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Saturday, July 14, 2007

 

Local laws target immigration ills

Don't hold you're breath in Indiana or the Wabash Valley. Recent union complaints plus rumors of a growing illegal workforce locally is being ignored by the media and politicians. This combined with a total lack of balls by todays legal citizens/workers will earn them their just reward.

What you think you have and will hang onto by not rocking the boat is a dream. Reality is it will cost you and you're heirs dearly, their jobs, their freedoms, their culture and their country. Like Mexico and third world countries they flee, they will drag us all down to what they fled a third world status a country of serfs ruled by the rich elite's.

Can anyone locally show us even a short list of politicians, candidates, police, unions or community churches and organizations that have stepped up to the plate to help stop the problem instead of being a part of it? I don't think so!

Local laws target immigration ills
By Emily Bazar
The USA Today, July 12, 2007
LINK http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-11-local-immigration_N.htm

Local and state governments have begun enforcing their own new immigration laws, threatening businesses with the loss of operating licenses and fines if they hire illegal immigrants.

Their efforts increased as Congress tried but failed to overhaul the immigration system. A bill died in the Senate last month.

‘There’s a political vacuum, and state and local governments are moving into it,’ says Georgia’s labor commissioner, Michael Thurmond.

Eighteen states have passed 57 immigration laws this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than 25 cities and counties also passed measures in the past year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, including Virginia’s Prince William County on Tuesday.

Despite the outcry from business and civil rights groups, many target employers, as in Green Bay, Wis.

‘That was a premise of this ordinance, to discourage illegal aliens from coming here by making it harder for them to get a job. We’re putting businesses on notice,’ says Chad Fradette, Green Bay City Council president.

• Under Green Bay’s ordinance, which took effect June 23, a firm can lose its business license if it hires illegal workers. Fradette says illegal workers have ‘undercut’ the city’s union workforce.

A city committee wants to grill the owners of two restaurants on their hiring practices Monday, Fradette says.

Green Bay Alderman Jerry Wiezbiskie objects. ‘Let the witch hunt begin,’ he says. ‘It’s a threatening ordinance to immigrants, legal and illegal.’

• Beaufort County, S.C., plans to begin auditing employment records in August by sampling 25% of its 5,000 businesses, says county administrator Gary Kubic. The county passed an ordinance in December that says a business could have its license suspended for hiring illegal workers.

Former county councilwoman Starletta Hairston introduced the measure because she says companies that hire illegal immigrants have a competitive advantage. ‘You cannot compete with a business that does not have to be concerned with paying taxes,’ Hairston says. ‘They pay people cash under the table.’ Her husband had to shift his stucco business elsewhere when he couldn’t compete, she says.

• A Georgia law that took effect July 1 requires companies with at least 500 workers that do business with the government to verify the legal status of new workers. Other states, including Colorado and Arizona, also have cracked down on employers.

• On July 1, business owners renewing licenses in Payson, Ariz., began signing affidavits that they employ only legal workers. ‘We’re trying to level the playing field,’ Mayor Bob Edwards says.

A closely watched ordinance in Hazleton, Pa., would penalize employers who hire illegal immigrants and landlords who rent to them, but it is on hold awaiting a ruling on a suit by the ACLU.

The law is unconstitutional because states can’t override federal law, employers and workers don’t have an adequate chance to appeal and it could cause discrimination, says ACLU attorney Omar Jadwat. ‘One concern is that employers will discriminate against those who look or sound foreign,’ he says.

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