The Raid Is Good, But Is The Target Wrong?
May 14th, 2008 by 
Kevin
This last Monday, the largest immigration raid on a single facility, took place in Postville, Iowa at the Agriprocessors Inc kosher meat plant. By all accounts it was very successful 390 illegals were arrested, including 20 which are being brought up on more substantial charges relating to stolen social security numbers.
The raid is the result of a two year investigation that amongst other sources used a hired informant inside the plant that retrieved documents and related the ongoings inside the plant to authorities. As well as reports from a workers union of workers being exploited within the plant.
While authorities were hoping to round up over 600 illegals at this one location, 390 is still a good catch. And it is a good continuation of what is starting to become a trend across the nation. Certainly improvements could be made. More frequent raids and actually deporting ALL the illegals they catch would be a start, but still it’s an improvement from years past.
Throughout the country these raids have started to make a difference. It raises the specter of possible arrest at any job an illegal might take. That alone is an improvement. Some states have reported that this concern along with stringent local laws have served to force many illegals to leave the state entirely. That is a step in the right direction.
However, I’m not sure we couldn’t be a little more efficient about this. I’m not sure I can name one instance in which the employer themselves were charged with harboring and aiding illegal immigration. Granted the burden of proof is a great deal higher, but making an example of a few employers would certainly send a message and probably a very effective one.
Remember that employers do have other options. They just choose to take the low-risk but highly profitable option of exploiting illegal aliens by hiring them at extremely (and illegally) low wages.
The key is to make that option very high-risk low-profit option….and an easy way to do that is raise the Sword of Damocles, in the form of potential criminal charges.
Very quickly you would find employers very unwilling to employ illegals at all. Even if the option still looked good on the profit margin, who wants to be promoted from their cushy white-collar job to a multi-year stint in a federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison??
Then in addition to worries of potential immigration raids, illegal aliens would find very few job opportunities at all. And that’s without asking our inept politicians to pass any further laws. Suddenly the self-deportation option looks much better for all illegals….which state after state around the nation is proving is a concept that works.
So as long as we’re raiding these plants, how about we raid the front office at the same time?? Certainly this would have been a good chance to do so. You’ve got an two year informant feeding you documents from an plant were 80% of the workers were illegals. Surely management knew and certainly there is documentation to demonstrate that. Use it.
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Posted in Immigration | 
May 14th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Seems to me we wouldn’t have to look very far for the evidence. Every year, the Social Security administration sends “no-match” letters to every employer that has ten or more employees with invalid–stolen, in use elsewhere, or just made up– SS numbers. These employers KNOW that those individuals are illegal. Not only that, the Feds know who these people are, where they work, and where they live!
I know, this is a good start. So now let’s get the other 9 million that we KNOW about.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:52 am
J. Ewing,
Problem with that is that I’ve heard so far unconfirmed reports that the illegal aliens were working using the name and social security numbers of students in the local school.
So technically they were valid so it’s unlikely the employers would have known about it.
However, one of ICE’s informants did report that on at least one occasion four different workers were using the same name/ss combo and management just laughed it off though.
However, unless they have more than hearsay it would be difficult to hold up in a court of law.
Like I said standard of proof is higher.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Seems to me that management would have to prove that it did something with the no-match information, and that failure to do so would meet the standard of evidence required. But of course, I’ve always been more interested in justice than in law.
The obvious solution is for more states to impose the Arizona solution, requiring employers to use the federal employment eligibility instant check system. I wonder if there is anybody supporting something like that in Minnesota?
May 14th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Well see that’s the problem. If they were working under the identity and ss number of students for that area, then a no-match letter never would have been sent out and it would have been valid according to the E-Verify system
May 15th, 2008 at 10:21 am
True, but very curious as to how that was done. If the students were working, the no-match would have caught that. If the kids were under 16 (or is it 18?) working full time, the nomatch would have caught that, too. What I want to know is how those SS numbers got to the illegals in the first place? Maybe those were the 20 cases of identity theft reported?
And if there were more than ten who were not using student SSN’s, that would have been grounds for prosecuting the employer; it wouldn’t take 300.