May I see your papers, citizen?

Very true. Here's a story about the impact of a raid a couple of years ago. The employer certainly doesn't come out smelling like a rose.

I have employed non-legals for labor I could not find available locally. I did this simply because I could not get the workers I needed to do the tasks I needed done. minor things around the house.

I have worked illegals and also worked along side them. Would do it all again, given the opportunity.

Who says were not? The main argument against the seal the border plan was that it could never work unless we took action on the demand side, went after those who employ illegals. But the Corporate lobby is very strong, the corporate class very much wants cheap labor that has few legal rights because they are easily taken advantage of. When government goes after illegal employers the corporate class calls the lawyers in to gum up the process, and the courts tend to work against the effort to deal with illegals.

I dare say that most of those now getting tarred and feathered for supporting checking ID's would be very fine with using instead good methods of catching and punishing employers. I for instance would not mind putting employers in jail rather than illegals, though I would of course send illegals home when they were found.

You are stubbornly ignoring the fact that the illegal immigrants got to vote with their feet. Their vote was to come to America. Moreover, they continue to get to vote with their feet, and their vote, in the cases we are talking about, is to continue working in America under the terms offered by American employers. They could go back to their home countries, but they choose not to.

Your position would make more sense if your problem with illegal immigrants was something else. If your problem was that they decrease the wages of American workers, and that you care more about Americans than foreigners, we could talk. But don't delude yourself into believing that the policies you prefer are doing immigrants a favor. They are working on the terms Americans are offering them because they choose to.

I doubt that is what they Really want, Thomas.

it is better than what they have.

still not right. and still the fat cat corporations behind it.

settling for less always gets you less...

And your evidence is ... what?

having lived in a poultry town in Tennessee, and seeing how they lived. eating at "their" restaurant. talking to them as equals.

they know the score.

they are less than. and scared of immigration.

why would anyone want to live as less than and in fear?

Because they prefer it to the conditions they emigrated from -- as revealed by the risks they took to come, and by their choice not to go back.

so taking advantage of them is our civic duty, then...


<insert logo for the sarcasm impaired>

Duty has nothing to do with it. It's a win-win deal between American employers and foreign workers, given the alternatives available to each. If you're displeased with the deals other people make with one another, that's your problem. As I said earlier, they don't have to please you.

laws and ethics be damned.

okay.

slavery made economic sense in its day as well...

You trust an employer that hires illegals to behave ethically in other areas?

To repeat myself yet again, there were once laws against harboring fugitive slaves, against women voting, and against sitting in the "wrong" part of a segregated bus. There is nothing wrong with changing unethical laws.

As to the ethics of it, there is an exact analogy between illegal foreign workers and illegal same-sex marriages. Many Americans consider them immoral. Other Americans, including this prospective one, believe it isn't the government's job to legislate morality.

Two consenting grown-ups == None of your business. It's that simple.

Show me an underground railroad smuggling blacks into the Ante-Bellum South, and I'll reconsider my opposition to slavery.

WHEN the laws are changed, I might agree with you.

as the situation currently sits, I'm not budging...

corporations breaking laws and mistreating people is where we stand today.

I cannot answer your question because I disagree with its premise. In my view, there is nothing unethical about hiring illegal immigrants -- at least not in itself.

hiring illegals is against United States law.

violators of United States law go to prison.

unless they have lobbyists...

you support openly violating the law, do you Thomas?

The difference between those two groups of people is whether one can be shown to harm the other.

Same sex marriage = no harm to other married couples

Hiring illegal work = possible harm to legal workers, and possible harm to the illegal worker as well (Reduction of wages, reduction of benefits, illegal workers are afraid to report workplace violations such as safety standards, overtime violations, sexual harassment, etc.)