Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post, March 29, 2009
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has delayed a series of proposed immigration raids and other enforcement actions at U.S. workplaces in recent weeks, asking agents in her department to apply more scrutiny to the selection and investigation of targets as well as the timing of raids, federal officials said.
A senior department official said the delays signal a pending change in whom agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement choose to prosecute—increasing the focus on businesses and executives instead of ordinary workers.
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“There will be a change in policy, but in the interim, you’ve got to scrutinize the cases coming up,” the senior DHS official said, noting Napolitano’s expectations as a former federal prosecutor and state attorney general.
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Napolitano’s moves have led some to question President Obama’s commitment to work-site raids, which were a signature of Bush administration efforts to combat illegal immigration. Napolitano has highlighted other priorities, such as combating Mexican drug cartels and catching dangerous criminals who are illegal immigrants.
Napolitano’s moves foreshadow the difficult political decisions the Obama administration faces as it decides whether to continue mass arrests of illegal immigrant workers in sweeps of meatpackers, construction firms, defense contractors and other employers.
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The raids have enraged Latino community and religious leaders, immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups important to the Democratic base, who have stepped up pressure on Obama to stop them.
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But Obama also faces pressure from conservative lawmakers and many centrist Democrats, who say that workplace enforcement is needed to reduce the supply of jobs that attract illegal immigrants, and that any retreat in defending American jobs in a recession could ignite a populist backlash.
When the White House announced plans last week to move more than 450 federal agents and equipment to the border to counter Mexico’s drug cartels, lawmakers warned Napolitano against diverting money from workplace operations.
Rep. Lamar Smith (Tex.), ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said the administration “appears to be using border violence as an excuse” to undercut immigration enforcement in the nation’s interior.
{snip}
Led by Byrd [Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.),], Congress this year ordered ICE to spend $127 million on workplace operations, $34 million more than President George W. Bush had requested. Reducing those amounts, even in ICE’s overall $5 billion budget, would provoke a fight, senior aides in both parties said.
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Original article
(Posted on March 30, 2009)
Comments
The raids have enraged Latino community and religious leaders, immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups important to the Democratic base, who have stepped up pressure on Obama to stop them.
Nothing wrong with doing both.
No reason the employers can’t be placed at the head of the line, handcuffed and hauled off before the TV cameras at the same time as their criminal ‘employees’.
The lack of any employer sanctions has always been the biggest part of the problem, imo. Unfortunately this plan is coming from Napolitano, who already has an abysmal track record, and Obama, along with Washington’s 26 year history of broken promises to rid us of illegal aliens. So I am a bit more than skeptical, and expect we will not only see no raids, but no enforcement against employers. Nothing at all. Nothing but more empty words, empty promises and excuses followed by yet another push for amnesty.
Does the ballot box really serve any purpose anymore? Any purpose beyond keeping the masses quiet, letting us maintain a perpetual false illusion of doing the right thing, cycle after cycle, and resigning ourselves to the predictable outcome? Hoping that ‘maybe next time’ we might be able to rid ourselves of the scoundrels in Washington. I am having my doubts.
What is really needed is to help reach the brainwashed masses of the obama cult and teach them a bit about their own best self-interest.
Getting rid of illegals keeps wages afloat and taxes down.
“The Obama thugocracy is still out there but many of the youths today are waking up from the utter lies and deception of the bubble they were raised in.” http://cordeliaforlear.blogspot.com/2009/03/useful-idiots-of-obama-cult-how-to.html
Let’s just make E-Verify mandatory for all existing workers and all new workers? Oops, I forgot, that would be effective. 99.5% effective to be exact. Perhaps we need to go back to conducting raids?
“DHS shifting focus from illegals to the employers that hire them.”
That’s absolutely false. Pretending to be going after employers is an obvious ruse to make it appear as if nothing has changed, only the targets, which will deflect howls of protest from the 79% of the population that want these illegals out of the country. Almost all enforcement of illegal aliens has now STOPPED. The next step is universal amnesty for them and their families.
Whether it is pretending not to object to guns, or pretending to enforce immigration law, everything this fascist administration does it does in an oblique way, so that it’s motives are never known or, at the very least, only strongly suspected.
Obama said often he has no problems with guns or the second amendment, when in fact he is fanatically anti-gun, because of all the violence they cause in the black community, plus he fears an armed public is a threat to his fascist agenda.
However, when the opportunity arises that makes it appear as if he MUST act on gun restriction, like the drug gangs in Mexico, he trots his duplicitous attorney general out to tell us we must ban “assault weapons,” because they are causing deaths among Mexican police. How convenient.
