Free Republic

I think we should keep track of those companies who are doing a splendid job of NOT hiring illegals! This morning in our local edition of The Arizona Republic Business section there was an article re: the firm stance that Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins has taken with ensuring that NO illegal aliens are hired on at any of their franchises. They are utilizing the federal government's Basic Pilot program to conduct electronic background checks. Franchise owners who don't follow this policy are taken to court.

Senator Bernie Sanders addressed the US Senate concerning the proposed Immigration Bill. I listened to his remarks on C-Span2. He was critical of the bill and pointed out the damage that has been done to America by the business interests which are pushing for the bill, and the damage that it will cause. He offered an amendment that will prohibit corporations from trying to import foreign labor, while at the same time firing Americans. I've never heard Senator Sanders speak before. He was eloquent and brave. I hope that all Americans who are concerned about the immigration debacle will have...

British workers for British jobs says Brown By George Jones, Toby Helm and Graeme Wilson Last Updated: 2:16am BST 06/06/2007 Gordon Brown promised yesterday to launch a drive to train thousands of unemployed workers for jobs currently being filled by immigrants flocking to Britain. The Chancellor put a new emphasis on "Britishness" at the heart of his programme for government when he takes over from Tony Blair in three weeks' time. Gordon Brown addresses the GMB union "It is time to train British workers for the British jobs that will be available over the coming few years and to make...

By all reports, the president and congressional leaders are trying to address the illegal immigration problem, and it’s safe to say that things aren’t going well. Apparently, the electeds have gotten themselves bogged down with political posturing and all the other things that they spend their time doing instead of governing. We at the Rochester Pundit have decided to help them refocus their efforts by providing a commonsense birds-eye view of this issue. After reading this, the guys (and gals) up on the hill should be able to bang out this bill and get back banging…well, whatever it is they...

NEW YORK - Discounted apartments and cash were given to a former United Nations procurement official and two other U.N. workers got nights with prostitutes to help secure $100 million in U.N. contracts, a businessman testified Tuesday at a bribery trial. The witness, Nishan Kohli, provided many of the details at the heart of the government's case against Sanjaya Bahel, who was chief of the U.N.'s Commodity Procurement Section from 1999 to 2003. Bahel, 57, is charged with bribery, wire fraud and mail fraud. Kohli testified in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that Bahel was so helpful to the Kohli...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Day laborers stood in the shade of a palm tree hoping for work and dreaming of a life out of the shadows on Friday, a day after U.S. Senate leaders struck a deal on immigration reform that would allow millions of illegal immigrants a shot at becoming legal. The agreement would create a temporary worker program, set up a merit-based system for future immigrants and give legal status to some 12 million undocumented immigrants, if it survives what is expected to be a highly charged debate in Congress in coming weeks. It allowed the day laborers in...

Lo and behold, it's still true that if negotiators with divergent views but a common goal work hard enough and long enough, they can produce a workable compromise - even on one of the nation's most contentious issues. Yesterday's breakthrough agreement on immigration reform between President Bush and a bipartisan group of senators also demonstrated the wisdom of including those with relatively extreme views along with more moderate voices. Which is not to say the compromise proposal will have an easy trip through Congress, or that it can't be improved along the way. But all the negotiators - including two...

Nine employees of a party supplies rental company were arrested Thursday on immigration violations as part of a crackdown on illegal hiring at military bases and other high-security workplaces. The five women and four men were arrested at Classic Party Rentals Inc.'s San Diego offices and were to be returned to Mexico, their home country, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The company performs work at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, where immigration authorities recently began reviewing contractors' employee records, Mack said. An audit of Classic Party Rentals found 30 of 105...

Marcus Kabel, BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart's normally low-profile security efforts were thrust into the limelight Wednesday when a fired technician alleged he had been part of a large surveillance operation that spied on company workers, critics, vendors and consultants. The company defended its security practices. The world's largest retailer declined to comment on specific allegations made by 19-year veteran Bruce Gabbard to the Wall Street Journal in a report published Wednesday. Wal-Mart reiterated that it had fired Gabbard, 44, and his supervisor last month for violating company policy by recording phone calls and intercepting pager messages.

Employers in some unlikely places say they're having trouble filling jobs. Factory managers in Ho Chi Minh City report many of their $62-a-month workers went home for the Tet holiday in February and never came back. In Bulgaria, computer experts are in such demand they can't be bothered to answer the want ads of a Los Angeles movie studio. And in Peoria, Caterpillar Inc. (CAT ) is struggling to train enough service technicians. The problem in each case: not enough people who are both able and willing to do the work for the posted pay. "We've got a global problem...and...

