Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2009
No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. There were no frantic scenes of desperate workers fleeing la migra through the gritty streets of the industrial suburb southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
For more than 200 Overhill workers, however, the effect was devastating: All lost steady jobs last month and now find themselves in a precarious employment market, without severance pay or medical insurance. It wasn’t a hot tip or an undercover informant that helped seal their fates, but a computer check of Social Security numbers.
“A desktop raid” is how the workers’ representative, John M. Grant, vice president of Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, described the scenario.
Overhill, a $200-million-a-year company that provides frozen meals for clients such as American Airlines, Panda Express, Safeway and Jenny Craig, says it had no choice: An Internal Revenue Service audit found that 260 workers had provided “invalid or fraudulent” Social Security numbers. The government took no action against the workers. But Overhill did: All of the employees were fired May 31.
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But the Overhill case illustrates how desktop raids can ravage immigrant families, even without arrests and deportation. Employers facing stiff fines and potential prison terms for hiring illegal immigrants may decide to fire employees who have suspect paperwork.
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Overhill says it gave the workers 30 days to correct the problem with the IRS and provide the company with verification, but none did so.
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Overhill, whose workforce is largely Latino, says it has no idea of the legal status of the fired employees. No one has formally accused them of being illegal immigrants. Still, the company argues that it risked potential criminal liability under tax and immigration laws if it continued to employ them after the IRS audit.
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IRS officials declined to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns. Although the federal agency regularly alerts employers about workers with incorrect Social Security or tax identification numbers, it does not mandate that those employees be fired.
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All of Overhill’s dismissed factory hands were hired before the introduction of the Department of Homeland Security’s so-called E-Verify system, which allows employers to confirm the legal working status of new hires electronically, verifying Social Security numbers and other data. The program was designed as a weapon against the vast trade in fraudulent and stolen Social Security numbers. Overhill is now using the system for new hires.
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Many [former employees] have been in the United States for a decade or more and have U.S.-born children. They see no option of returning to Mexico and its enduring lack of opportunity and social mobility. They worry about missing rent payments, being unable to pay medical bills and having no money for food.
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Original article
Email
Patrick J. McDonnell
at patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com .
(Posted on June 12, 2009)
Comments
“They see no option of returning to Mexico and its enduring lack of opportunity” - and what is the underlying reason Mexico has “enduring lack of opportunity”? Is it because it lacks natural resources? Is it too hot? Do crops refuse to grow there? Actually, it’s none of the above. The reason is that it’s full of Mexicans, Mexican culture and Mexican politics. And those “migrants” bring it all with them to the U.S. so that, eventually, our land will also be a land of enduring lack of opportunity.
There are only two possible scenarios:
(1) The company knowingly hired illegal aliens.
(2) The illegal aliens used fake SSNs and documents.
Either way, it’s raid-worthy.
Many [former employees] have been in the United States for a decade or more and have U.S.-born children. They see no option of returning to Mexico and its enduring lack of opportunity and social mobility. They worry about missing rent payments, being unable to pay medical bills and having no money for food.
They weren’t too worried about stealing an American’s identity or stealing American jobs. They weren’t worried about Americans missing their rent payments, being unable to pay their medical bills, or having no money for food.
They see no option of returning to Mexico? I see but one option-being arrested for identity theft, illegal entry into the U.S., and God knows how many more crimes, being placed into U.S. prisons for their crimes, then being sent back to Mexico
Overhill says it gave the workers 30 days to correct the problem with the IRS and provide the company with verification, but none did so.
I wonder why?
All in all, its a sad story. Not because a bunch of illegal aliens got fired from jobs they shouldn’t have had in the first place, but because the whole slant of the story is that we should feel sorry for the illegals because that mean ol’ (undoubtedly white owned) company fired them, when their only crime was wanting to make a better life for themselves and their 10 kids, at American citizen’s expense.
“We killed ourselves on the assembly lines for years, many of us have injuries from repetitive motion,” said Bohemia Agustiano, 38, a mother of four from Huntington Park. “Now we’re worth nothing. We’re out on the streets. This is unjust, no one should be treated this way.”
No one should be treated that way? Well, how about the Americans that were hired in your place? All these years you were denying them jobs in their own country. Nobody should be treated that way from foreigners that illegally invade their country, because their own failed nation is a basket case of corruption.
Go back home and walk through the streets, holding up protests sign like you’re doing right now. Make your own country better instead of making ours worse.
Incidentally, how many of you were holding up signs earlier that said “Whites, Go Back To Europe; This is our land?”
Still think it’s your land now?
Anonymous:
That’s the same sing song we keep hearing over and over again from illegal aliens and their lobbies. They complain about their being exploited, but aren’t astute enough to notice that the only reason they’re here, and that there is a relatively open border between Mexico and the U.S., is because they’re exploitable and cheap. If not for that, no open borders.
It doesn’t appear the fired workers were doing jobs that americans refuse to do, these were union jobs with benefits.
There is no doubt white liberals will come running to the defense of the fired workers, and usually these same white liberals also decry big businesses’ outsourcing american jobs. I would like to ask these white liberals just what is the difference between exporting US jobs, and importing cheap foreign illegal alien labor?
I worked in a number of trades for years. Nobody cared when I was displaced. While I am not without sympathy for these people, who only came here because they were invited by our government, I have more sympathy for my own people. Let those whose hearts are bleeding so much dig into their own wallets to support these newly unemployed. Fat chance.
