The cost of an enforcement first immigration policy

The MIRA coalition, which is the main immigrant rights group in MA, is collecting money to help the families who were affected by this raid.

If you would like to help, go to their website. MIRA website.

If you don't agree with the poltics, but still want to help the families, you can specify that your donation be only used for physical needs.

Anything will really meet the needs of families in crisis.

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ebrown, I've been on this forum long enough now to know that immigration is your hot button. What in the world is it that gets you so hot on this issue?

In regard to the children, yes everybody that has a heart has compassion for these children you make the subject of your posts here. I would also ask you, do the parents have a responsibility for these children? It is very unfortunate when parents act irresponsibly and break laws, which can have unfortunate consequences on children. You blame us for the problem, but make no mention of the parents that should bear a big part of the responsibility.

Personally, I would much rather see employers in this country punished and incarcerated if necessary, for repeat offenders that know what they are doing and are blatantly ignoring the law, to stop the problem. It is a supply and demand problem. There is too much demand for employees without regard for legal citizenship, and as long as that situation exists, the supply will find a way to get to those jobs. Once employers require legal citizenship, the word will travel fast, and people will not be crossing the border illegally so fast. The same is true with government services. Such services should be stopped, and then the illegal problem would begin to dry up.

It makes no sense to line the border with thousands of border patrol in helicopters, cars, suvs, jeeps, you name it, while at the same time welcome any that can make it across with open arms, providing good jobs, free health care, welfare benefits, drivers lecenses, aid to attend college, and everything else.

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I live in S. Carolina, which has about the highest rate of unemployment. I am convinced that a major reason is that undocumented workers are taking the jobs of citizens. Much of the workforce here has always been relatively low paid, so it is particularly vulnerable to the undocumented. Thus, I have little sympathy for the undocumented. Regarding the children, they should be forwarded to their parents abroad.

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When I lived in NC, I lived in a fairly affluent community, surrounded by farmland, which was worked by many people who were of Latino background- those that I knew personally had come from Mexico. I have no idea if they were in the country illegally or not, as I never asked them this, but I do know if they had not been there to pick the crops and clean the houses and mow the lawns, etc., those jobs wouldn't have gotten done.
The shelf stockers in grocery stores and sandwich makers at Subway etc. were usually Latino kids, as all the native born American kids had sports practice after school, and games or SAT prep on the week-ends, which left them no time for working part-time jobs. These people were working the jobs that no one else (at least in this particular community) were willing to do.

Deportation can get utterly ridiculous and as eBrown said, vindictive. I know of one case here (in the UK) where a twenty-one year old man was born in the US while his mother (an English citizen) was there on a three month holiday. He has an American birth certificate. She brought him back to the UK as an infant, he went to school, etc. here, and has never even visited America in 21 years. But his mother was uneducated and unaware that she needed to register his birth with the British home office, so she never did that. He is now facing deportation. He is learning disabled, unable to support himself and knows absolutely no one in the US. But unless he can win his case, the US is going to have to deal with him, as the UK doesn't want him.

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Other children who were breastfeeding were torn from their mothers-- a very painful process for both mother and baby. Worst, mother were quickly shipped to detention centers thousands of miles from families and community.

Why is this? It would seem that it would be in everyone's best interest(child, parent, US) for the child to go with the parent. This just seems unnecessarily cruel.

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Okie, this is much more than a hot button issue to me. This is my ministry (to use a term from my religious past). Immigration issues include the values of our country toward the poor and those different than us. The core of all of these issues is compassion.

This is a personal issue for me because of the community I live in. There are people that I care about deeply who are at risk of being separated from their families.

It is important for US citizens who have a voice to speak up for people who don't have a voice. That is my intent.

I understand illegal and there is no question that many of these people have broken the law by either crossing the border or overstaying a visa. There are some undocumented immigrants who haven't broken a law because they were brought here as young kids.

A young man I know well has lived here for 15 years and only knows the US as his home. He is now ready to go to college and is having to navigate a situation the all of his friend, who have lived the same life he has in every respect, don't even understand.

The point I want to make is that the people you are calling "illegal" are real people. The fact that they have broken a law by crossing a border doesn't change their humanity (and if it did there would be a lot of "illegal" Americans). If I could introduce you to my community you would understand.

This thread is to say that the current enforcement-first policy is breaking families and causing pain to both immigrants and Americans. As our governer said it is a humanitarian catastrophy.

