Two conclusions regarding this Administration’s anti-immigration policies can be reached with last weeks I.C.E. raids in Mississippi and today’s release of the pending Executive Order on changing the guidelines for Legal Immigration. They are:
- Illegal Immigrants can be charged and detained away from their families while the employers who broke the law hiring them (and paying them most likely sub-standard wages) are not penalized.
- Only wealthy legal immigrants who have good financial references and means need to apply for a green card. Immigrants that receive Medicaid, food stamps, or other forms of social assistance need not apply.
Why charge only the Illegal Immigrants and not the Employers that hired them?
It is only right that the employers that fostered this work environment which caused close to 700 illegal immigrants to be detained, be prosecuted and penalized.
Comprehensive Immigration Reform will not work if these “businesses” are allowed to conduct these sleazy practices by preying on illegal immigrants who worry about getting caught in order to maximize profit by paying their workers less and not following state and federal labor and work safety laws.
Commenting on this double standard, 2020 Congressional District Five Democratic Candidate Joan Greene wrote that:
“It is not as simple as saying charges need to be brought against the employers.
We know there is a tremendous need for foreign nationals to have an active role in our workforce because American workers will not do the jobs.
There are industries that will be financially impacted if we did not have foreign national workers, and of course, that affects our economy and communities.
We can all agree that reform must happen. Release additional H-2B visas as a result of high demand for foreign workers by employers, close the loopholes employers use to hire undocumented workers, stringent oversight so if there is a raid, and an established percentage of people are found without proper documentation, the employers are legally charged and fined.
Workers need to be the “owner” of their work documentation papers so they are able to move freely between companies that have met the H-2B requirements during the time period the labor certification is valid. Follow the rules that are set up for H-2A and current H-2B, so extensions may be granted when the proper paperwork is submitted.
This will help reduce the labor violations which include intimidation, harassment, threats of deportation and exploitation of the largely foreign national workforce.
Right now we have elected officials who turn a blind eye to the issues, whether it is because of their special interest group demands or their lack of desire to do the hard work.
Our Country must elect people who are ready to work on solutions.
I am ready on day one to roll up my sleeves so we can all have a better tomorrow.”
2020 Congressional District Eight Democratic Candidate Michael Muscato also relayed that:
“The American worker and small business owner are the heart of this nation. As I pointed out in my own immigration reform proposal released months ago, immigration is a dynamic issue. The perverse incentives to hire illegal labor and fraud our country need to be addressed. As a small business owner myself, I go through a process of background checks and employment documentation for each employee. However, we have a president who has decades of history using illegal labor for his businesses and a CD8 congresswoman who is quick to pass all the blame to immigrants rather than hold herself accountable for twelve years without proposing a single solution to our immigration problem…
As our country was busy recovering from yet another terrorist attack on our home soil, our government arrested 700 people (half released immediately) and left hundreds of children without their parents. This situation left me embarrassed at our leadership once again, but also baffled at the lack of awareness and repercussions of the businesses who employed these people…Seems like more of the same “those who hold the money, hold the power”. Where is the accountability on those who employ the illegal workers? I can tell you with 100% certainty that had my business been raided like that, my opponent would have had my name and business in every local paper and tv station possible. It’s more of the same: pick and choose which law to enforce and when to enforce it based on political gain and/or need for distraction.
I’m tired of knowing those with money play by a different set of rules. I’m tired of knowing that those with money need do nothing more than financially back politicians like my opponent in order to have their interests and security looked after and protected. I’m tired of elected officials targeting American citizens and those trying to make a better life for themselves rather than proposing and passing meaningful legislation that can drive our economy, ensure our safety, and create a level playing field consistent with accountability and responsibility.
It’s time to replace those in office.”
Those employers that created this workplace situation should face the consequences of their actions.
What kind of legal immigration system only supports bringing in the Affluent?
So much for the plague below the Statute of Liberty that depicts the Emma Lazarus poem titled The New Colossus which states:
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The rationale, offered by another of this Administrations worst and dumbest, Acting Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia State Attorney General who is a descendant of Italian and Irish Immigrants (do you think they provided financial references before arriving on American soil), to this new Executive change on legal immigration was the goal that legal immigrants not become “a burden” and the hope that “….people coming to this country … are self-sufficient.”
The problem with the rationale offered by this Administration is that the immigrant households that have family members that rely on welfare programs like Medicaid, Food Stamps, and School Lunches are mostly the American citizen offspring of the immigrants. By statute, most immigrants do not qualify for welfare assistance but their American citizen children do.
Does this Administration want to hurt poor children? Apparently as evidenced by taking away their parents and cutting off the benefits that allow them to eat fairly well and see a physician.
The KKK endorsed candidate should look at himself in the mirror while he is vacationing at one of his golf resorts and remember that:
- He and his family are undoubtedly guilty of retaining the services of undocumented workers at their resorts.
- His immigrant grandparents may not have been allowed to remain in the United States with the new criteria he is putting in place. One can surmise that even the Chief Executive Deadbeat, with his checkered financial history, would not meet the definition of “self-sufficient” Acting Director Cuccinelli alluded to earlier on August 12 if he was a legal immigrant looking to receive a Green Card.
The American Dream was not just meant for the affluent or for those who were already three fourths up the prosperity ladder. It was not meant for the business owner who could maximize personal profits at the expense of keeping his or her workers in the shadows.
This nation was built on the backs of the immigrants who came to this country looking for the American Dream. They came seeking freedom and a better life for themselves and their children. Some were leaving economic hardship. Others like the great grandparents of the Popular Vote Loser’s main immigration advisor/zealot, Stephen Miller, escaped Anti Semitic persecution in Tsarist Russia.
It is a shame that people in the KKK Endorsed Candidates Administration (like the current White House occupant and his immigration advisor) have forgotten where they came from and embarked on this course which so goes against the American Dream and what it means to be a citizen of this country.
The sooner the people in this country, most of whom are the descendants of immigrants, realize that the immigration policies offered by this Administration take us to a dark place, the easier new leaders and policies can be chosen in 2020 that takes this nation back in a forward direction where comprehensive immigration reform, stronger modern border security, and fair labor and workplace standards are either enacted or restored.