Once again, liberals like Los Angeles Times writer(what a shock) Patrick J. McDonell continue to write the standard tear jerker stories of illegal aliens who are devastated when this, that,or the other thing happens to them in a nation—THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN. Some of these people worked at the plant for fifteen years,etc. Well, that’s fifteen years of criminally violating U.S. immigration law as well as Social Security fraud, isn’t it? But of course, this is an angle to the story that the Times and Comrade McDonald aren’t interested in writing about. Never, ever, has the Times newsmedia complex, across the nation, ever been the slightest bit interested in what illegal immigration does to taxpaying, lawabiding U.S. citizens—and that’s a sad story in itself.
“We killed ourselves on the assembly lines for years, many of us have injuries from repetitive motion,” said Bohemia Agustiano, 38, a mother of four from Huntington Park. “Now we’re worth nothing. We’re out on the streets. This is unjust, no one should be treated this way.”
She is right, no one should be treated this way. If she was in the country legally, then she would have all sorts of protections and rights. But she gave away her rights be being here illegaly
Ho Hum.
So Typical of the la Times—printing daily sob stories about illegal immigrants unjustly fired from jobs that should go to American Citizens. But they’d rather go out of business than print anything but pro-immigrant, statist-slanted articles .
There was also this gem from the original article:
“….Six of the company’s fired workers interviewed at a protest outside the Vernon plant last week insisted that their Social Security numbers were legitimate.
“…’My Social Security number was good all these years, why is it suddenly no good now?’ asked Eva Macias, a 19-year veteran of Overhill Farms. ‘We left our youth in that plant’…”
Well, hon, that’s the risk you took when you bought that fake ID and SSN in Echo Park for $20 after you illegally crossed the border. Why didn’t you fix the problem when your employer generously gave you 30 days to clear up the mess?—or are you so stupid that you thought your fake SSN entitled you to citizenship?
The LA Times NEVER reports about productive, beleaguered White taxpayers who pay for your health care, food, children’s education, housing—all the while you and your compadres wave signs around calling us racist and telling us to ‘get off your land.’ Well, guess what? Some of us are.
According to Red State Report:
“…Since 2004 California has lost about 1.5 million people in taxpaying households. At the same time, the state has added 2.4 million people, mostly newborns and immigrants, legal and illegal, who pay little or no taxes….”
Who do you think is paying for the generous services you receive? Who do you think will pay for them in the future—newborns, immigrants who pay little or no taxes?
Your gravy train in California is about to end, as well it should. How about returning to your home country, the one your people created, and demand free services from your politicians? Ask them why they are pushing you out of your homelands?
As for the LA Times, it is dying—to which I say the sooner the better. Those to whom it caters cannot read and those who it daily insults and debases (White taxpayers) are either fleeing the state or continuing to drop their subscriptions:
According to answers.com:
“….The Times’ loss of circulation is the highest out of the top ten newspapers in the U.S…. the L.A. Times continues to lose circulation, now down about 50% since the Tribune Co. took over in 2000…”
And not a moment too soon.
Bon, 10 Years Clean of the LA Times
More sob stories about the problems and difficulties faced by those poor illegal aliens. Here’s what they should do: Stay in their own country. Given how hard working and beneficial illegal Mexicans, Bolivians, El Salvadoreans, and Guatemalans are to the United States (according to our media masters) their home countries must be veritable paradises of prosperity, economic efficiency, and wise governance. It’s a wonder they bother to come here.
“We killed ourselves on the assembly lines for years, many of us have injuries from repetitive motion,” said Bohemia Agustiano, 38, a mother of four from Huntington Park. “Now we’re worth nothing. We’re out on the streets. This is unjust, no one should be treated this way.”
What did you expect? The employers have been looking for cheap labor for years, and you stepped up to the plate. Now they’ve figured something else out: When you’re used up, you can be thrown away even easier and more cheaply than an American. Little to no threat of messy lawsuits, unless a Communist front group steps in; if you complain, just call La Migra; often just the threat of investigating your status causes you to leave.
What could be easier?
The Pro-Illegal side is beginning to fully understand that if America decides to get rid of them it won’t be difficult, at least not from a technilogical standpoint. The days when an illegal can show up with a fake SS and green card and get a job are coming to a close. Obama will try to hold the door open as long as he can but even he knows that pushing for amnesty will cost him his place in history.
What did you expect? The employers have been looking for cheap labor for years, and you stepped up to the plate.
Wild Eyed Charlie hit this nail on the head. If the left really cared about labor, they would have demanded a halt to immigration of low and unskilled labor decades ago. The resulting “labor shortage” would have forced employers to offer better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Neither our corporate masters nor the left wants that to happen.
The dirty secret of the American left is that it comes from the middle and upper middle classes and has nothing but contempt for the white American working class.
Was it wrong to steal an American’s identity or steal their job? I guess the moral hazard is enforcing the law.
Book ‘em and close down the factory. Confiscate all their earnings, clothing, and possessions and then send them back to Mexico using a Mexican bus with a large sign saying: “Your tax dollars at work”.
I cannot help but think that if we deported all these illegal aliens we would have safer enviorments for ourselves. Now I also think that if Mexico and the third world had a sudden and permanent influx of American influenced citizens repatriated to their home countries on a decidedly permanent basis their goverments would have to move in a more democratic fasion because the americanos wouldn’t put up with the oligarchy that they currently have. Why doesn’t some politician consider that deportation would have all sorts of GOOD effects on these countries and use this argument for mass deportations amazes me since it is so obvious.
Well…si, we sneaked across the border
But that doesn’t make us a bad person and we deserve to have all the rights of a citizen.
Lo and behold:
http://tinyurl.com/lp56d4
87 of the 95 workers at a central St. Louis County, Mo. laundry service were using fake SSNs. Most were the SSNs of others, but some were using SSNs that never really existed. The owner, a Hispanic woman, pled guilty yesterday in Federal court to numerous felonies. So she knew about the whole thing and was in on it.
