Dems' immigration response (can't have another deployment with no plan)

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN: Democrats' immigration response
Durbin questions use of National Guard, calls for more details
Monday, May 15, 2006


Sen. Richard Durbin says Republicans have not met the Border Patrol's funding needs.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush spoke to the nation about immigration Monday night. Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the assistant minority leader, gave the Democratic Party's response.

The following is a transcript of Durbin's remarks.

DURBIN: Good evening.

All Americans agree: We must act now to secure our borders and fix our broken immigration system, but we don't need a military solution to break a political stalemate. We need leadership.

Democrats are willing to support any reasonable plan that will secure our borders, including the deployment of National Guard troops. But Americans don't want a plan that's been cobbled together to win political favor. This cannot turn into another long-term military deployment with no clear plan....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/15/democrat.response/index.html

[FreakinDJ]

1. Go after the employers and you won't need the troops

They'er the ones cheating taxes

notice Durbin did not make 1 mention of tougher employer sanctions

[primavera]

3. Absolutely right

Moreover, experience ought to have taught us by now that no quantity of troops stationed along the border will prevent motivated migrants from entering the country if there are jobs to be had which pay 20 times what they would make on the other side of the border. Every past attempt to "secure the border" has only succeeded in re-directing the flow of border-crossers to more hazardous, less patrolled sectors of the border, resulting in more deaths in the desert. As long as the lure of high paying (at least relatively speaking) jobs remains, human ingenuity will find a way to circumnavigate any security build-ups, especially while there are US employers like Tysons willing to hire professional smugglers to help workers cross the border. Throwing more guys with guns at the problem will only result in greater expense and more egregious human rights violations, but it won't stem the tide of border-crossings.

[AndyTiedye]

4. Go After Employers for the Labor Law Violations

Employers may be able to claim that they didn't know the employees were illegal aliens.
They can't feign ignorance of how much they were paying them, or the conditions they were working under.

[FreakinDJ]

6. ooouuu... Andy gets a GOLD STAR today

Its really just too simple.

These guys know - believe me, I've worked around them. There is no doubt in their mind they are hiring illegals.

Its like picking up the phone and odering pizza

[AndyTiedye]

7. Labor Law Violations Are Much Easier to PROVE in Court

"These guys know - believe me" won't get far in court. Nor should it.
To prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that an employer knowingly
hired illegal aliens is very difficult.

Another unpleasant side-effect of focusing on the hiring of illegal aliens
is that it can lead to discrimination against all Mexicans, legal or not.
Employers may be afraid to hire people who look Mexican for fear of prosecution.
Can YOU tell a real ID from a really good fake one? I can't.

If you throw the book at employers who get taken in by a fake id,
you get discrimination, if you don't, then the guilty employers
get off scott-free. Unless you bust them for something else,
like wage-and-hour violations, OSHA, payroll tax fraud....

Violations of the laws about working conditions are very easy to prove.
Violations of the wage and hour laws, and those relating to payroll taxes,
should be easy to find, if the workers are not afraid to cooperate with
the authorities.

It may seem paradoxical, but American workers would benefit from an open
border with Mexico, coupled with STRICT enforcement of labor laws.
If they are going to work in the USA, they must be paid American wages,
and have all the other rights that workers in this country have won over
the years. It is the very fact that they are illegal that allows them
to be denied these rights. The denial of those rights for a part of the
workforce has greatly damaged the ability of the rest of us to assert them.
Legalize and UNIONIZE!

[Tippy]

5. Tougher employer sanctions

We have a large employeer near here, they turn a blind eye to the age of the employees too...in addition to that a lot of the latinos there use 2 id's so they work two shifts a day...

[tuvor]

2. More, that they should hammer on...

"If securing our borders is our highest national priority, why will it take two years to hire and train the new Border Patrol agents?

"The 9/11 Commission recommended -- and Congress authorized -- the hiring of 10,000 new Border Patrol agents two years ago. Each year since, the president's budget requested and his Republican Congress funded fewer agents than we knew that we needed.

"Now we are asking our National Guard to step in where the Congress has failed to respond. And the president's proposal raises serious questions about the future of the National Guard."

[saigon68]

8. They need to catch the Swim team

Mexican swim Team goes for the Gold