I believe the enforcement first solution is both unecessary and unwarranted and that the pain it causes is inacceptable. For those who believe this response is necessary, I would like them to at least acknowldge the cost.

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ebrown_p wrote:

Okie, this is much more than a hot button issue to me. This is my ministry (to use a term from my religious past). Immigration issues include the values of our country toward the poor and those different than us. The core of all of these issues is compassion.

This is a personal issue for me because of the community I live in. There are people that I care about deeply who are at risk of being separated from their families.

It is important for US citizens who have a voice to speak up for people who don't have a voice. That is my intent.

I understand illegal and there is no question that many of these people have broken the law by either crossing the border or overstaying a visa. There are some undocumented immigrants who haven't broken a law because they were brought here as young kids.

A young man I know well has lived here for 15 years and only knows the US as his home. He is now ready to go to college and is having to navigate a situation the all of his friend, who have lived the same life he has in every respect, don't even understand.

The point I want to make is that the people you are calling "illegal" are real people. The fact that they have broken a law by crossing a border doesn't change their humanity (and if it did there would be a lot of "illegal" Americans). If I could introduce you to my community you would understand.

This thread is to say that the current enforcement-first policy is breaking families and causing pain to both immigrants and Americans. As our governer said it is a humanitarian catastrophy.

I believe the enforcement first solution is both unecessary and unwarranted and that the pain it causes is inacceptable. For those who believe this response is necessary, I would like them to at least acknowldge the cost.

What than would you suggest. We grant amnesty to all the lawbreakers already in the US and open our borders to any and all?

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I want a compassionate immigration reform bill that recognizes that immigrants are human beings in addition to finding a border policy that most Americans will agree with.

Congress will start working on immigration reform legislation in the next couple of weeks that will work to fix the current system that all sides agree is unworkable.

I would like these inhumane raids on families to stop, at least until Congress has the chance to work out a compassionate policy.

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ebrown_p wrote:

I want a compassionate immigration reform bill that recognizes that immigrants are human beings in addition to finding a border policy that most Americans will agree with.

Congress will start working on immigration reform legislation in the next couple of weeks that will work to fix the current system that all sides agree is unworkable.

I would like these inhumane raids on families to stop, at least until Congress has the chance to work out a compassionate policy.

First things first. Immigration reform legislation will be useless unless and until our borders are made secure.
In addition laws without enforcement are as we see now are useless. Had they enforced the laws on the books we would not be in the present fix.

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I think that we have a much too compassionate immigration policy, which expels only a tiny percent of the undocumented in the country.

The argument that they only take jobs that citizens don't want is not valid. Employers may have to pay more for legal labor, and farmers and other employers may have to invest in more mechanization. At the moment, there is an extremely high rate of unemployment among the lower-income citizens, especially blacks. That is because it is more economical to hire the undocumented, who are paid coolie wages.

There is the owner of a very popular Atlanta restaurant who argues the pro-undocumented case. Of course, he hires a slew of them, which effectively increases his profit considerably.

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ebrown_p wrote:

I want a compassionate immigration reform bill that recognizes that immigrants are human beings in addition to finding a border policy that most Americans will agree with.

Congress will start working on immigration reform legislation in the next couple of weeks that will work to fix the current system that all sides agree is unworkable.

I would like these inhumane raids on families to stop, at least until Congress has the chance to work out a compassionate policy.

Sometimes compassion includes something called tough love. Maybe you need to recognize that immigrants are humans capable of making good decisions and bad decisions as we all are, and that just maybe a good decision includes abiding by the law. Making things too comfortable with full benefits of citizens only makes the problem worse, ebrown. Maybe you need to rethink your ministry.

I have the fundamental belief that the problem would be easier solved by drying up the demand than trying to fight the supply, thus I would emphasize extremely tough enforcement of employers not hiring illegals. I would couple this with a very healthy legal immigration policy, whereby the immigrants would have to meet certain standards, such as no criminal record, no drug record, and so forth. Along with enforcement of employers, government benefits to illegals should be stopped cold, except in life threatening situations. Along with this, we should provide assistance for them to return to their country of origin so that they can properly apply for legal entry. If they already had jobs, and have no criminal record, then it should be easier. This is compassion. Compassion does not include serious breaking of necessary laws.

I don't look for Congress to do anything meaningful, but more of the same useless legislation that only serves to perpetuate the problem.

