"It's an Illegal Employer Problem"

[SHRED]

Reclaiming the Issues: "It's an Illegal Employer Problem"
by Thom Hartmann


Every time the media - or a Democrat - uses the phrase "Illegal Immigration" they are promoting one of Karl Rove's most potent Republican Party frames.

The reality is that we don't have an "Illegal Immigration" problem in America. We have an "Illegal Employer" problem.

Yet it's almost never mentioned in the mainstream media, because to point it out could slightly reduce the profits and CEO salaries of many of America's largest multi-state and multinational corporations - who both own the media and contribute heavily to conservative politicians. Republicans would prefer that the "criminals" covered in the press are working people, and that corporate and CEO criminals not get discussed.

As the Busby/Bilray contest showed, "illegal immigration" is a red-hot issue for American voters. The Democrat Busby was way ahead until she committed a faux pas before a group of Latinos, leading to (false) media reports (particularly on right-wing talk radio) that she was encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for her in the upcoming election. Her Republican opponent seized on this and hammered the district with ads for the last few days of the campaign (while voting machines curiously went home at night with some of the poll workers), and now a Republican lobbyist has taken the seat of a Republican congressman convicted of illegal deals with Republican lobbyists.

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0705-23.htm

[havocmom]

1. Yep

Blame the victims, be they illegal immigrants or US workers afraid of becoming homeless in an economy they know is stacked against them

And the GOP pits the victims against each other, lest they notice where the root of the economic evil sits.

[billbuckhead]

2. Yep, sure is a simple frame we can't seem to make

[pat_k]

3. *** Predatory Employers *** (what we need to start calling these people)

http://january6th.org/borders.html

Wanna solve the problem? Empower millions to expose predatory employers.

. . .
Whistleblower immigration amnesty. Well-publicized processes for workers to report predatory employers and maintain anonymity throughout the course of investigation. Whistleblowers who are undocumented (whether an individual or a group) are offered a path to citizenship.
. . .

[FormerDittoHead]

4. ...and why aren't Democrats suggesting a 1-800 number to check...?

Look, the problem (and I worked in HR) is that there is NO ready system to verify if a SS card presented to us is real or not.

When we are presented with (what otherwise looks like genuine) ID, we are REQUIRED to accept it.

When someone shows a fake ID, THE EMPLOYEE is the one breaking the law by committing FRAUD.

As it is, there is NO SYSTEM for the employer to check the veracity of the ID. "Oh, THEY know..." is the answer from the left. That wouldn't fly in a court of law. There is a little thing called INTENT, and you have to PROVE that.

You have to turn it around in order to LEGALLY shift responiblity.

I'm all for turning it around.

Democrats (in office and running for office) - get off your "let the Republicans shoot themselves in the foot again" butts, and come up with some verification system for SS numbers.

I KNOW there will be privacy problems, but problems are to be SOLVED.

We got to the moon, we can figure this out...

btw: Al Franken suggested this too.

[yurbud]

5. TWO WORDS nail it: "illegal employer"

I have talked about this with Republicans, and they get it, but if they just hear it from one person, it doesn't "stick."

It's got to be a standard talking point from at least the Democrats.

Do you think illegal immigration would be a problem if the farmer was rounded up with the illegals and thrown across the Mexican border?

[DeSwiss]

6. I've been a small business owner for 18 years...

...in property management. When applicants apply for an apartment, as a part of that process we run a credit check, obviously. When an applicant's SSN does not match up with their name the report alerts me to that fact. Even if the applicant has no credit record, the SSN (if fake) will MOST LIKELY be listed as belonging to someone else's who is in the credit reporting company's database. We don't get the authentic person's name, but we do know that the SSN belongs to someone else.

***********************************************************
SAFESCAN WARNING:
SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER ISSUED BY THE SOCIAL SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION TO PERSON WITH DIFFERENT NAME
***********************************************************

As a small business the credit bureau we use allows up to 100 reports per month for a cost of around $10. So I doubt that an elaborate and certainly breauracratized government system would be any better when the resources to authenticate SSN's are already available in the private sector.

I believe that the underlying reason for this lack of verification are the tradeoffs we're told must be taken into consideration. Verifying the legality of workers, large companies generally claim, would result in increased costs to American consumers since legal workers won't do these jobs for the pay and lack of benefits that illegal workers will. And companies like Tyson's Meats and Wal-Marts (just to name a couple), are major political contributors who have a vested interest in the status quo. So politicians appeal to the jingoistic attitudes within society creating a straw-man onto whom all manner of problems, ills and fears can be cast.

Meanwhile, companies like these create third-world work zones within US borders. And the focus stays on the illegal workers and no one seriously targets (politically or prosecutorially) the reason they come. They come because they know most companies will look the other way and hire them. And small businesses bite the bullet because they can't compete on this unlevel playing field. IMO

[Arkansas Granny]

7. Admittedly, there are employers who knowingly hire illegal

immigrants and exploit them for cheap labor, but I'm betting there are many employers who have no idea that their workers are not in this country legally. I work for a small construction company and we require all employees to fill out the forms and paperwork required by the State and the Feds including an I-9 form that asks each employee to show certain types of identification. If I was presented with a green card from an employee I wouldn't know if it was real or a forgery, unless it was a really crummy job. Same thing with a Social Security card or other forms of ID. We also subcontract some of our work out to local companies. Are we expected to check all of their employee records to make sure there are no illegals? The average small business does not have the resources necessary to do a thorough background check on every applicant and prospective employee to verify their immigration status.