Our Immigration Laws are Busted, Small Business Owners Must Fix IT?
When in doubt our brightest of the lawmakers in Washington have pushed even more off of the Federal Govern-Mint onto the States and now the small business owners of America. With their failure to fix the immigration laws that they are supposed to enact, they figured that passing the buck was a far easier pill to swallow.
Judge Breyer from San Fransisco was right to rule as he did. It is time to face the problem and make it right. The Congress and the President need to put in place an immigration policy that works. Over at the Los Angeles Times they have this about the Judges ruling…
Illegal hiring crackdown is blockedA federal judge stops a controversial program to punish companies based on discrepancies between their workers’ names and Social Security numbers.
By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
12:56 PM PDT, October 10, 2007In a major defeat for the Bush administration, a federal judge ruled today that the government could not use mismatched Social Security data to ferret out illegal immigrants from the workplace.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the Department of Homeland Security from starting a controversial program to punish companies based on discrepancies between their workers’ names and Social Security numbers.
“Altering the status quo would subject employers to greater compliance costs and employees to an increased risk of termination,” Breyer wrote in his 22-page ruling.
The injunction will remain in place until Breyer holds further hearings and decides whether to strike down the proposed Homeland Security rule permanently.
The Social Security Administration had planned to begin sending out “no-match” letters in September, and the Department of Homeland Security had warned companies that they could face criminal or civil sanctions if they did not clear up the discrepancies within 90 days. The administration planned to send about 140,000 letters, affecting more than 8 million workers.
Labor and immigrant rights groups, who sued the government to stop the crackdown, called the decision a major victory. They had argued that the new policy was unlawful and that U.S. citizens and documented workers would be fired as a result of the proposed rule.
“This is a particularly important day for the labor movement because the Social Security no-match letters have long been used to defeat worker organizing,” said Ana Avendano of the AFL-CIO. - LA Times
Thank you Judge Charles Breyer for laying the smack down on another policy concerning immigration by the Bush administration, not my problem, kind of busy in Iraq, but I will return your call later philosophy. America has an illegal immigration problem and the President wants to put the ownership on business owners? Let me make myself clear, if you as a business owner hire and illegal immigrant then you are breaking the law. If the government hands you questionable Social Security numbers and then tells you that you have ninety days to fire the person or prove that they are in fact a legal immigrant, is that not the govern-mint’s job to begin with? Heavy fines will follow if your employee can not prove citizenship.
Ask yourself this question? You’ve lived in America all your life, how can you prove that you are a citizen if your employer asked you to do so? Other than a birth certificate or your Social Security card you can not. If one or two of those documents is questionable by your government then both are questionable. Parading your Mom or Dad into the human resource office does not count either. For all intents and purposes, I could not find my birth certificate if you asked me for it right now. Same goes for my original Social Security card. I know they are here somewhere but I have not needed them in decades. Your job, your families livelihood is on the line and the decision to fire you or keep you on is on the line. Prove that you are an American citizen!
Everyone over at INS should get a pink slip next payday! For that matter we should fire all of the border patrol guards too because they failed to check for proper paperwork as the immigrants ILLEGALLY walked into America. Lock up all the Mom and Pop business owners and throw away the key. Mom and Pop are the ones to blame for illegal immigration is what the administration is really saying to the American people. Fine their sorry butt’s out of business. And yet they are a pro business administration?
Bush and Homeland Security on immigration is a joke. Mom and Pop don’t have the resources or the tools to handle who is legal and who is not. For some odd reason the war on terror and everyone we are supposed to be afraid of is not a high priority for this President when it comes to immigration policy. Putting illegal immigration at the feet and ownership of small businesses or big business is dead wrong. That is the job of our government PERIOD!
I’m not a basher of Legal Immigrants but I do have concerns when people come to our shores illegally. Granted, our nation and our way of life offers many opportunities to all and if you follow our laws then you are more than welcome to begin your travels and experience on becoming an American citizen. This policy deserved to be struck down because the Federal Government policy sucks and does not work, it is busted. Rather than fixing it they passed the blame down and now it is Mom and Pop’s fault.
Thought for the post here from the political mind. All you illegal immigrants that might vote Democrat raise your hands? All you illegal immigrants that might vote Republican raise your hands? All of you Democrats get the hell out! Republicans, you can stay but we are going to be watching you.
That my friends is the mine field that is Washington politics. If you were a national politician would you want to touch this topic? That is the dilemma we face here with our nations immigration policy. Nobody has the guts to call it like it is for fear of losing large new immigrant blocks of voters.
Our nations immigration policy is busted and the only way to fix it is in the White House and in the Congress. Ownership of this issue belongs there. Stop passing the damn buck. Somebody FedX from the Smithsonian Harry Truman’s desk top statement to the White House!
Papamoka
Cross Posted at Papamoka Straight Talk
October 11th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Here are the results that will come from this idiot judge’s ruling:
1) Employers will be able to hire illegal immigrants outside of the normal payroll.
2) Employers can then pay these workers in cash.
3) Employers will be able to avoid withdrawing income and payroll taxes from the pay of illegal immigrants.
4) Employers will be able to avoid paying illegal immigrants minimum wage.
5) Illegal immigrants will have no place to address grievances as they are not protected by the law.
Charles Breyer, who issued this ruling, was put on the bench by Bill Clinton. Who did this judge sleep with to get his job?