Low-skilled individuals, legal or illegal, cost the government much more in services than they pay in taxes. Possibly the rush of illegal workers across the Mexican border has eased a little. That would please most Americans, since polls find that 3 out of 4 want immigration levels into the United States reduced. If the flow has decreased, it would indicate some effect from strengthened patrols and a fence rising along the 2,000-mile border, a modest step-up in prosecutions and convictions of immigration-related crimes (many involve people caught in the US again after having been deported), and recent, highly publicized raids...

Bush vows to ease rules for foreign workers By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 15/03/2007 George W Bush ended a seven-day tour of South America yesterday vowing to introduce reform on immigration, the issue that most alienates the US president from his dwindling band of supporters in the region and from his own party at home. "A good migration law will help both economies and will help the security of both countries," he said at a joint press conference with Felipe Calderon, his Mexican counterpart. "If people can come into our country, for example, on a temporary...

Businesses would receive a tax credit equal to 10 percent of what they spend each year to improve the fitness of their employees -- everything from building on-site workout rooms to subsidizing health club memberships -- under a bill pending in the state Assembly. The measure also would allow employers to claim the same credit for half the cost of hiring a person or company to provide nutritional advice, yoga instruction or substance-abuse prevention. "We're trying to help people get into healthy, active lifestyles to prevent them from needing the hospital in the first place," said the bill's author, Assemblyman...

JEFFERSON CITY–Following a state employee’s tip that tonight led to the detainment of dozens of suspected illegal immigrants, Gov. Matt Blunt today ousted a state contractor who hired illegal workers and ordered state agencies to enact a no tolerance policy through tough new contract protections.

Vermont needs to put out more of a welcome mat for Mexican workers employed at dairy farms around the state or those workers might start looking for jobs elsewhere, a Mexican consulate official in Boston says. Rodrigo Marquez, deputy counsel for the Mexican consulate in Boston, said last month that Vermont has a reputation among Mexican workers in New England as a place where they have to live in isolation because of a constant fear of deportation. Many of the estimated 2,000 Mexicans working on farms in Vermont are believed to have entered the country illegally. Nationally, there are more...

Aid has cropped up for California workers and growers hurt by a devastating cold snap that froze more than $1 billion in crops and left thousands jobless. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Thursday he had issued an executive order to waive a one-week waiting period required before filing for unemployment. The frigid temperatures that dealt an $800 million blow to citrus growers and other industries earlier this month left more than 12,000 farm workers jobless. "This way we can provide quick help for the people who need help right way," the governor said during a visit to Tulare County where he...

MONTROSE — Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) cosponsored a bill introduced last week intended to ease the burdens of farmers and the immigrant workers they hire. “The senator (Salazar) is supportive of the bill in its form as standalone,” Drew Nannis, Salazar’s press secretary, said. However, the senator would like to see it passed as part of comprehensive immigration reform that would attend to problems such as border security and human rights as well. The bipartisan Senate Bill 237, known as AgJOBS, would allow illegal immigrants who have worked in agriculture at least 150 days of the past two years to...

In an apparent crackdown on illegal immigrants that may signal more to come, Cintas, the large uniform manufacturer, placed six employees from its San Jose plant on unpaid leave Monday. The move came after the workers failed to verify their Social Security numbers, a document required by employers to prove their workers have the right to be employed in the United States. About 60 Cintas workers, labor organizers and immigrant advocates, rallying outside the East San Jose plant Monday afternoon, denounced the action. With 30,000 workers in five states, Cintas, is believed to be the first company in the country...

In one instance, a county employee received a $5,000 reimbursement for a three-week class at Harvard University that cost $10,000. But the report found the employee attended class on county time and submitted the reimbursement request a year after the course was completed -- both violations of the program's guidelines.

For prostitutes working the streets of New Orleans, the post-flood era has sparked a boom in business, largely owing to the influx of an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 out-of-town workers away from their families with money to blow, police said. It's "like the Super Bowl" for sex workers, said Deputy Chief James Scott, commander of the Police Department's Intelligence Division, from his division's headquarters in a trailer. Though police are making more arrests for prostitution than before Hurricane Katrina, Scott said quantifying such results is difficult because undercover officers often can't develop conclusive evidence to make a clear-cut prostitution case....