Business is the focus of today’s news and opinion on immigration.  Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post takes a front-page look at enforcement against businesses caught hiring unauthorized workers, concluding that the number of criminal prosecutions against employers and supervisors is up, but that barely a dent has been made in the overall immigration mess:

A three-year-old enforcement campaign against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants is increasingly resulting in arrests and criminal convictions, using evidence gathered by phone taps, undercover agents and prisoners who agree to serve as government witnesses.

 

But the crackdown’s relatively high costs and limited results are also fueling criticism. In an economy with more than 6 million companies and 8 million unauthorized workers, the corporate enforcement effort is still dwarfed by the high-profile raids that have sentenced thousands of illegal immigrants to prison time and deportation…

 

In the first nine months of this fiscal year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 937 criminal arrests at U.S. workplaces, more than 10 times as many as the 72 it arrested five years ago. Of those arrested this year, 99 were company supervisors, compared with 93 in 2007. – “In Immigration Cases, Employers Feel The Pressure,” Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, July 21, 2008

But as Hsu’s story points out, officials from both the Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration that preceded it feel that no significant progress at curtailing illegal hiring will occur until Congress changes the laws:

Stewart A. Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the Homeland Security Department, recently told immigration experts the disparity can be traced to ineffective policies that need to be addressed by Congress…

 

“If you want law enforcement, you have to have laws that are enforceable,” said Doris M. Meissner, who headed the former Immigration and Naturalization Service under the Clinton administration. The 1986 law banning the hiring of illegal immigrants, she said, “has just been chronically flawed from the time it was passed.” – “In Immigration Cases, Employers Feel The Pressure,” Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, July 21, 2008

Meanwhile, the editorial page at the New York Times follows up on Julia Preston’s front-page report July 6 (“Employers Fight Tough Measures on Immigration”) on the business community getting more engaged in immigration reform efforts in Washington and around the country.  Today’s editorial notes the hodge-podge of state and local measures going after immigrants and businesses that hire immigrants unauthorized to work:

States and cities complain about the broken immigration system, but they can’t create the intricate web of policies needed to fix it — that’s up to Congress. All they can do is try to crack down locally on illegal immigrants and the businesses that hire them. The result has been haphazard enforcement without reform, which only makes the problem worse. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,” New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

 

The Times editorial goes on to note that businesses who want to play by the rules are the main losers in the current equation:

Many companies have operated with impunity in hiring and abusing undocumented low-wage workers, people who are all the more compliant because they are illegal. Like immigrants, good employers need a path to get right and stay right with the law. Current immigration law — with far too few visas and no path to legalization for the undocumented — does not provide one, and misguided state and local enforcement efforts simply layer on the confusion. They impose undue hardships on by-the-books businesses and reward the exploiters. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,” New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

The editorial then calls on the business community to step-up to the plate when it comes to fixing our immigration system:

If the country is ever going to emerge from the immigration chaos that Congress bequeathed it last year, it will be because business interests — largely seen as AWOL in the bitter debate — finally joined the fight. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,” New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

While we welcome more business voices at the table – and have been working with this wing of the pro-immigrant, pro-reform movement for years – other key actors that have been AWOL for most of the last year (at least in a constructive sense) are the President and Congress.  We would always welcome them back to the table.

Two must reads we’ve seen so far today:  One was today’s Washington Post Metro section front page look at law students aiding in immigration law clinics.  With so much deportation going on and with so many obstacles to legal immigration and staying legal, it’s all hands on deck. 

The second was the lead story in Sunday’s New York Times by Julia Preston on how the business community is starting to stir to put pressure on GOP lawmakers about immigration.  Employers trying to play by the rules are being tarred with the same brush as bottom-feeding employers who exploit the illegal status of workers.  Until we find ways of allowing for sufficient legal immigration, many small business owners are suffering.

The Post story looks at how much need there is for legal counsel in immigration-related matters.

