It would be easy to stop illegal immigration if we wanted to.

[Tesha]

Want to stop illeal immigration?

Just take these two simple steps:

1. Make it a *MISDEMEANOR* to unknowingly hire an illegal
   immigrant and make it a *FELONY* to *KNOWINGLY* hire
   a single illegal immigrant or to unknowingly hire more than
   five illegal immigrants.
   
   
2. Enforce that law, *EVEN WHEN IT AFFECTS FAT CAT
   REPUBLICANS*.

Illegal immigration would quickly stop, and then reverse.

But the fact that we don't take these two simple steps is all
the proof anyone needs that certain powerful groups in this
country are profiting mightily from the presence of illegal
immigrants. Not only do members of these employer groups
not have to scrub their own toilets, the presence of illegals
assures a ready, huge pool of people, both legal and illegal,
whose salaries are kept "in check".

Tesha

(Edited for improved clarity)

[4morewars]

1. There ya go !

Everyone on DU needs to read this.

I'm still amazed by how easy it is to fool most americans.

[rocktivity]

2. DING DING DING! Tesha, you're our grand prize winner!

Make it a *FELONY*...to unknowingly hire more than five illegal immigrants...
I like the quota idea! I've been against amnesty/guest worker status, but if it could be set up so that only a CERTAIN NUMBER of illegals can work, I would consider it because the number of jobs taken away from legal Americans could be controlled.

Of course, even Georgie is smart enough to realize that solving the illegal immigration problem is as simple as sealing the borders, severely punishing those who hire them and deporting those who are caught. After all, he's a fatcat Republican and his fatcat Repubican supporters want all the cheap labor they can get!

:headbang:
rocknation

[Jim Warren]

3. Ya know, it's not just fat cat repugs

My brother in law is a ditto head repug. He basically a working stiff thinking he can shore up his retirement by rehabbing a house for resale he bought. He took on more work than he could handle, so next thing he met some undocumented worker guys at Home Depot who he hired to finish up the project, under the table of course.

So much for his RW "core values" bs the his mentor Limpballs is always going off about.

It's like when people badmouth Walmart and say they don't like the place but just keep buying their shit there because they think they are saving money.

[Guaranteed]

4. That's it. You have to stop the ATTRACTION.

That's all that can be done.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Thank you.

I've been trying to work out some penalty system that was fair and I think you've found it. I would add that the felony should entail enormous fines, say pegged to percentage of employees who are not legal workers.

The penalty should extend to casual hires too and subcontracting arrangements. No more pretending that you had no clue about that contractor, with his ridiculously cheap bid and his white panel van full of silent workers, might be hiring illegal immigrants.

[Tesha]

6. I'd propose that the fine be...

> I would add that the felony should entail enormous fines,
> say pegged to percentage of employees who are not legal
> workers.

I'd propose that the fine be treble damages, where the
damages would be the difference in aggregate payroll
between what was actually paid to the illegals and what
would have been either the minimum wage or the prevailing
wage for that job category, whichever is higher. The
employer contribution to FICA (etc.) would also be
included, of course, when making the calculation.

So if the scum employer "saved", say, $62,000 over what
they would have paid to hire legal, documented workers,
then their minimum fine should be $186,000. That might
encourage them to stay on the safe side of the law, even
if it costs them a bit more money up front.

Tesha

[Igel]

7. First off, it's not just repubs.

Dems do it too. The difference is that the dems I've known to do have made it a moral virtue, not just an economic one. They don't pay any better, they just feel righteous because of it, instead of remaining neutral.

But the main problem is that there's no way for me, the schmuck monitoring I-9 compliance, to do squat. I watched my employer hire two Mexicans: one I believed, because she knew little English, to be illegally here; the other I believed, because he knew more English, to be here legally. Both had similar identification. But I couldn't check the validity of either's ID. Do I get penalized while the other person breaking the law gets 'punished' only by being deported--and is likely to re-immigrate? Do I get hit with the misdemeanor, because I accepted identification that I couldn't verify for a person I didn't hire, or does my employer, because I accepted the ID?