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This is an old, and failed, argument-- that if you want to stop people from doing something, first you criminalize it, and then make the punishment harsher and harsher until it is unbearable.

When people wanted to stop abortion, they criminalized it and increased enforcement efforts. They targeted girls and the threatened the careers of doctors. The results were that girls died. Unscrupulous abortion providers (who put the girls lives at risk) of course made money.

When people wanted to stop drug use, they criminalized it and increase enforcement efforts. The target even casual users with harsh penalties. The results are broken communities, a business opportunity for violent gangs, and millions of young men and women in prison.

Immigration laws as they are now are very harsh to people. The result is that families are being broken, communities isolated, honor roll students who could have bright futures and benefit the US are being denied colledge.

The irony is that the harsh immigration laws are not helping anything. They are actually hurting US workers by providing the worst threat to them... and underground workforce with no rights. Workers that can demand a raise, or can change jobs when they are not treated well can't be exploited.

Likewise there are a system of "bars" in place that penalize immigrants who leave the country. If an immigrant has been in the US for a long time, they will quite possibly be barred for life... meaning if they leave to try to come back in legallly, they will end up seperated from friends, family and commuity. Many times this ban is for life.

Undocumented immigrants, like any other targeted community, are real human beings. Each person has hopes, dreams, family and a story. Many of them you would probably like, and many of them, after you understood their story, you would likely support their plea to become legal.

These punitive raids have no beneficial effect unless punishment is the goal. They break up families. They make communities live in fear with out sympathy or regard to why each person is here. They effect US citizens who are friends family and community to these immigrants.

They don't decrease immigration.

The raids do make it that much easier for unscrupulous business owners to take advantage of a frightened workforce to make even more money (screwing American workers at the same time). In case after case (including this one) the owners get out of jail while the immigrant workers are shipped to Texas without even being able to talk to their children.

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"This is an old, and failed, argument-- that if you want to stop people from doing something, first you criminalize it, and then make the punishment harsher and harsher until it is unbearable. "

Um. It already is a crime.

Let's be realistic.

The Feds and the State of Mass should have done a better job.

What should have happened is the parents should have been held and their children gatherd up and returned to the parent. Then they should have shiopped them out of town.

Also, the owner of the business must be placed on trial for human rights violations and jailed for a real long time.

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ebrown_p wrote:

This is an old, and failed, argument-- that if you want to stop people from doing something, first you criminalize it, and then make the punishment harsher and harsher until it is unbearable.

When people wanted to stop abortion, they criminalized it and increased enforcement efforts. They targeted girls and the threatened the careers of doctors. The results were that girls died. Unscrupulous abortion providers (who put the girls lives at risk) of course made money.

When people wanted to stop drug use, they criminalized it and increase enforcement efforts. The target even casual users with harsh penalties. The results are broken communities, a business opportunity for violent gangs, and millions of young men and women in prison.

Immigration laws as they are now are very harsh to people. The result is that families are being broken, communities isolated, honor roll students who could have bright futures and benefit the US are being denied colledge.

The irony is that the harsh immigration laws are not helping anything. They are actually hurting US workers by providing the worst threat to them... and underground workforce with no rights. Workers that can demand a raise, or can change jobs when they are not treated well can't be exploited.

Likewise there are a system of "bars" in place that penalize immigrants who leave the country. If an immigrant has been in the US for a long time, they will quite possibly be barred for life... meaning if they leave to try to come back in legallly, they will end up seperated from friends, family and commuity. Many times this ban is for life.

Undocumented immigrants, like any other targeted community, are real human beings. Each person has hopes, dreams, family and a story. Many of them you would probably like, and many of them, after you understood their story, you would likely support their plea to become legal.

These punitive raids have no beneficial effect unless punishment is the goal. They break up families. They make communities live in fear with out sympathy or regard to why each person is here. They effect US citizens who are friends family and community to these immigrants.

They don't decrease immigration.

The raids do make it that much easier for unscrupulous business owners to take advantage of a frightened workforce to make even more money (screwing American workers at the same time). In case after case (including this one) the owners get out of jail while the immigrant workers are shipped to Texas without even being able to talk to their children.

