(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.

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!

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.

Yes, I realize these are primary elections we are involved in right now. I also realize that a candidate does not a presidential ticket make. But, I am already a partisan to conservatism and federalism, so I don’t heart Huckabee. This is not a media-driven choice for me. I have reviewed the records of all of the candidates - their money is where their votes are.

This is why I placed a Fred decal on my website - his record is clear and his statements correspond with his record. Don’t take my word for it - please. Go to FactCheck.org and see which of the candidates are manipulating their message and which are not.

Mike Huckabee is not a conservative - being an evangelical does not make him a conservative. Rather, he holds some conservative views relating to culture and social issues. What you will notice is a Buster Keaton like lean to the right - this trend starts about June 2007. This is around the same time the polling started on Huckabee.

So - let us look at Huckabee’s policy stances on the issues - you’ll see the trend I am talking about. I am discussing comparisons, not what I think is right or wrong. Huckabee has changed his stance on many issues once he started getting polling data. He is not a leader, he’s a poll follower.

Continue reading Why I don’t heart Mike Huckabee…

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.

So says the Dallas Morning News.

Why?

The illegal immigrant is the waiter serving margaritas at our restaurant table, the cook preparing our enchiladas. He works grueling hours at a meatpacking plant, carving up carcasses of cattle for our barbecue (he also picks the lettuce for our burgers). He builds our houses and cuts our grass. She cleans our homes and takes care of our children.

All jobs, of course, that no American wants to do.

Why else?

Antonio resented any suggestion that he should consider returning home or that illegal immigrants don’t belong here. He seemed to regard his presence here as exercising a right.

It is the illegal immigrant’s right to violate our laws.

Here is a headline to consider:

Migrant activists manage few wins

So here are a couple of questions:

• What exactly is a “migrant activist”?
• What is a win for a migrant activist?

The article for the above headline reveals a great deal about these questions. Apparently, a migrant activist is someone who promotes breaking laws they see as unfair. They are considered heroes for this by the media and a small minority of voters. They cannot generate enough support to make any changes to the law, so they openly break them or advocate same.

Along this line of thinking, consider the following as new terms for some other law breaking industries:

• Coca Activist
• Identity Relief Activist
• Auto Appropriation Activist
• Self Investment Activist
• Almost Truth Activist
• Intimate Companionship Activist
• Population Reduction Activist

This is supposed to be a nation of laws, yet a “win” for “Migrant Activists” consists blocking the following legislation:

…adding new roadblocks to the U.S.-Mexico border fence and delaying the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, Democrats used their majority to block proposals to punish sanctuary cities, to add more funding to go after smuggling-observation posts on U.S. soil and to expand workplace enforcement. They also refused to withdraw funding from an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit challenging the Salvation Army’s English-in-the-workplace policy.

But what could Democrats have been doing with their majority instead of blocking legislation designed to make the borders more secure, expand enforcement, and deter smugglers?

Democrats did not secure an expansion of temporary work visas for programs such as the H-2B seasonal foreign-worker category, and he said they failed to deliver any broader agreements to decide the status of illegal aliens or streamline current legal immigration.

If Congressional Democrats put the kind of energy into expanding the guest worker programs already in existence, instead of using their considerable power to perpetuate a dangerously porous border, there would be no need for “migrant activists”. These Democrats and the migrant activists are perpetuating the deaths in the desert. Rather than work hard to create a means by which seasonal workers can come through border checkpoints in air-conditioned buses, they advocate the need for people to enter the country, illegally, through the grueling, hot desert.

Here is the paraphrase:

We should respect illegal immigrants more than lazy American young people because the illegals are more willing to be exploited to do our menial labor.

This refers to an article by a would-be politician, Aaron Maloy, who states he wants to continue the work of Rep. Shirley Gomes (R-MA). I guess you have to admit the destruction of social services and schools while making a case for illegal immigration to get elected as a Republican in Mass. You also have to blame the citizens using elitist hyperbole.

How many times have we heard the Republican Presidential candidates scapegoat undocumented workers for their own selfish political gain? Enough. And enough IS enough. When watching clips from candidate town hall meetings and debates you are likely to see undereducated rednecks and young college graduates asking the candidates questions like “What will you do to stop the illegal immigrant terrorists,” (as if they go hand in hand) “What is your plan to send all 13 million illegals back to where they came from,” etc, etc. What do they both have in common? Joblessness.

Aaron, First of all, you presume too much. Truly, when was the last time you saw a jobless redneck or a jobless, over-educated 20-something at a town hall meeting? You are trying to pigeon-hole a vast majority of Americans into your elitist definition of redneck and overeducated, but underemployed. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (so not NewsMax), 89% of Americans define illegal immigration as problematic. That is one heck of a lot of rednecks.

