Immigration, the Third Rail of Americal Politics
While Heygood, Orr, Reyes & Bartolomei's Swift Meatpacking case continues to gain headlines, it seems you can't turn on the TV or open a newspaper without reading another article about the nation's immigration issues. Recently in Texas, State Representative, Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, withdrew his legislation to penalize businesses that hire illegal immigrants. In an interesting political twist, Mr. Anchia and other members of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus joined the Texas Association of Business and several civil rights groups to form a coalition they said is committed to moving all immigration-related legislation out of the statehouse and up to Washington – including Mr. Anchia's bill.
Mr. Anchia was quoted as saying "The reality is that we would rather work together than against each other to make sure these bills don't come to the floor, and make sure this discussion happens in Washington and not in Austin."
The business group has common ground with the Mexican-American caucus and other groups that oppose legislation limiting health care and education benefits for illegal immigrants.
Their goal is compelling Congress to pass comprehensive immigration legislation and get the debate out of Texas. Bills have been filed in the Legislature to end birthright citizenship and in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants and to impose fees on money transfers to Mexico and Central and South America.
"We say let's fix the system, let's give the employers the tools they need, and then let's have firm enforcement of the laws," Texas Association of Business Director, Bill Hammond, said.
Just today, the Wall Street Journal reported that the country's largest recycler of wooden pallets, IFCO Systems North America, Inc., was raided by agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau which found 1,282 IFCO workers in 26 states working illegally. Unlike the raid in Heygood, Orr, Reyes & Bartolomei's Swift Meatpacking case, this ICE raid was designed to catch the Americans who hired foreign workers who lacked proper documentation to be working in the United States. In the IFCO raid, seven middle managers were also arrested and charged with human smuggling. We think that as discovery unfolds in our Swift Meatpacking case, a similar story will unfold. It will be interesting to see what management knew or should have known about Swift Meatpacking's hiring practices. Let's hope the ICE investigation into Swift Meatpacking isn't closed. I suspect that if ICE keeps up the heat, no pun intended, we'll find that Swift Meatpacking's management either knew about the wrongful hiring practices or turned a blind eye to them in their pursuit of profits.
As I said in my Swift & Co. CNN interview on Lou Dobbs, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let's see, how do you think hotels and casinos hire the maids, busboys, bellboys, and garage attendants? Admittedly, just being born in a foreign country doesn't make you undocumented and ineligible to work, but my money is on the side of the bet that suggests that the hospitality, casino, restaurant, hotel, the remaining light industry jobs in the United States, and basically all low wage jobs you can think of are largely filled with workers who are not documented and their employers know it.
Congress needs to fix this problem by instituting a solution that employers can live with and that doesn't scare middle America. We've done immigration reform in the past, let's hope we've learned from our mistakes and that we don't run off and create a second class citizenry. The last thing Des Moines or Atlanta needs is some French banlieue type riots in the coming years. That is exactly what will happen if we create a guest worker program that leaves the 11 million undocumented people in this country as worker guests with no citizenship rights. History suggests that they aren't going back to Mexico, Honduras, Somalia, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc.
©2007 Angel Reyes
www.ReyesLaw.com
The business group has common ground with the Mexican-American caucus and other groups that oppose legislation limiting health care and education benefits for illegal immigrants.
Their goal is compelling Congress to pass comprehensive immigration legislation and get the debate out of Texas. Bills have been filed in the Legislature to end birthright citizenship and in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants and to impose fees on money transfers to Mexico and Central and South America.
"We say let's fix the system, let's give the employers the tools they need, and then let's have firm enforcement of the laws," Texas Association of Business Director, Bill Hammond, said.
Just today, the Wall Street Journal reported that the country's largest recycler of wooden pallets, IFCO Systems North America, Inc., was raided by agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau which found 1,282 IFCO workers in 26 states working illegally. Unlike the raid in Heygood, Orr, Reyes & Bartolomei's Swift Meatpacking case, this ICE raid was designed to catch the Americans who hired foreign workers who lacked proper documentation to be working in the United States. In the IFCO raid, seven middle managers were also arrested and charged with human smuggling. We think that as discovery unfolds in our Swift Meatpacking case, a similar story will unfold. It will be interesting to see what management knew or should have known about Swift Meatpacking's hiring practices. Let's hope the ICE investigation into Swift Meatpacking isn't closed. I suspect that if ICE keeps up the heat, no pun intended, we'll find that Swift Meatpacking's management either knew about the wrongful hiring practices or turned a blind eye to them in their pursuit of profits.
As I said in my Swift & Co. CNN interview on Lou Dobbs, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let's see, how do you think hotels and casinos hire the maids, busboys, bellboys, and garage attendants? Admittedly, just being born in a foreign country doesn't make you undocumented and ineligible to work, but my money is on the side of the bet that suggests that the hospitality, casino, restaurant, hotel, the remaining light industry jobs in the United States, and basically all low wage jobs you can think of are largely filled with workers who are not documented and their employers know it.
Congress needs to fix this problem by instituting a solution that employers can live with and that doesn't scare middle America. We've done immigration reform in the past, let's hope we've learned from our mistakes and that we don't run off and create a second class citizenry. The last thing Des Moines or Atlanta needs is some French banlieue type riots in the coming years. That is exactly what will happen if we create a guest worker program that leaves the 11 million undocumented people in this country as worker guests with no citizenship rights. History suggests that they aren't going back to Mexico, Honduras, Somalia, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc.
©2007 Angel Reyes
www.ReyesLaw.com
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