Obama administration going after hiring of illegals

[The Straight Story]

Obama administration going after hiring of illegals
By Eileen Sullivan, Associated press April 30, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Obama administration policy to go after employers who knowingly hire and exploit illegal workers is not significantly different from the Bush administration strategy, according to a copy of the guidelines, obtained by The Associated Press.

The new guidelines for immigration agents, which the Homeland Security Department calls a "renewed department-wide focus" will impose fines and criminal charges against employers who break the law.

While the priority is to go after employers, the policy states that agents will continue to arrest illegal workers. The Barack Obama policy, however, stresses that humanitarian guidelines will be followed more broadly than in the previous administration.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said that under her leadership the agency will now be focused on "renewing a priority on employers who are making money off of these illegal immigrants and giving them jobs that should be going to American workers, as opposed to just counting numbers."

In 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement brought criminal charges against 135 employers and 968 workers.

In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month, Napolitano said using investigative tools such as auditing documents employees fill out when they join a company, having illegal workers go undercover and talking to people who regularly interact with the employers are all ways to build a case against a business that hires illegal workers.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42613&sid=60

[Turbineguy]

1. How different can the policy be?

perhaps only in the fact that the Obama Administration is actually doing it?

[babylonsister]

2. Headline is bogus.

They're going after the employers who hired them, and "Barack Obama policy, however, stresses that humanitarian guidelines will be followed more broadly than in the previous administration."

They are both significantly different.

Here's a different take:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5566815
Immigration Agents to Turn Focus to Employers

Immigration Agents to Turn Focus to Employers

By GINGER THOMPSON
Published: April 30, 2009


WASHINGTON — In an effort to crack down on illegal labor, the Department of Homeland Security intends to step up enforcement efforts against employers who knowingly hire such workers.

Under guidelines to be issued Thursday to Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices, agents will be instructed to take aim at employers and supervisors for prosecution “through the use of carefully planned criminal investigations.”

Senior officials of the Homeland Security Department said Wednesday that illegal workers would continue to be detained in raids on workplaces. But the officials said they hoped to mark an abrupt departure from past practices by making those arrests as part of an effort to build criminal and civil cases against employers.

Under the Bush administration, the officials said, most raids were conducted largely on the basis of tips that an employer was hiring illegal workers, rather than on information gleaned from audits of employer records or undercover investigations. As a result, agents rounded up thousands of illegal immigrants but rarely developed the evidence necessary to show whether businesses were knowingly using illegal labor.

Last year, for example, nearly 6,000 people were arrested in workplace immigration raids across the country, but only 135 were employers or managers. The new guidelines, meant to provide a road map to agents who have been operating with little guidance and oversight from Washington, instruct them to pursue evidence against the employer before going after the workers.

more...

[The Straight Story]

4. certainly a better written synopsis of it

Thanks!

[TahitiNut]

7. Indeed. It was a matter of WHERE and is now a matter of WHO.

It's one thing to hunt down illegal aliens WHERE they work and quite another to hunt down the employers WHO exploit them and participate in making the immigration system a matter of trafficking in human labor. We saw the hypocrisy of an administration that softly slapped employers' wrists and subjected the illegal aliens to harsh treatment. That's backwards.

[Triana]

3. If they focus more on the EMPLOYERS, that would be an improvement...

...that's where the problem is, IMO.

[MajorChode]

6. In other words they at least appear to be persuing a policy that works

The GOP's policy was "border defense", which was a joke. If your sole or primary strategy is to stop them at the border, you have already conceded defeat. Of course, the GOP really doesn't give a shit about the problem, they just want to play to the bigoted wing of their party while preserving those businesses that rely on cheap illegal labor and who donate heavily to the GOP.

[DrDan]

13. absolutely - this is the key

deal with this - and the problem stops.

[BlooInBloo]

5. My suggestion remains: $.01 fine for the first, doubling for every one thereafter.

[Occam Bandage]

9. Clever.

[NYC_SKP]

16. That's a classic math class problem.

Not a bad idea, Bloo.




Day Amount
1 $0.01
2 $0.02
3 $0.04
4 $0.08
5 $0.16
6 $0.32
7 $0.64
8 $1.28
9 $2.56
10 $5.12
11 $10.24
12 $20.48
13 $40.96
14 $81.92
15 $163.84
16 $327.68
17 $655.36
18 $1,310.72
19 $2,621.44
20 $5,242.88
21 $10,485.76
22 $20,971.52
23 $41,943.04
24 $83,886.08
25 $167,772.16
26 $335,544.32
27 $671,088.64
28 $1,342,177.28
29 $2,684,354.56
30 $5,368,709.12

Total $10,737,418.23

http://www.militaryinvestors.com/penny%20doubled.htm

:patriot:

[DURHAM D]

8. Maybe they should offer a reward.

Every general contractor, trades person, landscaper, etc. in any given area knows which contractors/owners use and abuse undocumented workers.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

10. Funny thing, conservatives are the ones that seem most upset

over the hiring of illegals but they are also the ones doing the lions share of hiring illegals. Anyone care to comment.

[tabbycat31]

14. 2 words-- cheap labor

[Caliman73]

17. I can name that tune in ONE note -- PROFIT

Cheap labor leads to one thing that is near and dear to the capitalists' hearts (I know they don't have hearts) Profit. Money is god.

[annabanana]

11. Can I assume that means he won't be using ICE to round up

everty Hispanic in sight and just kind of sort them out over the next several weeks.. while their families wonder what the hell happened to them?

[anonymous171]

12. Good. nt

[Bluestar]

15. The difference is enforcement.. During the Clinton administration in

California employers were fined and punished if they hired illegals. As with every other law, the Bush administration looked the other way when their cronies (many big companies are guilty of hiring illegals) violated the law.

All that must be done to curb the flow of illegals into this country is to cut off the source of jobs, and give those jobs back to Americans. It can be done, and Clinton actually did it.

[rustydog]

18. We seize drug dealers cars, houses and monies, we seize

the money of racketeers.

Why not seize the business that recruits and hires illegal aliens?
dry up the job market. Damn, these corporations advertise in Mexico to entice aliens to cross the border.
they are trying to bust unions by using non-union illegal carpenters.

Seize the business that knowingly hires illegals to work and sell that business to a competitor. You'll have a sharp decline in illegal immigration if there are no jobs over here.