Secondly, your statements are really not something you can translate into policy. You cannot simply accept the factual destruction of social services and the ruination of the state’s education system as an acceptable by-product of the emotional respect for people who are willing to break our laws to make a buck.

Also, with the prospect of fewer jobs, fewer illegal immigrants are willing to make the very dangerous trip across the border illegally. This will mean a good deal to us, as an estimated $20 billion (some say 30) a year is transfered out of the country by people who are working in the US illegally.

Finally, you should be appalled at the ease with which employers of day laborers are able to exploit illegal immigrants doing back-breaking work for your quoted 5 or 6 dollars an hour. You should also be appalled by the safety risks to employing so much unskilled labor to do things like frame your potential constituents’ houses, office complexes, and such. With the elitist view that Americans have way to much money and time on their hands, the excuse for illegal immigration as a means to keep products cheap is pretty ridiculous as well. Perhaps we can afford it after all.

You are right on one thing: Enough is enough, Aaron. It is high time Americans stop making excuses for creating yet another bigoted class system in the US. There are no valid reasons to accept illegal immigration. None.

UPDATE: A commenter to this article notes that FAIR may not be the best source of impartial information regarding illegal immigration - or immigration at all, for that matter. I don’t know anything about them, so let me give you some better sources of the huge majority of Americans who find illegal immigration problematic.

Compared to other problems facing the country, eighty-one percent of registered voters nationwide say illegal immigration is an important problem facing the country.
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll; November 30-December 3, 2007

Sixty-three percent of likely American voters believe illegal immigration is a major problem. McLaughlin & Associates poll; April 12-15, 2007

Fifty-nine percent of Americans polled believe the more effective way to deal with the potential treat to national security posed by millions of illegal immigrants living within the United States is to crack down on illegal immigration by toughening the enforcement of existing laws, deporting illegal immigrants and prosecuting the employers who illegally employ workers.
UPI/Zogby Poll; April 13-16, 2007

There are dozens of similar polls with similar results.

There are a number of hard-working people who enter the country illegally. I have always contended that you don’t start your citizenship in this country with a crime. I hear it all the time - these are hard working people - they’re not criminals. Since when does hard work make somebody immune to criminal activities?

Although this debate has become mostly about people who enter the US via Mexico (whether Mexican or OTM), the US is a haven for illegal immigrants from many countries. And while the proponents of illegal labor are mostly looking for the exploitable kind of workers - manual and unskilled - illegal immigrants span every industry and many levels. Illegal workers are in industries such as IT, Hospital, food service, food manufacturing, to name a few.

The question of what to do about the 12-odd million illegal immigrants already in the US becomes more important with each passing year - with each passing illegal population benchmark. No one wants to be a bad guy and say anything controversial. But the truth of the matter is, we have no idea who is in our country. We have no way to control who enters and who stays illegally.

I hear a lot about giving illegal immigrants a “path to citizenship”. Let me show you a few examples of people who would get a path to citizenship:

Kesi Cole is being held on $750,000 bail at the minimum security jail for women in Burlington County.

Investigators have determined that Kesi Cole is a native of Trinidad and an illegal immigrant because she did not fill out the required paperwork to be in the U.S. legally, police said.

An illegal immigrant charged in connection with the sexual assault of a 13-year-old Millville girl last year is expected to plead guilty in court this afternoon to aggravated sexual assault.

In August, deputies announced that another suspect, Luis Miguel Beltran Gonzalez, 25, had been booked on three counts of first-degree-murder and alien smuggling.

Investigators described all four suspects as undocumented immigrants who are believed to be frequent border crossers.

So, who gets a path to citizenship. Those who have only committed one federal crime or those who have already committed more crimes we don’t know about yet? People who come into your house unannounced through the back door are considered part of your family, right?

Citing an inevitable “climate of fear” among illegal immigrants, Alex Navidad, an immigration lawyer and illegal immigration advocate, makes the following threat to the City of Phoenix:

Changing Phoenix police’s immigration-enforcement policies will create a climate of fear in Phoenix that could lead to multimillion-dollar lawsuits and even riots, speakers said Thursday at a raucous town hall.

And

Don’t let Phoenix become the next Watts, the next LA riots,” Alex Navidad, an immigration lawyer, said in an impassioned plea to the panel. “That’s what’s going to happen. A community that’s fearful, with loads of police, can only lead to tragedy.”

So, create a climate of fear through threats of lawsuits and riots simply because the city wants to institute a policy which allows them to ask a simple question during their interactions with people requiring police attention. The question is, “Are you a US citizen?”