(Cue Dramatic Music)

A government raid on one of the US largest meat processors, netting 300-odd arrests with warrants for 300 more,  has revealed indicators that people at the Supervisory level throughout the company not only knew they were using illegal labor, but had checks color coded to indicate which account to draw the money from.

The affidavit filed by a senior special agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement department lists dozens of pages of allegations against the company’s owners and supervisors. The document portrays them as exploiters of a vulnerable illegal immigrant work force, and it could be seen as setting the owners and supervisors up for possible indictment.

Allegations include that company owners and supervisors physically abused and exploited workers; knowingly hired workers without legal documentation; altered work records; paid some off the books; and paid them below minimum wage (starting workers at $5 an hour).

In addition, the affidavit alleges that company owners and supervisors fraudulently and forcibly sold them used cars and trucks, threatening that they would be fired if they didn’t buy the vehicles.

Exploitation is the name of the game. The advocates for illegal labor know it and live by the mantra that since it is better than what they would make at home, it is ok to do this sort of thing.  There is no shock here for me.

There has been a nerved touched on both sides of the immigration debate, related to Pope Benedict’s statements on ensuring immigrants are treated humanely and respectfully, and that the well-being of families of immigrants be protected. To be sure, there are many who think the Pope was saying we should just throw open our borders and let people do what they will. Their take is the Holy Father was saying we should not have immigration laws, let alone enforce them. You’ll be hearing a lot on those things.

Don’t get caught up in the rhetoric generated by a very simple statement made by the Holy Father.

I hear that Tom Tancredo took offense to the Pope’s words. He should not have. The Holy Father is not telling America to stop prosecuting illegal immigrants. Neither is the pontiff suggesting amnesty for those who have families in the US - maybe members of which are considered citizens under the eyes of the law. Do not assume we can’t ensforce our laws in such a way as to maintain the dignity of those who are impacted by the enforcement.

There are things we can do much better in the way we handle immigration enforcement. Welfare checks at a person’s home if they are detained. Let’s make sure we don’t have children getting home from school without someone there to protect them. Let us also ensure we make every effort to contact someone in the detainee’s family so they know what is going on - give these folks their phone call, like anyone else gets who is detained for an alleged crime.

The issue is not really about immigration - it is about how we handle enforcement.

Non-Catholics will get confused (actually, so will many Catholics) by the weight of the Holy Father’s words. He is infallible with respect to Catholic doctrine - and that applies to the dignity of human life. It is part of the gospel - in this sense, his words about protecting the dignity of others and stopping violence is directly related to our doctrine. However, you cannot spin this theme as a call upon Catholics to support illegal immigration. It is not violent to enforce immigration law, any more than it is violent to enforce drug laws. The manner in which people are treated during the enforcement of laws is the issue at hand.

The Mexican government is pretty innovative in its approach to keep the 20-odd billion dollars in remittances rolling into the Mexican economy.

A one-day event run by the Mexican government in Memphis this weekend ran smoothly, a sharp contrast from last year’s event, when police responded to control a massive and sometimes angry crowd seeking Mexican identity cards and passports.

This time Mexican officials required people to make appointments, rather than the first-come, first-served policy from last year.

Imagine Mexico being able to perform such services in Mexico. But no, what would be the point? Especially since this mobile consulate is in no way designed to help anyone other than the corrupt functionaries in the Mexican government.

Mexico has to ensure illegal immigrants in the US have the means to inject the fruits of their labor into the Mexican economy. Did I mention the 20-some billion dollars that leaves the US for Mexico each year?

Mexico issues documents regardless of an person’s immigration status in the United States. Illegal immigrants are especially interested in the documents because they help them open accounts at banks and do other business.

Critics like U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., have said that by issuing the documents Mexico is helping illegal immigrants establish themselves here and encouraging them to break immigration law.

How nice!

But not where you think.

The United States has announced that it is planning to help Egypt build a border fence along the Gaza-Egypt border. Washington transferred $23 million worth of special aid to the North African nation as part of its assistance in locating smuggling tunnels.

Because there is no way we could put $23 million to use on a US border to control smuggling.

There has been, even on this blog, a lot of argument about illegal immigration with points raised about whether illegal immigration is good or bad for the economy; whether it is fair to stop people entering the country illegally; whether or not we should expel those here illegally, etc.

None of this matters. It is completely irrelevant.

There is only one valid point to this debate.  What is the law?

If you come across the border without the proper permission, is that against the law? If you take a job without the proper permission, is it against the law? If you drive without the proper permission, is it against the law? If you use someone else’s identity to establish tax records, bank accounts, rental agreements, is it against the law?

If the answer to any of the above questions is YES, there lies the only relevant point in the debate.

If you don’t like the law, work hard to get it changed. However, you cannot claim to embody justice and fairness while disregarding the very essence of justice and fairness - our laws.

Now that fingerprinting is used to identify and segregate illegal immigrants apprehended in the Tucson Sector, a great deal more is known about many of the illegal immigrants crossing the border.

“The Tucson Sector gets a lot of sex offenders and we average at least one or two a week throughout the sector.”  Gonzalez references a man wearing a blue t-shirt.  “He served 2 1/2 years in jail for sexual conduct with a minor.”

Agents knew that because they ran his fingerprints. “He could have told us whatever we wanted and that’s what we have to go on.  But with his fingerprints you can’t hide that,” said Gonzalez.