But there is a growing realization, students and professors said, that policies on issues such as asylum and due process are evolving as never before, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A growing immigrant population also means that legal status often complicates what might have once been simple criminal or labor cases.

 

“It’s not just that people think immigration is important, but they’re seeing that it affects everything,” said Hiroshi Motomura, an immigration law professor who will join UCLA in the fall.  – Karin Brulliard, “Law Students Rush to Meet Needs In Booming Field of Immigration,” Washington Post, July 7, 2008

The Times story looks at how at the state and local level, businesses are uniting to keep up the pressure for immigration reform and beat back harmful initiatives aimed at immigrants – which are having a tremendous impact on the economy and business environment.

The offensive by businesses has been spurred by the federal enforcement crackdown, by inaction in Congress on immigration legislation and by a rush of punitive state measures last year that created a checkerboard of conflicting requirements. Many employers found themselves on the political defensive as they grappled, even in an economic downturn, with shortages of low-wage labor.

 

Mike Gilsdorf, the owner of a 37-year-old landscaping nursery in Littleton, Colo., saw the need for action by businesses last winter when he advertised with the Labor Department, as he does every year, for 40 seasonal workers at market-rate wages to plant, prune and carry his shrubs in the summer heat. Only one local worker responded to the notice, he said, and then did not show up for the job.

 

Mr. Gilsdorf was able to fill his labor force with legal immigrants from Mexico through a federal guest worker program. But that program has a tight annual cap, and Mr. Gilsdorf realized that he might not be so lucky next year. His business could fail, he said, and then even his American workers would lose their jobs.

 

“We’re not hiring illegals, we’re not paying under the table,” Mr. Gilsdorf said. “But if we don’t get in under the cap and nobody is answering our ads, we don’t have employees.” His group, Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform, is pressing Congress for a much larger and more flexible guest worker program. – Julia Preston, “Employers Fight Tough Measures on Immigration,” New York Times, July 6, 2008

Littleton, Colorado?  Isn’t that where anti-legal-immigration firebrand Rep. Tom Tancredo is from?  Boy, his agenda sure is helping the local folks!!!

For more information on what the business community is facing and how they are pushing back, visit ImmigrationWorksUSA.

As we are learning (and have reported here previously), one consequence of being put in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention is quite literally death.  Because of the way health care for immigrant detainees is restricted, many face consequences and 83 have died in recent years.  Now it appears that at least some think ICE leaders have been less than honest in congressional testimony about the standards of care given detainees.

CQ Homeland Security reporter Caitlin Webber reports that experts on detention and advocates for detainees feel that Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security and the head of ICE, failed to disclose that “non-emergency conditions are assessed or treated only if doctors believe their illness would prevent deportation.”  According to the critics interviewed by Webber from the Detention Watch Network, the ACLU National Prison Project, and the New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, the policy is problematic for a number of reasons, but that this is not the first time senior ICE officials have not fully disclosed the standard for care.

“What I find most troubling . . . is that it is the second time now that ICE has been called to testify before Congress on the issue of medical care in detention and it’s also the second time that it has misrepresented the standard,” Tom Javits, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, said in an interview.

Javits said Gary E. Mead, assistant director for management of the ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations” also diluted the non-emergency care standard in testimony Oct. 4, 2007, before the House Judiciary Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law Subcommittee. – CQ Homeland Security, “ICE Officials’ Testimony on Detainee Medical Care Called Into Question,” June 16, 2008

Pressed by the CQ reporter, Homeland Security/ICE spokesperson Kelly Nantel came up with this telling response:

“We are in the deportation business. . . . Obviously, our goal is to remove individuals ordered to be removed from our country…We address their health care issues to make sure they are medically able to travel and medically able to return to their country.” – CQ Homeland Security, “ICE Officials’ Testimony on Detainee Medical Care Called Into Question,” June 16, 2008

What does this statement mean for all of those who are detained but are seeking relief in immigration court – like asylum seekers? Or those who should be given relief to testify against employers or traffickers? It’s the classic idea that immigration enforcement is just about booting people out of the country rather than attempting to ensure that all of our immigration laws are fairly enforced.