A secondary problem are the unskilled day laborers and domestic workers, maids and nannies: the dem area I worked in was rife with them, but finding their 'employers' would be a problem. It was informal work, no paperwork ever filed. Do you knock on doors at random and ask? Assume that any brownskinned worker in a residential neighborhood is illegal? They don't even *look* for ID, and some of their employees might be here legally, with FICA, taxes and worker's comp being the main issues.

The other problem not addressed is the illegal immigrants that don't come here to be undocumented workers, or at least undocumented workers in legal fields. Deport them, and the 'fine' is the cost and effort of re-immigrating. I was against the felony provision for the most part, but it would accomplish one useful end: there would be a penalty imposed for breaking US law, one that mattered--a felon can't apply for immigration.

I'd like to see a special kind of misdemeanor; it would apply to illegal immigrants (after due process) or automatically to any person not currently a legal resident or US citizen who fails to show up for immigration court without showing just cause. It would require fingerprinting them as they're caught, and fingerprinting all incoming tourists: enter the prints in a database; then, if they're found guilty of the misdemeanor, they've waived any privilege to immigrate--you run their prints through the database, and if guilty, their application is ripped up even before the immigration officer checks to see the provision under which they're immigrating. Married to American during his vacation to Taiwan? Oops, you waived the privilege--have fun explaining it to your spouse! Your son's an American citizen ... oops, we have to rip up your application before we read down to that box on the form--you say he's 2 years old, well, sorry. Without an actual penalty felt as a penalty, not as an inconvenience, the immigration law is a joke; people are justified at laughing at jokes.

[Tesha]

9. Yes.

> Do I get penalized while the other person breaking the
> law gets 'punished' only by being deported--and is likely
> to re-immigrate? Do I get hit with the misdemeanor, because
> I accepted identification that I couldn't verify for a person
> I didn't hire, or does my employer, because I accepted the ID?

The crime occurs "where the buck stops". If you, after doing
due dilligence, report to your employer that this person is
likely an illegal (or simply can't be documented as being
surely legal), and they hire them anyway, then you're innocent
and they're guilty.

If you, on the other hand, were to knowingly issue a "pass"
on uncertain documentation, then you're guilty.

And, of course, you may both be guilty.

This isn't unique to immigration; this sort of situation crops
up (you'll forgive the pun?) in white collar crime all the time.
Who knew the drug killed people and what did they do about that?
Who knew the methyl isocyanate tank would blow and cause a
disaster?

Tesha

[Igel]

11. The first problem is

establishing 'due diligence'. Currently, nothing definitive is available: Maria may have allowed to stand the assertion that she was illegally here, but she later denied it; Raul always said he was legal. Beyond non-denial of an assertion, I have nothing except their brown-skin and sub-native language abilities to go on. And if they're Canadian, that might not even be present (or if they were raised in the US--I've known students that were 'illegally immigrated' when they were two or three years old.

Without some way of validating ID, what you get is people refusing to hire people with accents, just in case, or calling in the INS or whatever it's called now as a sort of accent or melanin patrol Then again, that was the problem with the 1986 law: you have to see ID, and so everybody I've ever known in charge of I-9 forms has photocopied the ID they've been presented. Some didn't care if they hired illegal immigrants; some liked the idea; some would have fired any illegal immigrants. But they have no proof, and if they make the mistake too often, they have a class-action discrimination suit on their hands. So it's photocopy what you're given to play the CYA game, even if it proves nothing beyond the fact that you asked for ID pro forma, and you keep your possibly racist, possibly correct, suspicions to yourself. My "A" was firmly "Ced" because, well, I likewise had copied Maria's and Raul's IDs. They say they're legal, I have nothing but brown-skin-based or accent-based suspicions. Call me naive for not calling INS, call me racist for calling INS. Some choice.

We need some way of validating employees' IDs, right up front; lack of such validation is the out for non-enforcement of the previous law--few cases are brought because you have to know that the employer knew that the ID was fake, and that's a tough thing to prove in most cases--and it'll be the out for non-enforcement of any future law.

