Immigration arrests more than 160 in Ohio

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Reuters

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said more than 160 employees were arrested at a Koch Foods Inc. chicken plant in Fairfield, Ohio, on Tuesday as part of a criminal operation against illegal immigrants employed at the plant.

"As of 2:45 p.m. (EDT) more than 180 Koch employees have been identified for further questioning and more than 160 have been administratively arrested for immigration violations," ICE special agent in charge Brian Moskowitz told a news conference in Cincinnati.



Read more: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-08-28T192743Z_01_N28258450_RTRUKOC_0_US-IMMIGRATION-KOCH.xml&src=rss&rpc=22&sp=true

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I'm sick of these companies if they don't outsource the plant to another country employing illegals in this country. It's plain greed IMHO. Pay decent wages, let workers have a union if they desire and then if you can't find American workers get immigrants with legal green cards.

[ret5hd]

1. If they would arrest just one (that John Birch worshipping KKK cocksucker Koch)...

they would solve the problem much easier.

on edit: actually, there is a whole family of them, but certainly less than 160

[Double T]

2. Simple Solution: Build the border fence, arrest employers that violate the law.......

by hiring illegal workers, deport ALL illegal aliens to their respective countries. American citizens will do the jobs the MSM propaganda core says we don't want or will not do.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. Much simpler than that...

Arrest and fine (huge) the employers, and make it stick. They will stop offering jobs to illegals, the illegals will migrate back home.

Eliminates the cost and time it would take to round up 10 million people, and we don't have to build a stupid fence.

[pingzing58]

3. Hard working people - trying to put in days work for a days pay to feed their family.

[frylock]

4. yep

[pampango]

8. I wonder if those who want all illegal workers deported,

or self-deported since that is cheaper, are also in favor of increasing legal immigration from poor countries.

If opposition to illegal worker is "rule of law" based, not "anti-immigration" in nature, then we should all support increasing the number of legal immigrants who can enter the country from the Third World.

[knowledgeispwr]

10. I'm not against increasing the number of legal immigrants...

from the third world. What I don't understand is how it naturally follows that one should favor increasing the number of legal immigrants if they oppose illegal workers due to the "rule of law" thing. Can you explain?

[pampango]

11. I don't think that there is any "natural" or "logical" connection.

Back during the immigration legislation discussions here, the majority here seemed to have little sympathy for illegal workers/immigrants. To distinguish themselves from those with similar attitudes towards legalization like the Minutemen, Rush, Tancredo, et al, and to prove that they had no racist intent, DU'ers often expressed their support for legal immigration while expressing their opposition to illegal immigration as a "rule of law" issue.

It helps me to clarify where others are coming from to understand whether they are opposed to all immigration or just to illegal immigration. Opposition to all immigration can for legitimate reasons, e.g. economic/class reasons or environmental concerns. However, opposition to illegal immigration, on the "rule of law" basis, can also be a smokescreen for racists who oppose all Hispanic, or other non-European, immigration. This group, if called on their opposition, would not support increased legal immigration of Hispanics, Africans or Asians.

None of this applies to you, since I don't know you, but it is how I look at the immigration debate.

[Igel]

12. You assume that something cannot have two attributes.

If a woman is young, she can't be pretty.

If an apple is ripe, it can't be wormy.

If opposition to illegal immigration is based in the rule of law, it can't be nativist.

As well.

But, of course it's not necessary for two attributes to be mutually exclusive. These two aren't even necessarily independent reasons, are they, so the idea of 'mutually exclusive' might well make no sense. I leave aside those who blindly want the law enforced because it's the law, with no further probing as to the why and how of the law.

Why do I say this? Because of the reasoning behind having immigration quotas in the first place--no quotas (with '0' being a possible quota) and you cannot have immigration that's illegal. But what kinds of reasoning can go into having immigration quotas?

Well, nativism and racism can certainly fit in there. But so could bureaucracy--the need to make sure you've registered all the in-comers, and with a limited bureaucracy you can only register so many. But you could also argue that every population has the right to defend its own cultural standards (the very reasoning used in defending numerous cultures against globalization and westernization/Americanization) or define what a healthy community looks like, or that there are times when it's economically useful to limit immigration, etc., etc. A person can ascribe to one or to more than one of those reasons.

If you go with some of those reasons--whether accurate or not--you can have a principled stand for reducing illegal immigration as well as reducing, or at least not increasing, legal immigration.

In other words, "we should all support increasing the number of legal immigrants who can enter the country from the Third World" only would be a consequence under *some* of the reasons, with opposition to such increases being a perfectly defensible position, at least in theory. Since there's a reasonable doubt as to the reasons for an anti-illegal-immigration advocate to have, in the absence of further information I stick with my reasonable doubt.

