Shocking News!

Iowa slaughterhouse manager pleads guilty to hiring undocumented workers and assisting them in their efforts to obtain fake documents.  Was he sent to a detention center?  Deported?  NO!  He was changed with one county of conspiracy to commit document fraud and is now free on bond.

Thank heavens our justice system is fair and balanced.

Manager Pleads Guilty in Mississippi Immigration Raid

This report from ABC News details that guilty plea of Jose Humberto Gonzalez, a manager at Howard Industries who admitted to knowingly hiring undocumented workers.  Although I'm very pleased that prosecutors are FINALLY going after employers, this report seems to indicate that Mr. Gonzalez was a fall guy--a middle manager who got scapegoated.  It seems highly unlikely that Mr. Gonzalez was the sole perpetrator here.

The only company executive indicted in the nation's largest workplace raid on illegal immigrants pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy.

Jose Humberto Gonzalez pleaded guilty to one charge of a 12-count indictment that alleged he knowingly hired illegal immigrants at Howard Industries, where he was personnel director.  Prosecutors would not discuss details of the plea agreement.

More than 600 were arrested in the August 2008 raid on Howard's plant in the south Mississippi town of Laurel. Gonzalez, 45, was the human resources manager at the sprawling facility, which makes electrical transformers.

Several illegal immigrants have been convicted of identity theft and deported.
Gonzalez, wearing a dark brown suit, said little during the hearing other than responding to the judge with yes or no answers.

The court docket was backed up, so U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett conducted plea changes for two other men in unrelated cases at the same time as Gonzalez. That left Gonzalez standing before the judge next to a shackled crack dealer in a red prison jumpsuit.
 
Gonzalez refused to comment as he left the federal courthouse holding hands with his wife.
Gonzalez attorney, P.K. Holmes of Arkansas, passed out a written statement saying Gonzalez is prohibited from commenting on specifics of the case even though he wants to and "accepts responsibility for his actions."

He faces up to five years on the conspiracy charge. Sentencing is March 31.
As part of his plea, Gonzalez admitted to elements of the conspiracy, including hiring workers "regardless of concerns about their lawful status."

In December 2005, many workers fled the plant as rumors spread of a coming raid. Gonzalez "was summoned to the plant" to call workers and reassure them there was no raid and to tell them to come back to work, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gaines Cleveland told the court.

Dropping Immigration Charges against American Employers: This is why we have an immigration problem

This commentary is a based on a series of articles about the case Sholom Rubashkin, a manager of a kosher slaughterhouse who was charged with 72 counts of federal immigration violations, including harboring undocumented immigrants for profit, conspiracy to commit document fraud, and aiding and abetting document fraud.

The reasons for dismissing Mr. Rubashkin's immigration charges are this: he has been convicted for multiple counts of financial fraud, and his immigration convictions will not increase the time he serves in prison.

Hold on here--wasn't Rubashkin's Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville, Iowa the largest single-site raid in U.S. history? Didn't federal agents find 389 undocumented workers at the plant?

Where is FAIR? Where are the "Help Save" groups? Where is the indignant outrage of the Tea Party movement?

I think it's important to remember in instances like this--a perfect example of American hypocrisy--that while Mr. Rubashkin is not being held accountable for his role in the immigration violations, those who worked for him are either deported or sitting in immigrant detention centers. He won't have to pay for his substantial crimes facilitating undocumented immigration, but the immigrants themselves will.

The federal judge who was willing to overlook these crimes was sending a clear message to him and all the employers in the U.S.: if you break these laws, it's not going to be worth our time and money try to convict you. And why should he?

It's so much easier just to blame the immigrants.
in reference to: The Associated Press: Immigration charges dropped in slaughterhouse case (view on Google Sidewiki)

ICE "cracks down" on immigrant absconders

This is not the Avon Lady calling. ICE Agents approach a house in Fairfax in the pre-dawn hours to apprehend an immigrant absconder.

