when American workers are not available." The plan would allow U.S. employers to fill job openings with qualified workers from other countries if Americans are unwilling to take the jobs. It also would provide temporary work permits to an estimated 8 million undocumented workers already in the country. Businesses that stand to benefit from tapping into a potentially huge pool of cheap foreign labor are major donors and political activists campaigning for the president, helping him to set fund-raising records early in the 2004 campaign cycle. Even some businesses that have been caught in the Bush administration's enforcement net for employing undocumented workers, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc., contribute largely to President Bush and Republican causes, though Democrats traditionally have provided the political base of support for immigration-reform legislation. Mr. Bush and other advocates of such legislation say providing a legal avenue for immigrant labor would enable the government to focus its enforcement efforts on the most pressing threats from abroad: terrorism and illegal drugs.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

(Employers before all else.

FYI, without employers, there are no employees.

How many jobs have YOU created today?

[NewRomeTacitus]

Is no my yob.

[azhenfud]

"The group accuses the Bush administration of 'declaring war' against illegal immigrants by, among other things, proposing to enlist local police officers to enforce the immigration laws up until now the responsibility only of U.S. immigration agents."

Section 8 USC 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv)(b)(iii)

"State and local law enforcement officials have the general power to investigate and arrest violators of federal immigration statutes without prior INS knowledge or approval, as long as they are authorized to do so by state law. There is no extant federal limitation on this authority. The 1996 immigration control legislation passed by Congress was intended to encourage states and local agencies to participate in the process of enforcing federal immigration laws."

Somebody's lying, it's not just been done during Bush's reign.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Important American industries including top Republican campaign contributors see President Bush's proposal to create a foreign guest-worker program as the best way to address labor shortages in their fields.

The first sentence of this article is wrong.

It should read, "...the best way to address cheap labor shortages in their fields."

[NewRomeTacitus]

If talking about legalization brings them in from the far tip of South America mere days after escaping Bush’s lips, actual legalization will merely further imbalance the labor market and make further mockery of border enforcement. If a minimum wage is in place it should be adhered to (though I believe it has helped create this problem). America is becoming used to this form of corruption and the worst offenders are shelling out huge contributions to perpetuate it. Every dollar mentioned was literally stolen from the people who generated it, while their only recourse for injuries is to get emergency treatment at the expense of us taxpayers. At the rate middle-class jobs are declining a time of reckoning can’t be far off.

I only regret our representatives are not considering the long-term damage this policy of negligence will inflict. No one likes to think about drug & human smuggling, organized gangs, cultural degradation, environmental damage and the increasing risks of disease epidemics. These are the hallmarks of a backward third world country. I don’t think our predecessors would approve.

[american spirit]

As I've said repeatedly.......current immigration policy is nothing more than the greatest corporate welfare scam devised. How nice it must be to own a business where you pay workers minmal wages, EVADE A WHOLE LOT OF PAYROLL TAXES, and know full well the taxpayers are forced to supplement your workers other housing, food, medical, etc. living expenses....all the while you get to still charge full, friggin' retail for your product or service....whatta helluva deal! No wonder they've got so many extra $ to bribe our politicians to "see things a certain way".

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Is no my yob.

Of course.

You are just a potato.

It is someone else's responsibility to provide gainful employment for you.

Someone with more brains and self-respect.

[jimt]

Sorry, employers have no right to employees whose wages are subsidized out of my pocket.

Eliminate the welfare hammock and I won't care who they hire.

[azhenfud]

Very diplomatically, you've echoed my sentiments. Our politicians are whores of the dollar.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[gubamyster]

ping

[Lizavetta]

Despite strict rules against hiring illegal workers, the practice is widespread and growing.

NO. It should read, "because of spineless politicians" not despite strict rules. A fine of $100,000 per illegal worker and ENFORCEMENT of said fine would fix the problem. The powers that be are only pretending it's difficult.

[TheSpottedOwl]

"The way it is now, the aliens stand on street corners and take what they can get," accepting pay as low as $4 an hour with no insurance or other benefits, said "M.A.," the owner of a New Mexico contracting company that installs home spas. Employers not only get away with paying illegal workers less than the $5.15 federal minimum wage, but they don't pay the workers' income or Social Security taxes, said the contractor, who spoke on the condition that his full name not be used. Despite the hardship for workers, employers take advantage of their inexpensive labor because they save so much money, said M.A., who employs about 65 people, both legal and illegal, at 10 locations in the Southwest. The Washington area has attracted many undocumented workers because of the booming housing market and the higher wages available here. Contractors and homeowners alike cruise by street corners in Langley Park, Springfield, Alexandria and other areas where immigrant workers gather and can be hired on the spot.

Of course these employers then pass the savings down to the consumer. /sarcasm...

[TheSpottedOwl]

I know Americans that would do these jobs. It's all about greed.

[EagleMamaMT]

I have two brothers in Oklahoma who own their own small concrete business. The illegals have basically put them out of work. This past year, they've had to let all their employees go and are doing what work they can scrape up by themselves. They would certainly be glad to get the work these illegals are doing.

[chronotrigger]

"I only regret our representatives are not considering the long-term damage this policy of negligence will inflict.

Mak'em look at a "before and after" map of eastern Europe. That might do the job.

[MegaSilver]

Sorry, employers have no right to employees whose wages are subsidized out of my pocket.

Exactly.

[azhenfud]

I agree. Strict rules don't mean anything without severe enforcement.

GOP leadership boasts they would never place our Armed Service personnel in situations having been incapacitated by as many engagement restrictions. Yet Border Patrol officers have to contend with increasing hostility from both sides of the issue, prostituted politicians and increasingly violent border hoppers. Tom Ridge and the HS/TSA is a feel-good-for-the-public farce and joke.

I'm for a bounty of $500/head for Illegaliens and $10,000 bounty on felons aiding and/or hiring them, payable to any civilian who reports them with successful conviction/deportation results.

Several hundred bounties paid a month per state, it wouldn't be too long before an impact is made and Americans begin to save the estimated $40 billion annually Illegaliens cost taxpayers.

[DumpsterDiver]

...and $10,000 bounty on felons aiding and/or hiring them, payable to any civilian who reports them with successful conviction/deportation results.

What do we do with the politicians (at all levels of government) who are taking the taxpayers' money and using it to aid and abet the illegals? We can vote them out but usually the damage has been done by then.