[Zavulon]

14. In answer to your question:

'm in favor of increased LEGAL immigration, provided that those coming here pass TOEFL and will be productive (work visas, student visas). If the immigration you're talking about means thousands or even millions more on welfare / food stamps / whatever else, I'm against that. If a prospective immigrant wants to come here legally and contribute to the economy legally (in other words, pay ALL taxes, not just sales tax), come on in. If he or she wants to circumvent laws that are inconvenient for them or just wants to be here for free education and other social programs, screw 'em. I want everyone here following the law and pulling their weight. If you let your work visa expire, you're gone. If you're fired, you have x-amount of time to find a job or you're gone. When your student visa is up, you're gone unless you replace it with a work visa.

I am completely unsympathetic towards illegals and am against any proposal that would make their lives easier. I don't favor rounding them up, I favor draconian enforcement measures that make it an unwise idea to be here illegally or hire someone who is. I would also like to see mandatory jail sentences of 20+ years for anyone who reenters the country after being deported, like that so-called "activist" we just booted out. If someone wants to break our laws repeatedly, let them make license plates.

I'm guessing you might not like my stance, but I'm hoping we can discuss it in a civil manner...

[Zavulon]

15. With under-the-table earnings in many cases, as they

depress wages and take jobs from those here legally. Color me unsympathetic.

[dflprincess]

24. And as long as there are jobs available, people will come here

with or without valid documentation. The only way to stop illegal immigration is go after the employers who hire them.

The raids ICE has been doing in the last few months are just another way to intimidate the workers and help their employers "keep them in line".

[LibDemAlways]

6. Here in Southern Cal I've seen employers

absolutely flaunt their workers' illegal status. Payday at the carwash. Boss sets up card table and chair out in the open. Sits down before a pile of paper money. Workers line up to receive cash - no pesky recordkeeping. Local law enforcement could care less. They have undocumented workers mowing their suburban lawns and Mexican nannies minding the kids while the wife works. This area is heavily dependent on this cheap, expendable source of labor.

[lynne]

7. Employers don't always know when they hire an illegal -

- I worked at a place who had an employee with all the correct documents. It was MONTHS before the Social Sec. Admin. contacted us advising that his Soc Sec # was being used by THREE people!! Illegals have become masters at ID theft and document forgery, making it difficult to determine who is and who is not illegal when being hired.

[Igel]

13. See post 6 for the opposite case.

I'll add one that's apposite, but not opposite.

My employer knew full well that one of 'our' workers was here illegally. There was no flaunting, as the poster in 6 says s/he witnessed.

On the other hand, the employee made damned sure that I got the right documents for her (I was the closest thing to an I-9 compliance officer). They all looked good. If I were to investigate her documents or ask her for additional documentation, I'd be holding a Latina to an exceptionally harsh standard, one used nowhere else in the business. That can be litigated, and I knew it, and I wasn't going to ask everybody for excess documentation.

When the illegal immigrant had to change her identity because one of the *other* illegal immigrants sharing her identity was busted, she got new documents, her own documents. We fired her and hired her under her new official name. "Gladys" became "Julia", but was still the same "Maria".

And, sure, I could have reported her. But I could easily be fired: a grad student working a schedule that changes every few days (juggling classes, student government affairs, and job) can't make waves, otherwise the flexibility he depends on can suddenly go away.

One day the woman gave notice. A few weeks later a company called to check her references, and they asked if she had been in I-9 compliance. I had to say 'yes', and the guy on the other end of the line made the plausibly correct but completely wrong assumption: Her documents are good, she worked for one company for over a year. Since I tacitly vouched for her, they accepted her documents.

[superconnected]

22. So true. I employed a bunch of mexicans, most legal and the ones ratted out

by their peers as not being legal, I would never have guessed.

All an employer can do is send their social security number to the social security office and see if it bounces or not. You can visually check their ID records but most employers are not pros and can't confirm the numbers on these very real looking pieces of id.

[AngryOldDem]

9. A lot of the workers have children

ICE was trying to get/keep them all together. There are more victims in this than there is at first glance.

[Zavulon]

16. Many cross the border to

have a child here, then cry when the family is "broken up." I can't sympathize with them. More power to you if you can.

[ohio2007]

17. Looks like that chicken place will be hiring soon....

but they'll need to pay a living wage.

[toopers]

18. What's a living wage?

n/t

[Critters2]

19. At least minimum wage.

which is more than they were paying undocumented workers.

[bamacrat]

20. We should be arresting the CEO's of the companies that hire them.

I don't think people of any nationality should be allowed to live and work in America and not pay taxes.

[superconnected]

21. I wonder if most of them are going to end up being legal immigrants

again.

Meaning they arrest them as illegals but it turns out they are actually legal when they check them out.

[judaspriestess]

23. Its amazing how so many just assume all illegals have fake

socials. All they have to do is go to the IRS office and get a W-7 form with their names and the IRS issues them a tax id number. the majority of them have tax id's not fake socials. They take this information to a prospective employer and use that in lieu of a SS # and most of them file taxes every year believe it or not. They try their best to be here legally but can't. Sure there are bad apples but don't lump them altogether. And what is even more amazing signing up with the IRS is a form of LEGAL documentation.