The Department of Homeland Security announced a clampdown on hiring of illegal aliens in fiscal year 2007, and DHS did arrest nearly four times as many people in the past year as it did in 2003. But only a tiny fraction of those were criminal charges against employers.Less than 100 owners, supervisors or other hiring officials were arrested in fiscal 2007, compared with 4,900 arrests of illegal workers, providers of fake documents and others.
When six million companies currently employ more than seven million unauthorized workers, this year's 92 criminal arrests of employers amount to a drop in the bucket. Only 17 firms faced criminal fines or forfeitures.
Those 92 criminal arrests included 59 owners and 33 corporate officials, human resources workers, crew chiefs and others in the "supervisory chain." Criminal fines and other penalties grew from $600,000 in 2003 to more than $30 million in 2007, but were dominated by a few large payments.
"Past enforcement actions have been regarded by business correctly as a passing thing. . . . They need to believe it's not just going to go away in a couple of months," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Illegal immigrant labor laws should be enforced as rigorously as child labor laws, he said.
I agree with the new AZ law and the comments of federal Judge Neil Wake, who said any delay in implementing the law which allows suspension or revocation of state licenses of companies that knowingly hire undocumented workers would harm the state and, in particular, legal Arizona residents.
ReplyDelete"Those who suffer the most from unauthorized alien labor are those whom federal and Arizona law most explicitly protect,'' Wake said.
"They are the competing lawful workers, many unskilled, low-wage, sometimes near or under the margin of poverty, who strain in individual competition and in a wage economy depressed by the great and expanding number of people who will work for less,'' the judge continued.
It's against the law for employers to knowingly hire illegal aliens. It's REASONABLE to expect employers to verify social security numbers of employees.
The only employees walking off their jobs, are illegal aliens and they SHOULD be denied employment, since it is against the law.
I want the federal version of this law passed. Call your elected representatives and ask them to co-sponsor the SAVE Act. The House bill HR4088 already has 131 co-sponsors, but needs more. The Senate version S2368 has only three.
Illegal aliens do not have a legal standing to question a state or federal law. Employers should do all that is possible to comply with the laws of AZ and the nation. It's their civic responsibility.
Help take our country back. Support the AZ Sanctions Law and ask your U.S. Congressmen to co-sponsor the SAVE Act.