As is typical you want to absolve the law breaker from their crime by making others out to be the criminals. I agree with you that companies that hire illegal's should have harsher penalties to include jail time and fines but only if the people they hire are hired as known illegal's. If they have valid ID's and everything from the employers side checks out then all punishments should be lower for owners. Illegal's who use fake or stolen ID's should also get punished worse because of the attempt to commit fraud to get a job that they can't have in the first place. They have committed more then just one crime when they are caught. In all they have committed 3 to 4 crimes by the time they are caught. Breaking into the country is one, holding a job is two and the fake ID they used is three.

Where does personal responsibility come into play? When you commit a crime are you not responsible for your actions? Illegal's crossing into the US knowing that it is illegal get caught and begin to cry out as the victims when they committed the crime? Don't they hold responsibility for being in the situation in the first place? No one told them to cross illegally and gets jobs against the laws of this country. So when they get caught you yell and scream about how unfair it is to them but once again they committed the crime of their own free will. They knew that getting caught would result in being sent back to their home countries and now you scream how unfair it is.

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SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) - Nearly a year after the city of Hazleton began a high-profile campaign to rid itself of illegal immigrants, opponents of the crackdown are getting their day in court.

A trial opening Monday pits Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who says illegal immigrants are destroying the quality of life in his small northeastern Pennsylvania city, against the ACLU and Hispanic groups who contend that the new rules are unconstitutional.

It will be the first federal trial in the nation to explore whether local governments may act on their own to curb illegal immigration."

http://www.able2know.com/forums/posting.php?mode=reply&t=92758

Imagine that! This town has to go to court to see if they are ALLOWED to ENFORCE THE LAW????

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ebrown_p wrote:

This is an old, and failed, argument-- that if you want to stop people from doing something, first you criminalize it, and then make the punishment harsher and harsher until it is unbearable.

Your arguments bring up a necessary question. Are you in favor of any laws at all? After all, no matter the law or the punishment under the law, there are groups of people that will break the law.

Apparently you see the problem being with the law rather than the people that break the law? If your kids insisted on running out and playing in a busy street, no matter the rules you make for their own good, I suppose you would just suspend the rules. We have laws, ebrown, deemed beneficial for all of society. Just because a few people insist on breaking the law for their own benefit, are we susposed to simply suspend the laws that are good for society for the whims of the few? That appears to be your logic, and I think it is utter foolishness.

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okie wrote:

In regard to the children, yes everybody that has a heart has compassion for these children you make the subject of your posts here. I would also ask you, do the parents have a responsibility for these children?

I'm going to hazard a guess that they came to this country precisely because they feel they have a responsibility for their children -- a responsibility to provide opportunity for them.

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Personally, I would much rather see employers in this country punished and incarcerated if necessary, for repeat offenders that know what they are doing and are blatantly ignoring the law, to stop the problem. It is a supply and demand problem. There is too much demand for employees without regard for legal citizenship, and as long as that situation exists, the supply will find a way to get to those jobs. Once employers require legal citizenship, the word will travel fast, and people will not be crossing the border illegally so fast.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, Okie, but I have a question or two. It IS a supply and demand problem, most definitely. Employers are looking to get the most bang for their buck, and as long as some people are willing to cram 4 families into a two bedroom apartment so that they can work long hours for minimum wage or less, employers will prefer to hire those people. They are cheaper than American workers. So let's just say that all American employers suddenly come to Jesus and decide to require legal papers for all of their employees, and let's just say that your scenario pans out and the supply dries up. Well, then we still have the demand, no? Do you think that employers will take the hit and pay the wages and benefits that Americans demand in order to fill it? And if they do, do you think that Americans will clamor to fill these jobs? What's the unemployment rate look like in our country right now? How does it look in regions where immigration (legal or not) is very high?

Again, I'm not arguing with you as I think you more or less get that this is a systemic problem. I just think there's some more thought that needs to go into it.

