Justice Dept. Figures on Incarcerated Illegals

if your caught hiring them you should forfeit business
and if you rent same
take away the welcome mat

... a key word here is KNOWINGLY. Any employer who KNOWINGLY employs an illegal should have the book thrown at them. As you and I know, we need NO new laws for this!

The problem is the knowing part. Employers are not equipped to be able to verify the documentation of their various employees. The documentation is easily forgeable, and unless the employer has a LOT of illegals, they won't even get notice from the IRS or SSA.

Where do you stand on the Real ID Act? Grim? All states will have to verify SSN's and the new ID's would at least be considerably more difficult to forge. When that is enacted, I see no reason employers can't be able to tap into the same SSN verification system that the various DMV's will have instant access to.

This will also take the "knowingly" copout off the table. An employer would HAVE to know!

Evie

... is highly variable. I've had jobs where I had to be fingerprinted (when I was working with children) to jobs where all I had to do was sign an affidavit swearing that I was a citizen and had signed up for the draft but was not required to show proof. I think standardizing (with emphasis on showing more documentation) is a first good step.

As far as documentation being easily forgeable... yeah, it is. However, if no one follows through with checking on it then where are we then? I've seen news shows that used currently available and perfectly legal resources to check on the background of papers they knew were forged (because they bought them on the street) and got the proof the documents were duplicates and also being used in other locations at the same time. Aside from that, consider the 15 to 25 million (estimated) illegal aliens in the US... How many of these folks are working?... How many of these working aliens have forged papers?... Heck, how many employers pay under the table?

We don't back up the laws we have now, we don't enforce the borders we have now - stopping illegal immigration along with preventing terrorism is the current rationale for the Real ID act. How about securing our borders instead? If our government were really that worried about terrorists coming into the US from mexico then we would have closed and monitored the routes illegal aliens have been using for the past 5 years.

You are absolutely right... we need no new laws, we just need to enforce the ones we have.

A national ID card (and lets not kid around... that is what we are talking about) only works if you are constantly checking it - and then you are checking the biometric info the Real ID act calls for on the card (another contract for the fine folks who make electronic voting machines?). I'm not in favor of gun control, why would I be in favor of people control? Sounds like the foundation for a police state to me let alone a larger bureaucracy to keep track of it all... yay big government!

We as a nation have known about this illegal alien problem long before Bush took office. A national ID card using biometrics is a fancy new tool for a problem that we already had solutions for but never did anything about.

As for employers not knowing they have hired illegal? A lot of illegals are off the books, a lot of them are paid less than minimum wage. In an age where we find it acceptable to drug test employees at will, fire people because they smoke or have the wrong politician's bumper sticker on their car... the government can't expect me to believe employers don't know. If it takes making an example of a few employers caught red handed to make the rest toe the line then I'm all for it.

Bodies of business owners left hanging from a gibbet in front of their store may be a bit much but if it gets the job done...

I kind of look at it this way. I never blamed a dog for being a dog. If I leave a steak in reach of a new untrained pup then it's my fault when the dog eats it. I don't blame illegals for wanting to earn more in a month here in the US than they can back home in a year. Fact is, they wouldn't be here if there wasn't work. How can we blame the illegals when a few of us are the reason the illegals are here?

You can't blame a dog for being a dog... you can only blame the person keeping the dog.

grim

EVERY job I've gotten above the level of camp counselor back in high school has required me to fill out an I-9 form. You have to show X# of pieces of ID from specific lists. However, the person checking them has no way really of knowing if they are forged.

Nowadays, many employers run credit and background checks. Drug testing, etc. Fingerprints for working with kids or with sensitive information. Criminal background. They file the I-9's etc. There is no number to call to check on whether or not a person is a citizen matching the SSN that I am aware of.

In this thread we're talking about past illegals getting SS bennies for their prior "service". They were ON the books. Let's not cloud the issue with those off the books. I can give the INS a dozen sites for them to drive by tomorrow to nab illegals and their "employers" . They are not doing it.

It is impossible, IMO, to advocate for civilians (and no matter how much they are paid or how much power they have, they are still civilians) to enforce immigration law at the point of employment (or other service) if the government does not provide a reasonable way of verifying.

My credit card is verified in a matter of seconds. If I use my Driver's license to board a plane, vote, cross the border to Canada, get employed, etc., why can't it be verified instantly as well?

