This is where immigration reform needs to start....

Is to take away the reason for them to come here... if they don't find a job they will not stay, or better yet, they will stay home.


Lets see if it works.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/us/10enforce.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Illegal Workers Swept From Jobs in ‘Silent Raids’

Guest workers, like those above, have replaced more than 500 undocumented workers fired in December from Gebbers Farms in Brewster, Wash.

BREWSTER, Wash. — The Obama administration has replaced immigration raids at factories and farms with a quieter enforcement strategy: sending federal agents to scour companies’ records for illegal immigrant workers.

While the sweeps of the past commonly led to the deportation of such workers, the “silent raids,” as employers call the audits, usually result in the workers being fired, but in many cases they are not deported.

Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies. The agency has levied a record $3 million in civil fines so far this year on businesses that hired unauthorized immigrants, according to official figures. Thousands of those workers have been fired, immigrant groups estimate.

Employers say the audits reach more companies than the work-site roundups of the administration of President George W. Bush. The audits force businesses to fire every suspected illegal immigrant on the payroll— not just those who happened to be on duty at the time of a raid — and make it much harder to hire other unauthorized workers as replacements. Auditing is “a far more effective enforcement tool,” said Mike Gempler, executive director of the Washington Growers League, which includes many worried fruit growers.

Makes sense to me. Hit the employers with a fine and do more inspections. If there are no jobs, they won't be coming over the border in the same numbers.

I agree with you. If you remove the jobs, and if you take out the people who are working illegally, and if you fine the employers for hiring them, and if you make it harder to employ them....the problem will crash under its own weight.

Let's hope it works. You've got to solve it from the inside and not by trying to build higher fences. That won't keep them out. But if you remove the incentive for coming here in the first place, then that may stop the inflow, and may ultimately cause many who are already here to leave on their own.

Unfortunately, business has its own reasons for wanting to keep the cheap labor...But if you make it painful for them to do so, I believe it will go a long way toward resolving the issue without all the hysteria and xenophobia.

Rational way t handle teh problem. Spending billions on a stupid, reprehensible wall is a losing proposition. All you " don't tax, small gov. types" should applaud this .

Sounds good to me. But why have they changed the policy from deporting the illegals to just firing them? Not sure I agree with that, but I don't know the reasoning behind it.

pineinthegrass wrote: Sounds good to me. But why have they changed the policy from deporting the illegals to just firing them? Not sure I agree with that, but I don't know the reasoning behind it.

I think it is the other way around

ShilohLady wrote: Makes sense to me. Hit the employers with a fine and do more inspections. If there are no jobs, they won't be coming over the border in the same numbers.

Until the fines actually outweigh the benefit of hiring illegal aliens they wont work.

If we are serious about it, shut companies down for hiring illegal immagrants. But hey, we would have to put McDonalds and Walmart out of buisness. I don't think we have the stomach for that.

Unless the cost of American labor gets a LOT cheaper illegal immigration isn't going anywhere. It benefits Business AND Government so I can't see anything but token efforts to get rid of it.

Again, I agree... I think they need to make the fine for the first one at least $50,000, for the second one, $100,000, and escalate from there...And it NEEDS TO BE ENFORCED. If they make it so that it's not cost effective to pay the fines and keep doing it, then it will stop.

JMC wrote:

pineinthegrass wrote: Sounds good to me. But why have they changed the policy from deporting the illegals to just firing them? Not sure I agree with that, but I don't know the reasoning behind it.

I think it is the other way around

No, I've read the article and they are generally firing illegal workers rather than deporting them.

I guess they figure if the illegal worker can't find a job, then they will leave anyway. But I'm still not clear why they don't deport them.

The administration is auditing I-9 forms, which all employers are required to fill out to verify an employees identity and elgibility to accept employment in the US.

That's all well and good, but many industiries (like construction) just hire illegals on a day-to-day cash basis. I don't see how this auditing would catch that.

So I certainly support the auditing since it can cover a lot of companies, but it doesn't seem enough on its own. And it still seems to me to be better to deport illegals than have them stay here where they might find some other job.

pineinthegrass wrote:

JMC wrote:

pineinthegrass wrote: Sounds good to me. But why have they changed the policy from deporting the illegals to just firing them? Not sure I agree with that, but I don't know the reasoning behind it.

I think it is the other way around

No, I've read the article and they are generally firing illegal workers rather than deporting them.

I guess they figure if the illegal worker can't find a job, then they will leave anyway. But I'm still not clear why they don't deport them.

The administration is auditing I-9 forms, which all employers are required to fill out to verify an employees identity and elgibility to accept employment in the US.

That's all well and good, but many industiries (like construction) just hire illegals on a day-to-day cash basis. I don't see how this auditing would catch that.

So I certainly support the auditing since it can cover a lot of companies, but it doesn't seem enough on its own. And it still seems to me to be better to deport illegals than have them stay here where they might find some other job.

It is a lot cheaper to let the illegals find their own way home than deporting them

And another poster thinks America would have to close all the McDonalds and Wal-Marts w/o illegal labor. If prices went up on fast food and cheap crap to pay for citizens to work there, obesity rates would fall and landfills would last longer