Then we can discuss all the problem cases--people like the college students that spoke no Spanish, had never been out of California, and yet who were Honduran or Mexican or Guatemalan citizens illegally in this country.

[Tesha]

17. If they show you a passport...

If they show you a passport, the odds are you can ferret
out the cheap fakes. And if you can't spot it as a fake,
then it's either real or they paid a lot of money for it
and its reality can't be confirmed without resorting to
data held by some national authority.

Either way, you probably did your due deligence.

But I'll bet a huge number of the employers of illegals
don't even ask for the I-9.

Tesha

[Tesha]

10. If you pay them money, *YOU* are the employer.

> A secondary problem are the unskilled day laborers and
> domestic workers, maids and nannies: the dem area I worked
> in was rife with them, but finding their 'employers' would
> be a problem. It was informal work, no paperwork ever filed.
> Do you knock on doors at random and ask? Assume that any
> brownskinned worker in a residential neighborhood is illegal?
> They don't even *look* for ID, and some of their employees
> might be here legally, with FICA, taxes and worker's comp
> being the main issues.

If someone pays some else money to do work, *THAT FIRST SOMEONE*
is an employer. And even today, they're guilty of not withholding
FICA; surely they don't think the itinerant worker is being employed
by a corporation, do they?

NO EXCUSES.

If you use illegal labor, you ought to be guilty of a crime.

And if the law hits Democrats as well, so be it. But I suspect
it would hit a lot more Republican corporation owners (even
dinky Subchapter-S corporation owners) first.

Tesha

[radwriter0555]

8. Cheap labor economics. The cornerstone of the GOP profiteering

game.

[Tesha]

12. A kick for the evening crowd... (NT)

[Justpat]

13. I run a racing stable where 80% of the employees are Hispanic.

The licensing process on every racetrack in the country involves being fingerprinted and
licensed by the state racing commission which checks out credentials before issuing a license.

There used to be a big illegal problem with race track help, but the race tracks have instituted
their own policies of helping people get the proper legal paperwork. My employees have all paid
to get their visas through legal channels. They all have to go back to Mexico after a certain period
of time, then come back with a renewed visa. If the racetrack can work it out to make sure that
everyone is legal and licensed, it is possible to do it in other types of work.

[SoCalDem]

14. Ist offense hiring undocumented = $50 K per worker...2nd offense?

CONFISCATION OF THE BUSINESS AND A 5 YEAR (no parole) JAIL SENTENCE FOR OWNER AND MANAGER

Drug dealers face confiscation of their property..why not scumbags who deliberately pay slave wages and break the law ..

[Yupster]

15. I'd be misdemeanered I guess

In the last 15 years I've had about 5 different groups come by to do regular mowing, hedge trimming, etc. I'd be amazed if none of them were illegals. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if all of them were illegal.

All the little restaurants in town would probably have to close too as the proprieters would be in curt with me.

[Tesha]

16. Like I said, if you really want to *STOP* illegal immigration...

On the other hand, if everybody is happy with a few
show trials of the illegal immigrants themselves...

Tesha

[salin]

18. People don't want to deal with the consequences of higher goods

and services that would be required to really deal with the immigration issue. All this "deal with the supply side" will never address the issue of demand. And there is the conundrum - most folks do not realize how much they benefit in the pocketbook from the use of cheap labor. Think - migrant farm labor and food costs.

Unless the public wants to talk about the cheap labor side - and then agrees or disagrees that the benefit is worth or not worth the level of immigration experienced - these ongoing debates will always be meaningless, and will never address the issue.

[salin]

19. Hit the nail on the head with one word "want"

the costs of higher labor, higher food costs, etc - folks do not want to pay it and thus, don't want such fines/penalties as a "fix". Noone really wants to deal with the demand issue... because it ripples into most folks pocketbooks and that is where folks draw. Look at Tancredo - big on anti immigrant rhetoric - but used illegal labor to remodel his home - story came and went as it was dismissed as a story when he whined about he was just trying to make the remodeling "affordable." Personally I think that is the VERY discussion we should have.

[Tesha]

20. Waserman's cartoon re: my point...