October 11th, 2007 at 7:01 am
SteveIL, can you point to any one of your “results” and honestly say that is isn’t already the status quo?
This is a federal problem. It needs to be fixed federally.
JMJ
October 11th, 2007 at 7:21 am
On LI they had raids by the feds and out of those186 arrested 28 were active gang members. That’s 28 too much,adios!
October 11th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Jersey said:
Right. And the federal government is trying to crack down on the employers of illegally aliens, and holding them responsible if they don’t. So why is a federal judge allowing the continuation of the illegality of employers when the federal government is trying to handle it?
And how is this a smackdown of the Bush administration? Bush wanted laws in place to avoid these kinds of things (much to the chagrin of conservatives like myself), yet it never got past the Senate (thankfully). What the federal government is doing now is trying to enforce the laws they should have been enforcing over the last 20 years since the last amnesty. Now some bullshit judge (Justice Breyer’s brother, as it turns out) has decided illegality and the rule of law can be thrown out the door in the event a greatly hypothetical situation occurs (much like the 6th Circuit stopped Judge Taylor’s ridiculous decision in ACLU v. NSA).
October 11th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Mat… No offense, but you have no idea what you are talking about. I have lots of experience in dealing with small businesses and I would say I am the expert here when it comes to this. There are thousands of legitimate businesses out there that hire the de facto grunt employees to wash dishes, do drying cleaning, work on cars, construction work, empty garbage, you know, all the shit white America won’t do, black America refuses to do and Asian Americans are too smart to do. Henceforth, the guy that shows up for the minimum wage job now as opposed to 20-30 years ago is the Hispanic border crosser, legally here or not.
An employer is given a set of rules to hire that guy to obtain Identification, SSN or Tax ID and a “Green Card”. You tell me where the small business owner, and I am talking restaurants, convenience stores and cleaners is supposed to have the skills to figure out who is legit or who is not. Before this new thing that you lambast the Bush people for, if a Social Security number came back, the rules were… Do not fire the person. In fact, it was illegal to fire the person in California for having a bad number. You had to give them a set time to obtain a new number according to the IRS. The employee then went back to the guy he bought the $25 SSN from and asked him for the $35 SSN. He brought that back to the employer who has no idea if it is legit or not and the employee went back to work. However, if the INS or the Dept. of Labor shows up the next day and that employee is on the payroll the small business owner was then fined for knowingly having that person on the payroll like that. Even worse, the employer would even get his name in the paper for hiring a person like that even though he followed the rules, paid the right wages and worked the employee the proper hours. This example is what most small businesses go through and this is what small businesses who use this labor pool want to protect themselves from. Everyone of them says, “Clearly explain to me who is legit so I can help solve the problem”,
The stiffening of the laws regarding the bad Social Security Number came about because of the 10-15% of small businesses that don’t follow the proper rules and practices and are not like the example I point out about. They hire employees who get paid cash at lower than minimum wage, have no set working schedules, don’t pay insurance for these employees and are knowingly taken advantage of these guys because they are illegal. The law, as redundant as it is, is meant to isolate these businesses and to put them out of business to make the market more fair and legitimate.
Most employers that are legit do not want a guy with a bad social security number on the books. They’d rather fire them no matter what race they are mainly because they have integrity and they do not want to lose that. But Mat… it’s people like the ACLU and most Democrats who cannot see what reality is. It isn’t about the poor bastard that snuck over the border for a better life, it’s about protecting the American business owner. Can we at least protect all of us who are here or are you forgetting that?
October 11th, 2007 at 11:46 am
SteveIL, the government isn’t doing much here. Either way, employers will shirt the law. The only was to truly crack down is to physically come after the em,ployers, not just checking SS numbers (some 200-300 million bogus or stolen numbers have circulated since the beginning of SS). All this will do is reduce the free money SS has been taking in from 2/3’s of undoc’d workers.
JMJ
October 11th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Why aren’t the democrats all up in arms over this?Shouldn’t they be taking this opportunity to blast Bush?Where is Schumer with his big mouth? They are all keeping quiet because they want this to.
That’s right Steve it isn’t about the poor bastard coming here for a better life. It’s about sucking the life out of our tax dollars and about turning us into a third world shithole.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Jersey said:
No kidding. And now it isn’t doing anything because some jerk of a judge said it couldn’t.
What’s the difference? The first thing that’s going to occur is a checking of SS numbers. A letter will work just fine.
October 11th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
If a nation can’t protect it’s borders then it’s sovereignty is in jeopardy….
If a few legit people get hurt along the way protecting American Businesses then great!!!
October 11th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Interesting debate by one and all. My main point to the post is that BOTH political parties refuse to find an answer to the illegal immigration problem. Rather than knuckiling down and finding the solution, they both point at the other side of the aisle in disgust.
Passing the buck or should I say the responsibilities to business owners makes no sense. Once more Washington and our nations government has chosen to push the real teeth behind the illegal immigration off of their desks and as far away as possible.
As Jersey has said, it is a Federal problem that they refuse to face.
So what is the answer? Stop pointing across the political aisle yourselves and offer up some possibilities.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW0SHJo365o
October 15th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
One small step (it will take many steps) to help control runaway immigration from Mex. U.S. tourism to Mex. brings in Hundreds of Millions in U.S. dollars to their pathetic economy. Seriously, no I mean really seriously, Everybody boycott Tourism to Mexico. This will force their corrupt (Leaders) to clamp down on Illegals leaving their sewer, I mean country.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
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