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The art of distraction June 11, 2007

Posted by reformedville in : Immigration, Government, Media , trackback

“A nation without borders is not a nation.” - Ronald Reagan

The entire immigration debate today is basically cast on two premises:

We can not allow the debate to proceed on these premises. The federal government , with the aid of the media reframed the debate to relieve themselves of culpability.  We should refuse to even engage in the debate on their terms, because it gives them false standing.

The real core issues are:

  1. When the federal government posits that they can no longer defend our borders, then why do we have a federal government ? Why is our military overseas defending states not our own when we say we can’t defend ourselves?

  2. The president has refused to fulfill his duty as chief executive officer and defend our national sovereignty, our borders and the laws of our land. So if he is not going to fulfill his job, why do we even need a president? To impose democracy on others?

The legislation in front of Congress is merely smoke and mirrors. We have all the legislation we need today. We only need to ENFORCE it, and that is the responsibility of the President and the executive branch of the government.

Many people were upset when I posited that Pedro is not the problem, as if somehow I am soft on immigration. Nothing could be further from the truth, but if we are running after Pedro’s we never solve the problem, especially with a pourous border. This is where the federal government wants us focused, on Pedro and the border, so they can play cat and mouse with us. It is their trump in the game of distraction.

There are many parts of this country that are literal paradises to live in, but to live there, one must either come from money, or be retiring to that area, as the area itself can not support one to live there. Normally in places like these employers will have to purchase housing and make provisions for employees if it is a tourist area, because a worker simply could not afford to live there.

The concept is the same for illegal immigrants. While humans require food, water and shelter to survive; the primary are food and water, as the shelter is meaningless if they can not feed themselves. The border does not provide food and water; employers do.

Having been an employer, both in management working for a national contractor and in my own business, I am well aware of the documentation that is required to hire an employee, including a proof of citizenship form .  Everyday, employers are hiring people without legitimate papers.  I have heard many argue that you do not know if you are hiring someone with bad papers, you have no way of knowing. Wrong, there are I-9 compliance services to safeguard you from this. 

Your company normally receives a letter from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA). The letter states that the Social Security number you have on file for one of your employees doesn’t match his number on file with the SSA. Reasons for a mismatch may include an unreported name change, a change in marital status, a stolen identity or a clerical error on your part (while processing the employee’s paperwork) or even at the SSA.

Nevertheless, the receipt of an SSA mismatch letter must prompt an employer to take some action to ensure compliance with the SSA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

For example, first check out the employee’s 1-9 Form, which establishes the employee’s eligibility for employment. Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (RCA), employees must fill out an I-9 form the first day on the job, arid must provide documentation proving their employment eligibility and identity within three business days of starting work.

The law does not require employers to file I-9 forms with any government agency. As a result, only you have immediate access to this information and only you can tell if the information submitted for an I-9 matches the information an employee provided on other forms.

If your review shows that these documents are incomplete or incorrect, you have a duty to investigate. If the employee cannot present acceptable documents, you  have to terminate him. Under the IRCA, employers can be legally liable for the “knowing” employment of unauthorized aliens.

 Even though I-9 forms are not submitted to federal agencies, they still can provide evidence that an employer intentionally hired an illegal alien. Each year the INS performs more than 60,000 audits of I-9 forms.

The danger of an improperly completed I-9 Form may not go away in the short term. Under the IRCA, when an employee leaves or is terminated, employers must retain I-9 forms for at least three years from the date of hire or one year after termination, whichever is longer. Second, employers are required to report accurate information to the IRS.

But again, this is all smoke and mirrors today. The regulations and the forms are there only to make us feel safe. Large employers know at worst they are going to pay fines. The INS is open to widespread corruption because it is self funded from fines it levies. Now one may think fines would be a deterrent, but a fine is a cost of doing business in the illegal immigrant trade.  No manager pays the fine, it is absorbed or reflected in either higher price or lower yield on stock earnings, but the amount save in wages and ancillary expenses make it very profitable.

If we want to get serious about solving the immigration problem we go to the source of the illegal immigrants employer, and start sending the management of the company to prison for hiring illegal immigrants. Go straight to the oasis and cut the source of the food and water for illegals and they quit coming.If employers knew they face going to prison or having their plants shut down for hiring illegals it is no longer worth it to them to hire illegals.

If illegal immigrants can not get employment they will not stay in the United States and they certainly won’t keep coming. Word gets out when the oasis dries up, but it doesn’t look like we are in any serious danger of that happening anytime soon!

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