The privacy issues don't bother me anymore on this, IMO that horse has long since left the barn and it ain't going back. Might as well use the situation to our advantage then and have an ID that allows full enforcement of the laws. I don't see the national ID as a gimick or something that the need only arose for from 9/11.

You don't have a problem being fingerprinted to work with kids? How about a DNA sample then? OK?? I would rather criminal records, etc. be in national databases so they can better track the criminals and professional licenses of people that move from state to state. IOW, let's track the criminals better so the non-criminals can be left relatively at peace.

But the points about employers still stand.

I'm not happy with the state of privacy invasion these days, but it's a done deal and FAR worse with large private entities (credit bureaus, etc.) than the government. The way I see it, if the SSN is ALREADY (for a LONG time now) a universal ID number, then make it easier to verify and harder to fake.

But back to the original point, I AGREE with you (and Mark) that the employers that KNOWINGLY employ illegals are just as guilty if not moreso than those who just come here to make a buck to send back home to their poor family. BUT, the government has to help out with this too. When my hubby had his construction business, he often supplemented income during slow times by subcontracting for various larger contractors. To do this all he needed was to show he had his own workman's comp insurance and he gave the guy the SSN for the 1099 form they filed. They didn't withhold anything, that was all paid by my hubby at tax time (self employment tax, etc.). A LOT of contractors work like this. Now the insurance company is not supposed to issue the WC insurance w/o proper licensing, and the license was -- if you'll pardon the expression cuz it fits -- "____" (the word that fills in the blank followed by "mouse" being a small bird ) to obtain from the state.

The STATES have to make licensing harder and SOMEONE has to make verifying legal status simpler. Otherwise, there will always remain the glaring "KNOWINGLY" that gives employers an out.

What you propose is a fast way to a recession:

Even if the pay is decent, workers are hard to find; Employers say many Americans are not interested in manual jobs.

>> CYNDI Smallwood is looking for a few strong workers for her landscaping company. People with no fear of a hot sun who can shovel dirt all day long. She'll pay as much as $34 an hour. She says she can't find them.

Maybe potential employees don't know about her tiny Riverside, Calif., firm, Diversified Landscape Management. Maybe the problem is California's solid economy and low unemployment. Or maybe manual labor is something that many Americans wouldn't dream of doing. <<

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

lets try this wellfare work for it, or lose bennys, unemployed workers just a few ideas.

instead of these invaders

Service jobs, service jobs, service jobs... Can't find enough people to do chores around the house and for the wealthy is the examples you come up with Dave? I live in coal mining country and we would love to have landscaping jobs that pay laborers $34.00 an hour. Unfortunately no one is silly enough around here to pay high wages for such jobs, nor $15.00 for working at McDonalds, nor pay for dog walkers and the other services Californians find necessary to exist.

I'm not saying your example isn't valid for California but it is extremely regional as opposed to the rest of the country. Illegal aliens are flocking to booming areas that welcome cheap undocumented labor. If Ms. Smallwood was willing to drive a bus to WV she could find plenty of workers who would work for $17.00 plus room and board. At that price she would save money.

There are plenty of US citizens willing to work... the problem is getting the workers and jobs in the same location

maybe all the people on Welfare? Seems to me that if the government put limits on Welfare, there would be an influx of workers for unskilled jobs such as the ones that illegal immigrants take.

... stating: Landscaping laborer wanted. $34/hour. Training and equipment provided. Bring your own sunblock. Must provide valid California DL and/or proof of legal residence.

She got no replies? Nonsense!

Evie

Some of the nearly 8,000,000 Americans who are out of work and want to provide for their families, perhaps?

As for "$34 an hour" for manual labor and [can't] find anyone to do it? Something here realy stinks of BS.

her a machine to do the work

Don Erickson

I dunno if they have them by you, but up here in the Northeast there's an outfit called ''College Painters'' or somesuch. They hire college kids on their breaks/summer and pay like $15/hour and they come paint your house. Not a bad gig, and not bad pay for a ''no strings'' type job. And the kids get to do some work, get a tan and be outside.

My husband put himself through college pouring foundations and the like. Not only did he learn a marketable skill (the son of the guy he worked for has a pretty darned lucrative business of his own now -- long story, but it wasn't inhereted, he built it with his earnings). As a bonus, he didn't need a gym membership or have to make time for exercise then.

Another big job that illegals do is office cleaning, housekeeping and childcare. Give me one reason that the majority of welfare recipients CAN'T do these jobs?

let my people go

ok amigo.