What is an immigrant absconder? --An immigrant who refuses to appear for their immigration hearing after they receive their deportation notice. According to today's Washington Post, the number of immigrant absconders has risen steadily since Sept. 11, 2001. The article also points out a few of the major flaws with our immigration system, the most prominent among them that our enforcement resources are vastly outnumbered by the total number of undocumented immigrants. The article notes that ICE will be adding additional fugitive apprehension teams to a total of 75 this year. With that number, they hope to increase apprehensions to 1000 per year. The current (and ever growing) number of absconders is currently estimated to be 636,000. so, if they apprehend 1000 per year, they should be able to clear up this problem in a mere 600 years, plus or minus half a century.

Does anyone else think it time to consider a more feasible solution to this problem?

Baltimore Area Immigration Raids

ICE officials raided several businesses in the DC/Baltimore area this week. A total of 69 workers from Latin America and Africa were detained yesterday after raids on nine businesses that used a Baltimore-based temporary employment agency. The agency had been suspected of providing undocumented immigrants, ICE officials said.

ICE agents also seized the $600,000 bank account of Jones Industrial Network, the employment agency that allegedly supplied undocumented workers to local firms that included the sportswear manufacturer Under Armour and bonded warehouses in or near the Port of Baltimore.

For many years, employers who have wanted to benefit from undocumented labor have used employment agencies like Jones Industrial Network. It's a beautiful and simple way to get around the immigration laws: the employer can claim that the company authorized that the worker was legal (and thus be off the hook for breaking the law).

Because they had allegedly authorized the employment of the undocumented workers, ICE authorities said the Jones firm was the sole target of their criminal investigation because it bore responsibility for determining the legal status of workers it provided under contract. The Washington Post reports that no Jones officials faced arrest or charges yesterday. The question is,
will they ever?

When Children fall through the Cracks of our Immigration System

This article from today's Washington Post highlights a now common problem with increased apprehension of undocumented immigrants: sometimes their small children get left behind when their mothers (and sometimes fathers) are taken away.

Although the parents are undocumented, their children are often U.S. citizens who are abandoned and then incorporated into the child welfare system.

This situation is incomprehensible, and extremely sad.

When worlds collide

Undocumented immigration is a problem. Identity theft is a problem. These are two problems we definitely do not want to build on one another--and it looks like they already have.

The big immigration news today is that ICE busted six meat packing plants yesterday, arresting the undocumented workers for, are you ready? Identity theft. To be honest, I'm a little surprised that this has not happened sooner, or more likely, that ICE has not caught on to this sooner. The reason? There are huge flaws in the main program employed by the government to help employers authenticate workers' identification document. For years, undocumented workers would show up with fake social security cards and matching IDs. They were expensive, but the reality was, no one was watching too closely. The current immigration system gives a wink and a nod to employers who hire undocumented workers, and all the employer has to do is say the checked the ID, and it looked okay.

The weak government ID requirements and poor coordination with the Social Security Administration have allowed undocumented workers to use fake IDs for decades. Things started to get dicey, however, when when workers file their income taxes, and so many do. They do this because in many cases, they have deductions coming to them. However, the IRS is considerably better at ferreting out forged documents than ICE, so they usually report back to the filer that their social security number is invalid, and they are not eligible for refunds. So, what's the next best thing? Using a legitimate social security number that belongs to someone else! I have to admit, there are horrifying implications here. What if even a fraction of the 12 million undocumented workers in the U.S. decided they'd like to by stolen identification? Does anyone else out there see that this is a business "opportunity" that we do not want to give to identity thieves.

The other significant issue that came from this wide-spread raid is this: the workplace is just as significant, perhaps more so, as the border in addressing undocumented immigration. It's a sad state of affairs, however, when the meat packers are not held responsible for their actions as well. In yesterday's raids, not one employer was arrested or fined, which means that the workers who replace those who were arrested yesterday are very likely to be...

(can you guess?) Undocumented.