Illegal Alien Workplace Raids Are “Causing A Lot Of Panic”

Causing panic is a major point of raiding workplaces that employ illegal aliens

(NY Times) The Trump administration is taking its campaign against illegal immigration to the workplace.

The raids by federal agents on dozens of 7-Eleven convenience stores last week were the administration’s first big show of force meant to convey the consequences of employing undocumented people.

“We are taking work-site enforcement very hard,” said Thomas D. Homan, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a speech in October. “Not only are we going to prosecute the employers who knowingly hire the illegal aliens, we are going to detain and remove the illegal alien workers.”

In reality, raiding workplaces is nothing new. It happened under Obama, Bush 43, Clinton, etc. The only difference here is that the Trump administration is making a slightly bigger deal in doing it.

When agents raid workplaces, they often demand to see employees’ immigration documents and make arrests. But after the agents leave, it is difficult for the government to meaningfully penalize businesses that hire unauthorized immigrants.

Instead, according to law enforcement officials and experts with differing views of the immigration debate, a primary goal of such raids is to dissuade those working illegally from showing up for their jobs — and to warn prospective migrants that even if they make it across the border, they may end up being captured at work.

And that right there is a big problem. Not the part about dissuading, but the part about not being able to penalize businesses. I have long stated that the law should be changed so that businesses can be slapped with civil and criminal penalties. Several sections of current law sort of applies, but not to a point of a serious deterrent.

Targeting 7-Eleven, a mainstay in working-class communities from North Carolina to California, seems to have conveyed the intended message.

“It’s causing a lot of panic,” said Oscar Renteria, the owner of Renteria Vineyard Management, which employs about 180 farmworkers who are now pruning grapevines in the Napa Valley.

When word of the raids spread, he received a frenzy of emails from his supervisors asking him what to do if immigration officers showed up at the fields. One sent a notice to farmhands warning them to stay away from 7-Eleven stores in the area.

“Our work force frequently visits 7-Elevens,” said Mr. Renteria. “They’re very nervous. It’s another form of reminding them that they’re not welcome.”

Well, if they’re lawfully present, they shouldn’t be nervous. If they aren’t legally present, well, Mr. Renteria should probably expect a visit from ICE at some point soon, because I bet at least one ICE worker read this article.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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15 Responses to “Illegal Alien Workplace Raids Are “Causing A Lot Of Panic””

  1. Everyone has a responsibility to obey laws. That includes business owners and aliens. It is totally reasonable to make arguments either way on whom the heavier burden should fall. If businesses would not hire illegal aliens then there would be less demand. But if the penalties were harsher on the alien, you would accomplish the same purpose. it goes without saying that the businesses who do this, do it intentionally just like the businesses who market SNAP fraud and Medicare fraud. At this point, deportation is not an effective deterrent. It places no burden onto the alien other than inconvenience before turning back around and returning.

    There needs to be penalties. Penalties that are severe enough to want to avoid but not unbearable for the host population to sustain.
    1. First offense. 20 lashes with a cane. Drop on the other side of the border. Lifetime ban from entry to the USA.
    2. Second offense. Another 20 lashes. Tattoo on the face to mark him/her. Lifetime ban for extended family.
    3. Third offense. Death. Entry ban for extended family for 3 generations.
    4. Commit a violent crime in the USA as an alien, death. It is immoral to deport violent criminals to other countries.

    No jails needed. Jails are not effective. Deporting alone is not effective. American jails are for Americans, just like our courts, our schools, and our jobs.

    • Dana says:

      Professor hale wrote:

      It is immoral to deport violent criminals to other countries.

      Why? If they came from a shithole country, would it really make it a shittier hole?

      • Passing your problems onto someone else doesn’t solve the problem. A violent person needs to be removed from the planet so that he stops being anyone’s problem. It’s like catching a raccoon on your property and releasing him on your neighbors. Sure, it may have been your neighbors raccoon in the first place. But it is yours now.

  2. Jeffery says:

    Interesting. We wish you were joking.

    But decent Americans will not stand for public whipping of residents whether here illegally or not. You will have to repeal some Constitutional Amendments to pull off your grotesque plan. And why not administer the corporal punishment to the “employers”? No jobs, no undocumented workers.

    Why not incorporate caning for all crimes? If it’s a deterrent for the undocumented, it should be doubly a deterrent for swindlers, speeders, molesters, fraudsters, DUIers and pot smokers. And put any violent offender to death. Good idea?

    tRump undoubtedly has hired illegal workers – and likely has some employed at his properties in the US today.

    How should he be punished.

    • Dana says:

      Considering some of the miscreants and malcontents we have in this country, both immigrants and citizens, there might be more support for corporal punishment than you suspect. Many of the problems we have in this country today are the result of fathers not beating some sense into little brats when they are still little brats.

      Why not incorporate caning for all crimes? If it’s a deterrent for the undocumented, it should be doubly a deterrent for swindlers, speeders, molesters, fraudsters, DUIers and pot smokers. And put any violent offender to death. Good idea?

      Actually, that’s not a terribly bad idea. The utter humiliation of getting a bare assed whipping in the public square — and such punishments should always be in public — might prove more of a deterrent than a big fine.

      But I’d remove ‘molesters’ from that list: caning, yes, but include castration.

      As for President Trump, he should be sentenced to an additional four years in the White House.

  3. Jeffery says:

    Most people don’t realize that Seven Eleven is a Japanese company.

    Its parent company, Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd., is located in Chiyoda, Tokyo.

    Will the US go after the corporation and its officers for supporting the invasion of America with undocumented workers? Or is enough for tRump’s political ambitions to just show he is offended by brown people? Is he interested in the show or is he interested in solving what his supporters (and few others) perceive as a major problem?