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City fights raided firm that hired illegal aliens
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 12, 2007

A New Bedford, Mass., clothing and leather manufacturer, whose owner and managers were arrested last week in a massive federal raid on charges of hiring illegal aliens, had reneged on a promise to hire local residents in exchange for $57,000 in tax breaks and the city wants its money back.
Mayor Scott W. Lang told The Washington Times he plans to "get every dime back" of tax benefits the company received as part of a five-year deal in which Michael Bianco Inc. (MBI) promised to hire local residents to fill an expanding work force. The mayor said the city has a long history of supplying skilled workers for needle-trade industries like MBI and he intends to "make sure we keep those jobs here."
"We have no shortage of people in this town who are skilled, qualified and in the country legally. I intend to keep this company and these jobs in this city even under new management," Mr. Lang said. "We're talking about 500 jobs for the city, and I don't want the greed of one employer to make them go away."
Mr. Lang said he intends to seek the appointment of a trustee to oversee MBI. He also has called for an audit of all New Bedford businesses awarded tax breaks over the past 10 years to determine whether they are complying with hiring laws. In its last report to the city, in July 2005, MBI said it had created 291 jobs, 270 of which went to New Bedford residents.
Hundreds of federal agents and state and local police, led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), descended on MBI last week with search and arrests warrants, rounding up 361 illegal aliens from among the company's 500 employees.
Criminal complaints in the case accused MBI owner Francesco Insolia, 50; payroll manager Ana Figueroa, 40; plant manager Dilia Costa, 55; and office manager Gloria Melo, 41, of conspiring to encourage or induce illegal aliens to reside in the U.S. and conspiring to hire illegal aliens.
Luis Torres, 45, also was charged in a separate complaint of providing phony identification papers to workers at the MBI factory.
The complaint said Mr. Insolia maintained a majority-illegals work force and that he intentionally sought out illegal aliens because "they were more desperate to find employment, and are thus more likely to endure severe workplace conditions he has imposed."
It described some of the workplace conditions as docking pay by 15 minutes for every minute an employee is late; fining employees $20 for spending more than two minutes in the restroom; providing one roll of toilet paper per restroom stall per day; fining employees $20 for leaving the work area before the break bell sounds; and fining employees $20 for talking while working.
MBI received a tax break from New Bedford before Mr. Lang's election that saved the company $57,000 in property taxes over the past two years. Over a five-year period in which the company would have received more than $80,000 in tax breaks, MBI was to "give preference to qualified New Bedford residents" as the company expanded.
The mayor also questioned how the company, which has been awarded more than $90 million in Defense Department contracts to manufacture products for the U.S. military, could have avoided questions concerning its employees and working conditions from Defense Department quality-control inspectors who regularly visited the plant.
"Federal government inspectors were in the plant on a regular basis, and working conditions and the legality of the work force which spoke four or five languages should have been very apparent," he said. "They had to realize these were not the typical needle-trade workers, most of whom have been in the country for a very long time."
In a statement, Mr. Insolia urged the public to "withhold judgment until all of the facts come out" and denied accusations about shabby workplace conditions and the treatment of workers.
He also noted Defense Department quality-control inspectors were on-site up to four days a week and "freely and frequently walked the premises and interacted with our workers without incident or complaint."

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FreeDuck wrote:

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, Okie, but I have a question or two. It IS a supply and demand problem, most definitely. Employers are looking to get the most bang for their buck, and as long as some people are willing to cram 4 families into a two bedroom apartment so that they can work long hours for minimum wage or less, employers will prefer to hire those people. They are cheaper than American workers. So let's just say that all American employers suddenly come to Jesus and decide to require legal papers for all of their employees, and let's just say that your scenario pans out and the supply dries up. Well, then we still have the demand, no? Do you think that employers will take the hit and pay the wages and benefits that Americans demand in order to fill it? And if they do, do you think that Americans will clamor to fill these jobs? What's the unemployment rate look like in our country right now? How does it look in regions where immigration (legal or not) is very high?

Again, I'm not arguing with you as I think you more or less get that this is a systemic problem. I just think there's some more thought that needs to go into it.

The other leg to this issue is a very healthy LEGAL immigration policy. If we need to increase legal immigration, then lets do it. The people that want to come here want to be legal, and many of them are willing to work harder and be more grateful for what this country offers than those that are born here. It should be a wake up call to the whiners and complainers here. cicerone, are you reading this?

People are complaining about sub-standard wages, specifically Democrats, yet those same people advocate rampant illegal immigration, which applies economic pressure counter to the very thing they claim to want. If there is a slightly tighter supply of potential employees, then the wages will go up of their own power without artificial minimum wage laws.

People that hire illegals compete in the market, and it is grossly unfair competition with others that want to play by the rules. There are so many things haywire with illegal immigration here, that it simply needs to be fixed.

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A very harsh immigration policy might be the most compassionate one. The harsh policy would discourage millions from coming here, exempting them from roundups, deportation, etc.

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The cost of an enforcement first immigration policy

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