Getting Tough
Immigration is back in the news. One article and one editorial caught my attention this morning: a little bad news, a little good news.
The first has to do with the Department of Homeland Security's response to the failure of Congress to pass an immigration reform law this year. From the NY Times:
In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers.
Officials said the rules would be backed up by stepped-up raids on workplaces across the country that employ illegal immigrants. ...
The expected regulations would give employers a fixed period, perhaps up to 90 days, to resolve any discrepancies between identity information provided by their workers and the records of the Social Security Administration. If workers’ documents cannot be verified, employers would be required to fire them or risk up to $10,000 in fines for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. [Emphasis added]
I question how "tough" the rules are when it comes to employer hiring malfeasance if it's the employee who gets fired, with the employer only facing the "risk" of a fine of "up to $10,000." That ought to get large employers like Tyson and the big agricorps nervous, eh?
Of course, all this does is give those large employers just another tool in dealing with uppity employees with "unAmerican" last names, as the AFL-CIO points out:
“The enforcement is only on the immigration side,” Ana Avendaño, associate general counsel for the A.F.L.-C.I.O, said yesterday. “They don’t do any labor inspection. So they are just giving employers another tool to repress workers’ rights.”
The new rules are patently designed to make the Tom Tancredos of America happy without upsetting big businesses too seriously.
On the brighter side of things, however, is news that Pedro Guzman has been found and has been returned to his family. Mr. Guzman is the mentally disabled (the old, non-pc term is "mentally retarded") who was arrested for trespassing, and then deported because the cops apparently didn't understand him and assumed he was an illegal. I blogged about it here.
From an editorial in today's Los Angeles Times:
Guzman's journey remains hard to reconstruct, but he eventually stumbled upon a border crossing in Calexico, where he was detained. Rather than admit their error, the authorities locked him up for missing probation hearings -- hearings he missed because the government had deported him.
Guzman was released, at last, on Tuesday, miraculously ending his three-month odyssey. For those who turned him out of his country because they couldn't understand him and assumed that he was foreign, Guzman's story should stand as a reminder of what happens when the hardhearted command America's borders. [Emphasis added]
At least that story had a happy ending.
The first has to do with the Department of Homeland Security's response to the failure of Congress to pass an immigration reform law this year. From the NY Times:
In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers.
Officials said the rules would be backed up by stepped-up raids on workplaces across the country that employ illegal immigrants. ...
The expected regulations would give employers a fixed period, perhaps up to 90 days, to resolve any discrepancies between identity information provided by their workers and the records of the Social Security Administration. If workers’ documents cannot be verified, employers would be required to fire them or risk up to $10,000 in fines for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. [Emphasis added]
I question how "tough" the rules are when it comes to employer hiring malfeasance if it's the employee who gets fired, with the employer only facing the "risk" of a fine of "up to $10,000." That ought to get large employers like Tyson and the big agricorps nervous, eh?
Of course, all this does is give those large employers just another tool in dealing with uppity employees with "unAmerican" last names, as the AFL-CIO points out:
“The enforcement is only on the immigration side,” Ana Avendaño, associate general counsel for the A.F.L.-C.I.O, said yesterday. “They don’t do any labor inspection. So they are just giving employers another tool to repress workers’ rights.”
The new rules are patently designed to make the Tom Tancredos of America happy without upsetting big businesses too seriously.
On the brighter side of things, however, is news that Pedro Guzman has been found and has been returned to his family. Mr. Guzman is the mentally disabled (the old, non-pc term is "mentally retarded") who was arrested for trespassing, and then deported because the cops apparently didn't understand him and assumed he was an illegal. I blogged about it here.
From an editorial in today's Los Angeles Times:
Guzman's journey remains hard to reconstruct, but he eventually stumbled upon a border crossing in Calexico, where he was detained. Rather than admit their error, the authorities locked him up for missing probation hearings -- hearings he missed because the government had deported him.
Guzman was released, at last, on Tuesday, miraculously ending his three-month odyssey. For those who turned him out of his country because they couldn't understand him and assumed that he was foreign, Guzman's story should stand as a reminder of what happens when the hardhearted command America's borders. [Emphasis added]
At least that story had a happy ending.
Labels: Immigration
posted by Diane at 4:18 AM
2 Comments:
That's really rich: deporting a United States citizen without cause and then, when he re-enters the country he should never have been ejected from, throwing him in jail because he missed a probation hearing when he had been illegally thrown out of the country.
And because of who he is and his condition, odds are that nobody will sue the government for the wrongs done him. So it will all be forgotten, until the next time.
well, a 'sorta happy' ending...at least the poor guy didn't get killed. but his family reported, yestiddy on Amy, that he's showqing signs of ptsd...good luck widdat, folks
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