I have always said that the importance of an secure border and enforceable immigration laws is based upon the need to know who is coming into the country and whether or not we want them here. We have enough of our own sex offenders in the United States without importing them from other countries.

Here is yet another example of the “everything is equal” thought process, which makes discussing politics with some people totally useless.

To the Editor:

The political cartoon of Feb. 26 suggested some connection between the tragic Cottonwood bus accident and the fact that the person apparently at fault is an illegal immigrant. By precisely the same logic, we might suggest that, since the driver is female, we ought not to let women drive. She is 24, so maybe we need to ban everyone under 30 from driving. She had black hair, so …

The point, of course, is that accidents are caused by bad driving, not by immigration status or gender or age or hair color.

When I complained that the cartoon was racist, Mr. Anderson (R-E, March 1) replied that race has nothing to do with it. Perhaps he is right, but if racism isn’t the cause of such irrational thinking, what is?

So, there is a moral equivalent between being involved in illegal activity and being a female under 30?

The point you should be taking away is that if someone is driving a vehicle illegally, because they are in the country illegally, we really don’t know whether they are a bad driver or not. This accident was not caused SIMPLY by bad driving. It was caused by a bad driver, who had no no authority to operate a motor vehicle, primarily because she was not authorized to be in the country.

The cartoon is only racist to someone who believes that illegal immigration is an issue of race - that somehow people should be allowed to act outside the law because their race mandates we should expect less of them. In short, only a racist would apply such irrational thinking to something which is clearly not an issue of race.

So, Let me answer your question. The cause of such “irrational” thinking is simple:

Kids are dead because this particular lady had no respect for our laws.

Subtitle: Another MSM Misdirection

 NORTH COUNTY– The president of the MEChA club at Palomar College has been deported to Mexico, immigration officials said Wednesday.

Paola Oropeza, 22, was arrested Jan. 8 by a fugitive operations team with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for the department in San Diego.

So, we have an illegal alien working as an activist for not only illegal immigration, but the re-capture of the “lost territories of Mexico” (Southwestern United States), who is also a student in a college of the country he hates.

ICE deported him (drum roll, please) to Tijuana.  Which means he’ll be back in an hour or two.

And what does the “journalist” have to say about MeChA?

MEChA, or Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, is a Latino student group with chapters in high schools and colleges. It focuses on empowerment through education as well as political, cultural and social awareness.

Bunk - Aztlan refers to the territory the US “stole” from Mexico. MeChA is about revolution against the United States.

I spoke yesterday that the “illegal” in illegal immigration doesn’t seem to mean anything to anyone on either side of the issue anymore. It never really had much meaning from the leftists, and has been diluted to a great extent now on the right.

Well, another phrase seems to have taken on this same semblance of androgyny on the issue of illegal immigration - “Zero Tolerance”. Now, I cast no dispersion whatsoever on the men and women protecting our borders day-to-day. They do a fine job with the resources and policies they are handed. This is a policy matter.

Roughly 1000 illegal immigrants are apprehended everyday in the Tucson sector. This is, by vast amounts, the most active area for illegal border crossers. Most of those apprehended are provided with the “catch-and-release” policy of “voluntary return to Mexico” - thus allowing them the opportunity to actually enter the country legally without repercussions. However, the Tucson sector bureaucrats will now be prosecuting 40 per day of these illegal entrants to show that they mean business, as a part of their “zero tolerance” program.

I understand the cost of prosecuting illegal entrants. I understand the burden this places on the court. However, there are two points I would like to make:

Every traffic court in the state handles dozens of cases everyday and no one blinks an eyelash about the burden on the court system. There are prosecuting attorneys there, but no defense attorneys appointed by the court for the benefit of citizens.

Forty indictments per day is not “zero tolerance” It is 960 tolerance.

Update: This is why the “catch-and-release” policies are a bad idea. Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

Santana Batiz-Aceves, 39, a twice-deported illegal immigrant with a history of drug charges, was arrested about 11:49 a.m. Friday at his Chandler home near Arizona Avenue and Ray Road. He was booked into Maricopa County’s Fourth Avenue Jail on suspicion of 25 felonies, including kidnapping, child molestation, sexual abuse, sexual conduct with a minor, aggravated assault, burglary and trespassing.

It goes like this:

All of a sudden, Assistant HR Managers around the US are in jeopardy of being charged with crimes for hiring illegal immigrants.

Sometime soon, perhaps by the end of this month, Christopher Lamb may plead guilty to harboring an illegal alien. Lamb, 37, was a human resources assistant manager at Swift & Co., among the largest beef and pork processors in the U.S. As immigration emerges as one of the most contentious issues of this election season, his case is emblematic of newly aggressive tactics against management by the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE.

To these people, the government is at fault for enforcing existing laws. The exploitative hiring practices designed to do nothing more than increase profits are not the problem. A culture of lawbreaking by these companies is not the problem.

For years there has been an implicit understanding among businesses that need workers, illegal immigrants willing to do those jobs, communities that benefit from such commerce, and a government that rarely intervened. Now that understanding has been torn apart.

The above statement is nothing more than a lie. The communities are made of the same people who are tired of the burden of illegal immigration. The government is made of people elected by those in the community. The implicit understanding is only between the illegal immigrants and the businesses that need workers well below the cost of a citizen.

If a business cannot compete with others in their industry without breaking the law, maybe they don’t belong in business.