    Are you going to stay away from the lawbreaking Seven Eleven stores? Should we organize a boycott of this company? Or is it enough just to make a show of rounding up some Mexicans?

    http://www.standard.net/National-Commentary/2018/01/16/Trump-shithole-countries-Africa-Haiti-bigotry-racism-stereotypes-Republicans-conservatives-column-Gerson.html

    • Dana says:

      This is one of the thorniest parts of the problem. The Form I-9 is not effective, because employers simply retain it in the company’s offices for inspection by ICE upon demand. Thus, no cross-checks concerning fraudulent identity documents are made. I-9 forms should be computerized and submitted to ICE in the same manner as an ‘instant background check’ for purchasing an firearm. That will expose fraudulent Social Security number fraud in most cases, when names do not match SS#s.

      For criminal prosecution of a CEO when an underling, perhaps a minion many steps below the executive suite, accepts a Form I-9 knowing it is invalid, conviction beyond a reasonable doubt becomes difficult. The law needs to change to require CEOs and HR personnel to move I-9 compliance up the ladder, to make upper management directly responsible in a real, not just theoretical sense, for the actions of their subordinates.

      Immigration resources must be used to enable business owners, especially small business owners, to have the resources to check documents as the file I-9s with the government.

      The current system makes it too easy for business owners to simply look the other way and accept documents that they know, or at least suspect, are fraudulent.

      The tax code must be amended to allow the cross-checking of taxes submitted under fraudulent Social Security numbers. Of course, the government loves them some additional tax dollars, but if those numbers are cross-checked, and the fraudulent numbers reported to ICE, then arrests can be made, and they can be made for more than just being in the country illegally; submitting false tax information is a felony.

      And, yes, if you see someone you believe to be an illegal immigrant working at a Seven Eleven, or any other company, you should take your business elsewhere.

      • Jeffery says:

        Why is it, you think, that the laws apply to minimum wage workers but not the execs?

        • david7134 says:

          Jeff,
          Very stupid response to a well thought out concern or thought. You are so worried about people,yet you support policies that cause so much harm.

          • Jeffery says:

            dave,

            Can you explain why the policies excuse the lawbreaking businesses and execs and focuses on arresting the immigrant workers? As Dana ably pointed out the problem is the law that makes in nearly impossible to prosecute the corporations benefitting from hiring the workers. Can you explain why our laws excuse the corporations yet punish minimum wage workers?

        • Dana says:

          The snarly answer is that they were all passed under Congresses controlled by Democrats, many years ago.

          But of course our laws are business-friendly; as one of our greatest presidents put it, the business of America is business! The trouble is that illegal immigration has now gotten so bad that the business-friendly laws are a bit of a detriment when it comes to enforcing immigration laws, and I’ve already given a couple of examples on changes which need to be made.

          • Jeffery says:

            For a long, long time both Rethuglican and Dem elites have comforted the comfortable and afflicted the afflicted.

            IF we have a genuine interest in reducing illegal immigration wouldn’t pressuring companies from hiring them make sense? But of course hiring illegal workers benefits the companies, their owners and investors greatly, and hunting down a few Mexican workers makes great news (and the lost workers are quickly replaced with new illegal workers). Rinse and repeat. The businesses are hardly hurt and the feds get good press. The Mexicans lured here are disposable units, and according to Tucker Carlson still find time to commit over half the crimes in America!

          • drowningpuppies says:

            Good to see little guy’s watching Tucker Carlson and learning something.

  4. Fargo says:

    I can’t even defend Professor Hell there. He is an over the top alt-righter if that is indeed his true moral position. Talk about a greased slippery slope. There is nothing defensible about his post. But then another poster here wants people to die if they cant afford health care, even if they lose their job or are stricken by cancer and can no longer work and their insurance runs out.

    So comments like these don’t really surprise me anymore at this site.

    I find it repugnant and vile. I wonder if he has a skin head and a swastika tattoo on his body somewhere.

    Perhaps another Teach alt to keep the hits coming. I guess Ill just have to flee this site its becoming an alt-right breeding ground in which no doubt the FBI has their eyes firmly planted here.

    • Fargo,
      Of course the slope is slippery. If you look at the entirety of the problem from the point of view of design and not of independent parts, the solution I recommend is the only one that works.

      1. There is nothing morally repugnant about caning. For minor offences, it is preferable for me than going to prison. It allows minor offenders to take their medicine and go back to their lives with no life-killing records. If given a choice between 2 lashes and a year in prison, most people would chose the cane. In America, prison rape is considered to be a de facto part of life on the inside. Since our government shows no desire to curb that, I suggest that prison today, for white men, is more of a cruel and unusual punishment than anything that is permissible in the constitution. If your sentencing instructions included the words, “… 10 years in prison, where you will be summarily sodomized, beaten and exploited by criminal gangs”, the courts would never allow it. I find it pathetic that you at horrified at the through of the cane, but think nothing of sending someone to the living hell that is prison.

      2. We have a small problem of illegal immigrants returning to this country multiple times after they have been deported. And they aren’t coming back for their great jobs. There is nothing in the current system that deters these criminals from returning. Nothing. Go ahead. What do you suggest? Currently, if they get caught, they go home and try again tomorrow. The odds are in their favor that they will eventually succeed. A wall will make it harder, but not impossible.

      3. No tattoos, a full head of hair and all my teeth. None of my friends have tattoos. Some are bald, but not their fault.

      4. There is no reason for the FBI to watch me. I don’t break the law. I live in my own country. I don’t cross borders without a Visa. I pay the taxes that are due. I do not advocate the removal of the President other than through the election process. But I understand that the left is used to using the FBI and DOJ to suppress anyone who disagrees with them. Old habits die hard.

      4.

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