We are witnessing an unprecedented period best described as enforcement on steroids without reform.  The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, which follows government law enforcement data closely, indicates that by several measures we are in a new era of unleashing the Department of Homeland Security and the courts in the war on immigrants. 

TRAC reports that immigration-related convictions were up 96.3% in February 2008 compared to the same month in 2007 (see “Immigration Convictions for February 2008”) and that the U.S. set a new record for immigration-related prosecutions in March 2008 (see “Surge in Immigration Prosecutions Continues”).

[A]ccording to timely data from the Justice Department. The total of 9,350 such prosecutions was up by almost 50% from the previous month and 73% from the previous year.

The dramatic changes in the number of defendants charged with immigration-related charges are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United states Attorneys…

The spurt in the prosecutions of individuals charged with various immigration crimes is the result of “Operation Streamline.” Under this recently intensified administration policy, according to news reports and interviews with federal public defenders, the government has charged a rapidly growing number of undocumented aliens with various federal criminal charges in selected districts along the Mexican border. “Operation Streamline” began as a pilot project in December 2005 in Del Rio, Texas. – “Surge in Immigration Prosecutions Continues,” Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

The editorial writers at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday addressed this new enforcement era with an editorial headlined “Abhorring a vacuum: The absence of comprehensive immigration reform from Congress is resulting in a crackdown — a repudiation of who we are as a nation.”

A recent New York Times article described how authorities throughout the country are using existing laws to round up illegal immigrants, with deportation as the end game. This is a nuclear, enforcement-only approach that disintegrates families and local economies.

Workplace raids occurred last month in Postville, Iowa, at Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse. They resulted in 260 illegal immigrants sentenced to five months in prison on charges related to federal identity theft laws.

In Florida’s Santa Rosa County, the sheriff had businesses searched for illegal immigrants, making arrests on charges of violating state identity theft laws.

One consequence of this is precisely what immigration foes want: more apprehensions, more deportations and a pall of fear cast over the immigrant community and those who would join them. Other consequences, however, include a repudiation of who we are as a nation of immigrants and swimming against a global tide that makes labor as fluid as goods. – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial, “Abhorring a vacuum,” June 16, 2008

This has been a bad month or so for the Department of Homeland Security.  Congressional oversight hearings have been called to examine recent revelations of deaths in detention, lack of health care, and forced drugging of detainees.  Processing of citizenship applications remains hopelessly backlogged to the point that hundreds of thousands – perhaps more than a million – legal immigrants will not be able become citizens in time to vote in November.  This week, the Bush Administration announced that the flawed E-Verify worker verification system would be extended to all companies with federal contracts, thus placing additional pressure on an experimental system that is already underperforming.

As the bad news keeps piling up, editorial boards are taking notice.

Today the Los Angeles Times addresses E-Verify and other wacky developments in our hysteria to do something about immigration:

It’s legitimate to demand that contractors seeking Uncle Sam’s money jump through a few more hoops. And although Chertoff’s claim that E-Verify is “99.5%” accurate seems overstated (a new Government Accountability Office report indicates that the system produces uncertain results 8% of the time, and a 2006 report cited a 4% error rate in Social Security records, which E-Verify relies on), the collateral damage may be less troubling than the damage to the country’s sense of itself.

