Posted on 07/05/2008 6:02:02 PM PDT by shrinkermd
Under pressure from the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in two decades, employers across the country are fighting back in state legislatures, the federal courts and city halls.
Business groups have resisted measures that would revoke the licenses of employers of illegal immigrants. They are proposing alternatives that would revise federal rules for verifying the identity documents of new hires and would expand programs to bring legal immigrant laborers.
Though the pushback is coming from both Democrats and Republicans, in many places it is reopening the rift over immigration that troubled the Republican Party last year. Businesses, generally Republican stalwarts, are standing up to others within the party who accuse them of undercutting border enforcement and jeopardizing American jobs by hiring illegal immigrants as cheap labor.
Employers in Arizona were stung by a law passed last year by the Republican-controlled Legislature that revokes the licenses of businesses caught twice with illegal immigrants. They won approval in this year’s session of a narrowing of that law making clear that it did not apply to workers hired before this year.
Last week, an Arizona employers’ group submitted more than 284,000 signatures — far more than needed — for a November ballot initiative that would make the 2007 law even friendlier to employers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If they’re hiring illegals they should be tough guys behind bars.
This is leaning towards a national database. If the employers are presented with authentic (possibly stolen) papers, then they should not be held accountable. But then you’ll have employers falsifying documents, this happens alot in the construction industry.
I’m torn on this one. However KNOWINGLY hiring illegals, or a high percentage of illegals should be a no brainer, jail.
These business groups should be arrested.
Absolutely. Including propoents of amnesty for illegals. Following my logic, that puts McCain and President Bush in jail too.
No exceptions.
None!
I want to be clear up front I didn’t read more than the first page of the article although I usually do before posting.
I own a small business in Tucson, Arizona and agree that there is a problem hiring illegals here. And that we need to stop that practice.
What I don’t like is making business owners responsible for border enforcement. If they can’t get here I can’t hire them. As far as I know I’ve never hired an illegal and I never will on purpose. As another insane obstacle here in Arizona (according to my employment agency) I can’t even inquire as to immigration status until AFTER I hire them. Then if they’re a member of some protected minority my company may get sued.
But there are people (insert well-known but unsayable group name here) that are crossing our borders that don’t want jobs; they want jihad and checking a federal database won’t keep them out.
more like competing and going belly up!
I remember when I got out of college in 1985, and while looking for more lucrative employment, I was a restaurant manager. When The I-9 form came along in 1986, we were told that no illegal would be able to hide and no employer would be able to get away without penalty.
Yeah, right.
Indeed.
Lie about your employee’s immigration status.
Cheat, undercut your competitor’s costs with illegal immigration.
Steal the identity of an American.
Good. Have them all sign up to complain. Then investigate and start jailing the CEOs.
I’m from Wisconsin
Law here is 10 days to file new hire with the state including name, date of birth and social security
Also, you have to show picture id and s.s. card prior to being hired
Sounds simple enough to me
Those employers complaining just want to keep their costs down while the rest of us foot the bill.
"Hispanics" have no historical basis for protected status. They are not a race, they are a geographical group, an an ill-defined one at that. Brazilians, for example, are not Hispanic because they speak Portuguese. Spaniards, on the other hand, are even though they are on the opposite side of the Atlantic.
Any amnesty or guest worker program should bring with it a price that anyone admitted under such programs must agree to forgo "groupism" or legally defined "minority" status as a price of admission into a country which has never legally discriminated against them in anything remotely close to the legal discriminations against blacks and American Indians.
Supply and Demand.
If there really is a “shortage” of labor, employers will keep increasing wages, increasing benefits, and improving working conditions until the shortage abates.
Employers have not done that.
In 2007 America accepted 700,000 new citizens, 1.05 million legal residents (largely relatives of new citizens), and 500,000 temporary workers.
No serious person, no honest person, can look at numbers like that and claim there is a “labor shortage.”
This massive - and completely legal - influx of foreign labor has reduced the standard of living of tens of millions of home grown Americans.
We have that requirement for reporting new hires in AZ too. They use that info to track child support evaders and other miscreants.
You’re going to foot the bill no matter what anyway. Any cost imposed on businesses in general gets passed on to the consumer. I WANT illegal aliens stopped at the border. I have to compete with companies that hire illegals through shady employment practices.
Any business that fails to control costs is destined to go out of business.
The federal government has abdicated their responsibility to protect us from this invasion. I don’t think it’s fair to make my business (14 employees including me) an enforcer of immigration law. I’ll do what I can to screen when I interview but it should be stopped AT THE BORDER!!!!
In 1992 I had the choice of violating every wage,labor.an tax law and staying in business but chose to close a 57 year old firm.
I want to see every employer if illegals in prison and fined the maximum.
It’s personal!!!
These guys love the cheap labor, as long as the taxpayer foots the bill for everything else. Now they are in danger of getting caught and are squealing like stuck pigs. I have zero sympathy for these people.
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