Last year, 124 employers of undocumented immigrants were fined, down...

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.usbc.org/info/2004/oct/guestworker.htm

<snip>Bowing to a backlash from businesses in the 1990s, U.S. officials,have steered away from enforcing existing laws that punish employers for hiring undocumented workers. Last fiscal year, 124 employers of undocumented immigrants were fined, down from 909 in 1995. snip

At a Senate hearing in April, Stewart Verdery, an assistant secretary with the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged what everyone had long known: His agency had not been aggressive in prosecuting employers who hired undocumented workers.

"I would not sit here today and argue that over the last, say, half dozen years that workplace enforcement of immigration laws has been what it should be," Verdery said. snip

Federal records show employers of undocumented workers are only sporadically investigated and rarely fined. From 1999 to 2003, 11,714 employers were investigated for immigration violations. During the same period, 692 employers were fined for knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

The first attempt occurred in 1997. INS investigators warned Vidalia onion growers in Georgia to stop employing undocumented immigrants and instead use temporary foreign workers through the federal government's H-2A program. Growers didn't like the H-2A program. The wages they were required to pay were too high and they claimed it left them vulnerable to lawsuits from immigrant worker advocates. A year later, the INS arrested 21 workers during a one-day raid, prompting thousands of immigrants to abandon the fields at the height of the harvest.

Growers in the $60 million industry complained loudly. Within a week, five lawmakers joined them in attacking the INS.

The growers and the INS eventually worked out a deal: Undocumented immigrants could continue to pick onions as long as growers pledged to hire legal workers in the future.

Why doesn't Lou Dobbs bring this up every day? Why doesn't he give the names of the corporations who are hiring all these undocumented immigrants? Or maybe just the top ten worst offenders? Why doesn't he keep harping that enforcement against these corporations has gone way down since Bush took office? Why do people think that having Dobbs showing videotape of Mexicans climbing over a fence every day will make any difference when the real offenders are never mentioned and exposed? Who were the five lawmakers who jumped on the INS for going after Vidalia? Can someone answer these questions?

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Did you ask Lou Dobbs?

Forward your questions to him. It can't hurt.

[NNN0LHI]

2. To be honest I would much rather hear from the Dobbs defenders on this one

I can't wait.

Don

[ovidsen]

3. It's not just Dobbs

Almost every media pundit focuses on dramatic pictures and descriptions of "hordes" of undocumented workers entering the US. Then, many praise the Minutemen vigilante border patrols for being some kind of "grass roots" response to this "crisis".

This "problem" has little to do with border crossings. It's rooted in the pervasive practice of greedy businesses hiring undocumented workers "off the books" at subminimumm wages. This drives down the pay of legal workers, or (even worse) eliminates their jobs. It also means lower revenues for FICA (Social Security), since employers don't pay FICA taxes on undocumented workers.

If the INS enforces current laws, that will 1) Boost not only the number of jobs available to legal residents, but their pay as well, and 2) drastically cut the number of undocumented workers entering the US. They won't come if there aren't any jobs.

If those oh-so-patriotic Minuteman want to make a difference, they'll abandon their border vigils, and patrol the businesses that are lining their own pockets by sabotaging the American workforce.

I acknowledge that this approach won't solve the problem of sweatshops in Latin America. But it will help solve the problem of sweatshops in the US. Let's take this one step at a time.

[NNN0LHI]

4. I agree Dobbs is not the only one

But he is the one who has been on an all out one man anti-Mexican crusade for years. That is undeniable.

Don