As we hustle to show resolve in the immigration “crisis,” we’re getting used to the idea that all private endeavor is subject to Washington’s prior approval. What kind of country do we want? A few years ago, a border wall would have seemed a relic from medieval China or Central Europe in the totalitarian era. Now it is official U.S. policy. – Los Angeles Times editorial, “Over the line: The anti-immigration furor is pushing us toward irrational policies, June 11, 2008

The New York Times in an editorial supporting a new bill introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) that would create mandatory detention standards across the immigration detention system including basic, minimal medical care, has this to say about deaths in detention:

The government should be rushing to improve the oversight and care in its sprawling detention system to protect all detainees. Instead, the official reaction has been slow and defensive, promised improvements are piecemeal, and criticism of the system is making immigration hard-liners indignant…

Whether immigrants are legal or illegal has nothing to do with their right to humane care. As Ms. Lofgren bluntly put it: “You are not supposed to kill people who are in custody.” – New York Times editorial, “Dying in Detention, June 11, 2008

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will be called before the House Committee on Homeland Security again on Thursday at 10 a.m. for additional questioning, presumably about these and other matters.

One of the new trends that we see as more bad news is the expeditious way immigrants swept up in home and workplace raids are being railroaded through the criminal justice system to deportation.  In the aftermath of the massive raid in Postville, Iowa, last month, immigrants were strongly encouraged – some would say coerced – into waiving rights, waiving access to relief from deportation, and pleading guilty to criminal, not just civil, charges during mass drive-by hearings.  The best overview we’ve seen comes from New America Media, a consortium of ethnic media outlets.

Wendy Sefsaf, a Washington-based writer for NAM, breaks down this complicated issue of due process denied and legal immigration status denied, using Postville and other recent stories to illustrate (We recommend you read the whole article).

In May, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid took place at an Iowa kosher meat-packing plant. It was the largest raid ever. Nearly 400 employees at Agriprocessors were rounded up and interrogated by immigration officials. The search warrant executed by ICE also laid out a range of workplace abuses, including physical abuse. According to the government’s own warrant: “In February, Source #7 told ICE agents he or she observed a Jewish floor supervisor duct-tape the eyes of an undocumented Guatemalan worker shut and hit the Guatemalan with a meat hook.”

…

If the government warrant itself outlined abuse, the workers should have been eligible for protected status. However, they were treated as criminals, not victims.

In another case in Louisiana, Indian workers were trafficked to the United States and housed in substandard conditions while their wages were held back, in order to pay back the $20,000 they were charged to come the United States to work at Signal Construction in New Orleans. After they walked out on their jobs en masse, the Department of Justice opened a trafficking investigation case acknowledging their victimization, yet refusing to protect them.

In past cases similar to Signal Construction, “continued presence” was automatically granted, allowing the workers to stay on in the United States while the case went ahead. According to Dan Werner of the Southern Poverty Law Center, “Continued presence is discretionary on the part of the Department of Justice, but people used to get processed on the spot. This delay is a new thing.” The lawyers representing the Indian workers have been told they must submit their clients for deportation hearings.

The remedies available to victims of trafficking and crimes are known as “T” and “U” Visas, and 5,000 T visas and 10,000 U visas are available annually.

Congress created these visas to protect victims, particularly those who could serve as witnesses to crimes. However, these cases show a possible change in policy to deport instead of protect these victims. – New America Media, News Report by Wendy Sefsaf, “Rush to Prosecute Leaves Immigrant Victims of Crimes Without Protection,” June 11, 2008

Advocates who watch the troubling world of immigration detention and due process closely (eg: the Detention Watch Network, Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service, and the Rights Working Group, among others) have recently been emphasizing “alternatives to detention” like ankle devices and regular check-ins with authorities who can also provide legal services to those who have a path to become legal.  These alternatives are not only more humane, they are cost-effective.  Unfortunately, to the Department of Homeland Security, “alternatives to detention” means getting people deported as quickly as possible, preferably without all that pesky due process or those meddlesome immigration judges, lawyers and translators.

A few items of interest today that we wanted to flag.  First, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, a coalition managed by Sojourners, has posted a 5:30 minute video on YouTube about the Postville, Iowa raids, the impact on the community, the role churches are playing, what the workers experienced, and how horrible the working conditions really are.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.ccir&item=CCIR_main

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) has a story today that goes deeper into the hiring practices and working conditions of Agriprocessors, the business that was raided, with interviews with several former workers.

