Posted on 09/19/2002 3:34:04 PM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
DENVER (AP) - A congressman who has been demanding tighter immigration controls is defending himself against allegations that illegal immigrants remodeled his basement. Two employees of a contracting company say they and other illegal immigrants from Latin America helped install a home entertainment center and a bedroom in the Littleton home of Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., The Denver Post reported Thursday.
Last month, after the Post wrote about a young illegal immigrant's struggle to pay for college, Tancredo reported the teen and his family to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
On Thursday, Tancredo said that when the remodeling was done last fall, he never asked about the workers' immigration status.
Even if the workers were in the country illegally, "what is my responsibility at this point in time?" Tancredo said in a telephone interview from Washington. "I go to dinner at restaurants and probably have come into contact with people who are here illegally. I do not ask, of course. It is actually illegal and you can be sued."
The contractor, Creative Drywall Designs, and subcontractor Denver Audio Design said all their employees are in the country legally.
The newspaper said it would not identify the workers because they could get in trouble with INS.
Tancredo said enemies he made in lambasting the INS and in seeking strict enforcement of immigration laws are trying to discredit him.
"The fact is that I am a controversial figure," he said. "I have rankled the feathers of people who are immigration support groups and illegal immigrants themselves, so I am not surprised that somebody might make this accusation to embarrass me."
Tancredo called the INS after reading about honor student Jesus Apodaca and his family, illegal immigrants from Mexico who live in Denver. The congressman said INS officials told him they did not have the resources to try to take the family into custody.
Tancredo has pushed for use of troops to guard the borders.
"It is the government's responsibility to enforce our immigration laws, and if the INS were doing its job, no illegal immigrant would be available to violate our labor laws," Tancredo said in the Post.
Answering a question with another question is NOT an answer. Don't chicken out.
Actually, Congressman Tancredo placed his trust in the contractor, Creative Drywall Designs and the contractor placed their trust on the subcontractor, Denver Audio Design that they were following the employment laws of Colorado and the United States.
When the illegal aliens applied for employment, they did not disclosure their true immigration status, and that is where the trouble started.
That answer is dumber than answering the question with another question. Think you can come up with something viable?
Most counterfeit SSN, have a legitimate number on them, and until recently the SSA, would not inform employers if the numbers were correct or belong to the person who presented it.
What kid of fakes? As in non-existent, belonging to deceased, what?
Do they recycle SS#? After death? I have heard the way a lot of people get phony id is to find someone who died as a child and was the same sex and approximately the same age and use their name and either their SS# or get a number if they did not have one.
I absolutely am no mathematician, but what are the total number of SS#'s that could be 'made' from 9 numbers? Has anyone ever done the calculation?
I live in California. I've had to make sure that contract employees were properly cleared for work on US Navy bases. (The incident last year with the illegals working on the submarine in drydock was an example of NOT doing basic homework.)
He said it's "illegal" for him to ask ANYTHING about the nationality of employees. That is strictly true--but it is also completely irrelevant. You can ask about the legal status of all contractor employees who will be working on your task.
If thou art someone like Tancredo, it's incumbent on thee to make sure thy posterior is covered.
Will they do that now? Just what questions do you ask - because I can just see someone telling me No, they won't give it to me.
I would like them to know that I know the law regarding this.
Not issued numbers. Some offices never issue anything close to their maximum number, others habve multiple numbers.
Do they recycle SS#? After death? I have heard the way a lot of people get phony id is to find someone who died as a child and was the same sex and approximately the same age and use their name and either their SS# or get a number if they did not have one.
Most illegals are not that sophisticated. Also, birth and death records are getting better-correlated. It worked better in the 1970s, before everything was computerized.
I absolutely am no mathematician, but what are the total number of SS#'s that could be 'made' from 9 numbers? Has anyone ever done the calculation?
There can be 1,000,000,000 SSNs.
Don't forget to build a LOT of powerplants for the fence. And hope the illegals don't hire an electrician.
Fine, I'll spell it out for the guy who can't figure it out unassisted.
Invade and conquer Mexico. Mold its governing institutions into something more congenial over the next generation or two. The problem will be solved.
Both of you have it all wrong!!!
All you have to do is set up a few watchtowers... string up some barbed wire fences, which could be just a single strand of barbed wire... and contract out 20 or 30 military contractors (which could very well hire illegal aliens) to put in land mines.
My point is not that Tancredo was necessarily reponsible, but that he didn't bother to check. Checking would have allowed him to choose another company and avoid embarassment.
So what is the Congressman supposed to do? Ask the owner of a restaurant if he has any illegal aliens working in the restaurant's kitchen before making the decision to dine at that particular restaurant? And do you honestly think that a restaurant owner would admit to violating immigration laws by stating that he has illegal alien employees working for him?
Thanks for proving what kind of lunatic you need to be to bash Tancredo from the right.
Tancredo was careless and naive about this.
Companies and contractors would never lie about the legal status of their employees just to get your business, now would they? No, because we all know that business owners are just sweet little angels who couldn't lie even if their lives depended on it. Right?
So the next time I'm planning to hire a contractor, I'll ask him to show me all of the hiring documentation for every employee on his company's payroll so that I can have an document expert go over all of the documents to verify their legality and authenticity.
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