Tribune Opinion
Greeley, Colorado
May 27, 2009
The Obama administration has handed down a new directive for immigration enforcement officials: Take aim at employers and supervisors who are knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
While the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy still would allow illegal workers to be detained in workplace raids, those raids would be limited.
Obviously, workplace raids alone aren’t working to dramatically deter illegal immigration. So, it makes sense to attack the problem from a different — or additional — angle.
However, we just aren’t convinced the Obama administration’s new approach will be more effective.
Greeley is a couple months away from being the home of a new ICE office. The project, which has been delayed due to funding constraints, is expected to be completed by late summer or early fall. As planned, the facility at 4645 18th St. will serve as an investigations field site and will handle a variety of investigations, including work force enforcement.
We will be watching to see how the new focus of ICE plays out locally. We agree that if an employer is knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, then that employer should be prosecuted. But the concept of primarily targeting employers has two main flaws.
First, there is no one perfectly reliable system for employers to verify the legitimacy and legality of a prospective employee. Remember, before the 2006 raids at Swift & Co. in Greeley, the company was using the government’s Basic Pilot program, now called
E-Verify, which was supposed to help employers identify illegal workers.
Also, there are too many ways for illegal workers to access stolen or fake documentation that even the most diligent, law-abiding employer could be duped.
We desperately need to get to the heart of the matter. We need comprehensive immigration reform that would include some form of a work permit process, as well as an eventual path to citizenship.
Instead of tweaking an already broken system, lawmakers should take on this thorny issue once and for all.
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20090527/OPINION/905279997/1029/NONE