“They were constantly pushing us and forcing us to work faster,” Yolanda said through a translator. “They were very abusive, screaming a lot.”

Yolanda’s sister Maria, 32, said she resisted the sexual advances of a Guatemalan supervisor who tried to force himself on her in a car. In the days that followed, Maria, who describes herself as a diligent worker, was accused of coming late to work and was denied overtime pay.  […]

Maria eventually complained and the supervisor was fired. But other workers appeared to keep quiet about alleged mistreatment out of fear they would be turned over to the authorities.

“There was such fear in that community that they were afraid to go talk to anybody,” said Kevin Williamson, the international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. – “As Agriprocessors scrambles to keep  plant open, former workers speak out,” by Ben Harris, JTA, May 21, 2008

Yesterday, a press conference in Washington with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus featured Sister Kathy Thill of Waterloo who offered her moving perspective on the Postville raid.  Here is a snippet of the Des Moines Register’s story:

The Catholic nun has assisted immigrant families there following the detainment of 389 workers at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant.

She is a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas who works with Latino families in Iowa.

“I am also a United States citizen who grew up believing that this is a democratic country in which the dignity of all people is respected and their rights protected,” she said Tuesday at a news conference here, surrounded by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“This is not the country I experienced this past week.”

Thill, several times choking up with emotion, told of the shock and distress of immigrants who gathered at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church the day of the raid.

“Hundreds of families were torn apart by this raid,” she said….”The humanitarian impact of this raid is obvious to anyone in Postville,” Thill said. “The economic impact will soon be evident.” – “Immigrants feel distress, shock, nun says,” by Jane Norman, Des Moines Register, May 21, 2008

The press conference followed a hearing on immigration and workplace raids in the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Workforce Protections chaired by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).  The Des Moines Register and Workforce Management magazine each wrote stories worth a read.

Also yesterday, the Senate acted late in the evening to strip out the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act (EARA), which would give U.S. growers greater access to legal migrant workers.  The measure, sponsored by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Larry Craig (R-ID), is essentially a scaled down version of the bipartisan AgJOBS bill crafted through lengthy negotiations between labor and business.  The amendment to the Senate War Supplemental Appropriations Bill was endorsed by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week on a 17-12 bipartisan vote, but was removed procedurally last night.

But not before an excellent Wall Street Journal editorial was published explaining EARA and supporting its inclusion in the spending bill.

The hotter this issue became in recent years, the more Congress dithered. That has had real consequences, as the agriculture labor shortage manifested itself repeatedly across the industry. Back in 2006, we saw pear crops in Northern California rot because migrant laborers couldn’t be found in sufficient numbers. Last year, a single county in western Michigan lost a million pounds of asparagus. But the more insidious problem is that the labor shortage is impacting what is planted in the first place. Or not planted.

Some growers scale back on their harvesting; a crew moves through an orchard just once to pick the best fruit, instead of moving through the land multiple times to pick nearly everything. Other growers decide to switch from producing high-value, nonsubsidized fruits and vegetables to producing low-value, highly subsidized row crops merely because the latter is less labor intensive. Still other growers are moving production offshore, reasoning that if they can’t find the labor stateside, they’ll go where labor is more plentiful. – “Farm Help Wanted,” Wall Street Journal editorial, May 21, 2008 (pay site)

Finally, the New York Times editorial blog (“The Board”) has a bit more on the outrageous story out of Texas that the Border Patrol intends to maintain immigration checkpoints even during an evacuation due to a natural disaster.

The word was out that the Border Patrol would be checking citizenship at evacuation centers, screening out illegal immigrants before evacuees boarded buses. Who cares if it’s a hurricane — it would still be “business as usual” for the Border Patrol, the agency’s local spokesman said.