The beauty of it all is that the Obamanation is keeping his hands clean, so to speak, wanting to appear to be above the fray.
The wretchedness of it all, however, is that there is only a wee handful of weapons coming from this country to Mexico. Most of the drug cartel rifles are fully automatic, which this country does not manufacture for public use….only military………and the bulk of the weapons actually come from illegal arms dealers and the Mexican government itself. 110,000 Mexican soldiers have deserted in the last few years, selling their weaponry for money when they leave.
The Obamanation can rely on Mexico’s continued refusal to furnish serial numbers on confiscated weapons from the drug gangs, because they want to create the impression the US is at fault for their drug violence. Very convenient for the Obamanation and the liars, Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton.
Calderon and other Mexican officials must have amazing self-control by not laughing out loud when the beautiful Bruno Clinton declares the US is at fault for the crime wave in Mexico.
The lies work out wonderfully for both the fascist Obama administration and the drug corrupt officials in Mexico. The Mexicans only have to pretend that they’re victims of the US public and legal gun dealers to absolve themselves of blame, while the Obamanation can pretend he certainly is supportive of the second amendment, but what can he do? Mexicans are being killed by US made “assault weapons.” Meanwhile, the drug gangs are getting stronger with each passing day…..and wealthier as well.
What a shame it would be if the drug cartels put a hitch in the whole affair by moving on the government in an all out assault, say by the Summer of this year. Since the present group of Mexican thugs are just as criminal as the cartel bosses, we wouldn’t really notice any difference.
This may not be a bad thing, provided the business execs who knowingly hire illegal aliens are given lengthy prison terms and assessed enormous fines.
Hiring illegal aliens would be a lot less appealing if these corporate creeps started losing their suburban homes and spending “quality” time with the minorities they prefer over us inside the Concrete Congo.
While we’re at it, I’d like to see criminal prosecutions for high-tech business executives who lie on h1b visa paperwork and say they “couldn’t find qualified Americans”, all while throwing reams of our resumes into the circular file.
The raids have enraged Latino community and religious leaders, immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups important to the Democratic base,
Mustn’t outrage or enrage the muslims and other ‘minorities?’
This clearly wasn’t done. We need to find out why. How did employers circumvent the process?
I’m a native born white man without an accent and yet every time I’ve changed jobs, I’ve been asked to provide proof of my citizenship.
I am all for each pro-illegal member of Congress, any committee and/or individual having a say-so in running this country, having to appear on national TV and telling the country why they prefer illegal aliens to loyal, legal, taxpaying American citizens. And while they’re at it, give us a good reason why we need to keep importing people into a country that is in the financial shape we’re in now. We not only need military on the border, but a moratorium on all immigration for 5-10 years until this tower of Babel gets assimilated. If you cannot live up to the oath of citizenship, learn our language and follow the rules, then this is no place for you. We don’t need other cultures and idealogies imposed on us. We’ve had a great and prosperous country…then came the invaders.
“The raids have enraged Latino community and religious leaders…”
In other words, “Our race is above the law! We should be able to do whatever we want! How dare they enforce their laws against us?”
Stop illegal immigration at the border and you don’t have to worry about all those other issues.
Rather than arresting employers the first time they get caught hiring illegals we should be fining the hell out of them. Make it so it is less profitable to hire illegals rather than the other way around like it is now. Better yet we should take the money that is collected and reinvest it back into enforcement.
We should also disallow a deduction for wages paid to illegals. That would also have the same effect. To be fair to the employers that are trying to play by the rules we could give a safe harbor if they use E-verify on all employees and have proof that they checked the identity of each worker by accepting only verifiably biometric ID.
This would make it impossible for employers to hide like now by saying that they had no idea someone was illegal when of course most of them know damn well.
We can also fine the illegals as well. The fine could be suspended barring they do not fight deportation and agree to never return to the US illegally again. The fine could accrue interest at credit card rates (just like many Americans are charged if they cannot pay their taxes and have to borrow money). This whay they will never have a future here.
This is easy.
This new “policy” would be welcome news, were it not a lie. It’s just for suckers: the biggest suckers will buy it hook, line, and sinker, and the next-biggest suckers will buy it long enough for 0bama to make his next moves.
At best this’ll amount to a wrist slap for employers who directly contribute to the destruction of the republic. At worst, it’ll be a selectively-enforced weapon against Democrats’ enemies.
