Hmm, isn’t the Labor Dept., and arm of the UNITES STATES government, supposed to help, you know, AMERICAN citizens?
Republican lawmakers are expressing shock over a Labor Department ad campaign that offers government assistance to illegal immigrants who think they’re getting shortchanged for their work — and at least one of them is planning to write to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis for an explanation.
Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz says he wants to know why taxpayers are being asked to spend money to ensure that illegals get assistance for fair wages while millions of unemployed Americans struggle to find jobs.
“That’s insane,” Chaffetz told FoxNews.com on Wednesday. “That’s just unbelievable.”
But the Labor Department stood by the campaign, saying in a written statement to FoxNews.com that “through Democratic and Republican administrations, the Department of Labor has consistently held that the country’s minimum wage and overtime law protects workers regardless of their immigration status.”
At first blush, this campaign does seem completely absurd. Why would the DoL spend taxpayer money to help illegals? Obviously, Democrats are all for doing everything they can to assist illegal aliens criminals, getting them into “the light,” and granting them amnesty. But, there is something they did not consider.
If companies who hire illegals, who are often paid sub-minimum wage wages, are worried about getting busted and sued and fined by the D0L, perhaps they will reconsider and hire non-illegals. Also, if the illegal’s are reporting the problems, guess what? Now Los Federales know that that company, or individual, is hiring illegals, and can take action. And, since the Obama administration is so anti-business, they will surely take action against that business.
As discussed time and time again (Ann Coulter had a great article, which I cannot find, about allowing illegals to sue employers for owed wages under federal and state laws), the best way to reduce the number of illegals is to crack down on those who hire them. If there are no jobs, most illegals, who are here, let’s face it, for jobs, will leave, and few will come. Then we can focus on the really bad people who come illegally.
Still, Solis is surely doing this because of her concern for illegal criminals, rather than giving a rat’s posterior for actual American citizens. What’s your opinion?
I can see this as being a win-win approach to the illegal immigration issue if, and only if, the administration does it the right and legal way.
First, I agree that the people that work should get paid the minimum wage. They did the work. Pay ’em.
The Secretary of Labor is quite correct in saying that hiring illegals and then underpaying them gives a company an unfair competitive advantage in the marketplace. Companies should not enjoy an illegal advantage.
We therefore have three illegal acts that can be addressed and will serve the country and the public well:
1) Pay the people what they are owed.
2) Deport them for being in the country illegally.
3) Fine the companies for hiring the illegals and then fine them again for paying less than the minimum wage.
I doubt whether the Secretary of Labor will forward the names of the illegals to ICE, so this will be another missed opportunity by this administration to do the right thing.
However, this does highlight something that has always puzzled me. It is as if we, as a government can no longer walk and chew gum at the same time. People argue whether we need to build a fence to secure the border or whether we need to crack down on those that knowingly hire illegals. It is not an “either or” choice. It is something that we can do at the same time. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor are two separate entities and should be working the issue from both ends. Instead, we allow our government and representatives to run around looking for a silver bullet to solve this.
The only reason we don’t attack the illegal immigrant issue from both ends is a lack of political will – and that is from both sides of the aisle. It is shameful.
BREAKING….Fielding Mellish is Obama’s New Czar of Immigration – Deets are at:
http://spnheadlines.blogspot.com/2010/06/fielding-mellish-is-obamas-new.html
Have a great day! 🙂
Oh Snap giant American Corporations including Boeing Hewlett Packard and Disney all form a coalition for immigration reform including a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants, Chief executives of several major corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Boeing, Disney and News Corp., are joining Mayor Michael Bloomberg to form a coalition advocating for immigration reform — including a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants now in the United States.
The group includes several other big-city mayors and calls itself the Partnership for a New American Economy. It seeks to reframe immigration reform as the solution to repairing and stimulating the economy.
Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., appeared together Thursday on Fox News to discuss the effort.
Oh Snap !!
johnnie’s Snapped!
…wait. We already knew that.