Wow. That’s hard-core. Even in a country that is becoming inured to the relentless pursuit and harassment of undocumented immigrants, it is mind-boggling to consider what the spokesman, Dan Doty, was suggesting:

Winds may be howling, floodwaters rising and rescuers in McAllen and Brownsville scrambling to get 100,000 to 150,000 sick, elderly, poor and disabled people to safety as quickly as possible — but if Grandma doesn’t have her papers, she isn’t getting on the bus.  – “Hurricanes, Citizenship, and the Makings of an Unnatural Disaster, May 20, 2008

 As Lou Dobbs would say, “Incredible!,” but since this is a story about the folly of the deportation-only approach to immigration, Lou probably won’t be saying anything of the kind anytime soon.

Our hearts and minds remain fixated on the health of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA).  With shenanigans like this going on, we need you back, Ted, ASAP.

Looking at today’s clips, we came across a few stories that everyone should check out.  First up is the Los Angeles Times editorial on the recent revelations about immigrants in detention (see recent ImmPolitic posts here, here, and here).  The Times editorial said, in part:

ICE maintains that few people actually die in detention centers, and that may be true, but it doesn’t account for people such as Castaneda, who die after leaving custody. And then, ICE isn’t exactly forthcoming on the subject. When Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) asked the agency for a list of the dead, it told her no. She obtained one from the New York Times. Lofgren has introduced HR 5950, the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act, a bill that would require Homeland Security to establish mandatory standards for basic healthcare in all detention centers. It also would require the department to report deaths to the inspectors general of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice within 48 hours….Mandating humanity shouldn’t be necessary, and Homeland Security could do this on its own, but it won’t, so this bill is needed. Our treatment of immigrants, illegal or otherwise, shouldn’t include watching them die. – “Immigrants detained to death,” Los Angeles Times editorial, May 20, 2008.

A response to the Washington Post and New York Times stories on immigrant and asylee deaths in detention by Julie Myers, assistant secretary of DHS for ICE, appeared in today’s Washington Post.

Must read number 2 (and 3) comes from the Houston Chronicle.  Local columnist Lisa Falkenberg calls our attention to a recent announcement from the Department of Homeland Security that in the case of an emergency evacuation for a natural disaster in Texas, the Border Patrol will use checkpoints to check the immigration status of every evacuee. 

Take a moment to recall the chaos.

The claustrophobic caravan of cars, trucks and SUVs creeping along a highway evacuation route-turned-prison with hundreds of thousands — by some estimates, millions — of men, women and children trapped in the steamy confines.

Recall the overheating engines, gas tanks bled dry, pumps tapped out. I’m still haunted by the image of one woman who carried the limp body of a toddler in her arms as she ran from car to car in search of water.

Now take those memories of the 2005 evacuation before Hurricane Rita and add another obstacle: a Border Patrol checkpoint at which each and every car would be stopped, drivers questioned, suspicious vehicles searched while those behind languish in the logjam.

That’s the plan, announced last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in the event of a hurricane evacuation of the Rio Grande Valley. – “Evacuation hurdles are a threat to all,” Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg, May 20, 2008.

Sometimes America’s enforcement zeal to deal with the reality that we do not have adequate legal immigration channels is silly, as when House Republicans attached an anti-illegal immigration rider to a Native American Housing Bill.  Sometimes it is just a huge overreach, as with the “No work list” addressed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial below.  This one sounds down right deadly.  Qué negocio!!  What craziness!!

Must read number 3 also comes from the Houston Chronicle, which ran a story today about a new Texas study that asks the question: “If we got rid of all immigrants in the country that are here illegally, what would be the damage to our economy?”  The answer, according to the Perryman Group, is that the economy would lose $1.8 trillion in annual spending.

These are just some of the findings from a study done by the Perryman Group, a Waco-based economic analysis firm, whose work was commissioned by Americans for Immigration Reform, a group spearheaded by the Greater Houston Partnership.

Houston’s business community is trying to revive the politically charged immigration reform debate that has stalled in Congress. It plans to raise $12 million by December to fund a campaign for reform and thus far it says it has raised about 10 percent of that goal in pledges.

The government has recently increased enforcement, with raids at work sites and plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. But getting rid of all undocumented immigrants would hurt, not help the economy, Charles Foster, an immigration attorney and chairman of Americans for Immigration Reform, said Monday.

“If you do that, you would have serious economic upset,” Foster said.

He said immigration reform needs to give employers a method of hiring immigrants legally.

“We need comprehensive reform that looks at our needs and addresses those needs,” said Ray Perryman, president of the Perryman Group, which examined data for 500 sectors of the economy, Census Bureau surveys and other data to arrive at its conclusions. – “Price put at $1.8 trillion,” by Jenalia Moreno, Houston Chronicle, May 20, 2008.

Finally, we missed a gem of an editorial last week in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which joined the chorus of those looking at various proposals to mandate national use of the experimental government database known as E-Verify and saying, like many Members of Congress, “Wait a second; It does what??!!??”

One House bill would expand nationwide a pilot program, E-Verify, having employers use the Social Security database to verify legal status. It supposes bringing more than 7 million employers online over four years, requiring a one-time verification of an estimated 160 million existing workers and all new hires at a rate of 50 million to 55 million a year.

Unfortunately, this bill also supposes that an agency currently underfunded, understaffed and trying to deal with a crushing backlog in claims is suddenly going to become an effective arm of immigration enforcement.

Three words: Not gonna happen. Not without exorbitant costs to the federal budget and not without undermining a Social Security Administration that is facing the retirement of 77 million Baby Boomers.

Oh yes, the database also has a reported error rate of 4.1% that will ensnare workers who are here legally. In all likelihood, businesses will cut these employees loose rather than patiently wait for resolution. – “Permission to work, sir,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial, May 16, 2008.

Over the weekend and today, a number of opinion columnists and editorial pages have begun to look more closely at the twin stories from last week – the raids and detention conditions expose – and what they tell us about the state of America’s immigration system.  Here are a few examples.

The Washington Post editorial page Saturday, under the clever headline “Detention Deficit,” recounted some of the most egregious highlights of the Post’s series, concluding:

Human error cannot always be avoided, but continuing to underfund and understaff the medical care system for these detainees only increases the chances of an unnecessary tragedy. The law requires that those in U.S. custody be given adequate treatment. Simple decency demands no less. (link)

New York Daily News columnist Albor Ruiz dedicated his Sunday column to the detention “scandal” saying in part:

The human rights scandal that immigration has become gets worse with every new revelation of official abuse, neglect and lack of accountability…Over the last couple of weeks, it has become clear that the scandal goes beyond the raids that terrorize thousands of immigrant families, or the hodgepodge of local - and often racist - anti-immigrant laws that have emerged after Congress failed to pass a rational immigration law. – “Immigration’s Human Rights Shame Is Now Moral Crisis” (link)

Although some national media (link, link, link, and link) have begun to focus on the immense impact of ICE’s Postville raid, it has been those closest to the action in Iowa that have been paying the most attention.  For example, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald’s editorial page asked Friday what will happen to the employer:

This is a broken system. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are trying to enforce the laws in the wake of Congress’ utter failure to reform the country’s immigration policy….But enforcement must extend to the employers who exploit undocumented workers. At Agriprocessors, we are not talking about a worker or two who sneaked into a job. We are talking about nearly half the employer’s work force. In the case of Agriprocessors, the undercover source even witnessed at least one incident of physical abuse against a worker. Yet the focus of the sweep has been to gather up illegal workers, not to investigate the company. – “Agriprocessors should face charges as well” (link)

And finally, the last word goes to the Des Moines Register editorial page, which made the connection between our broken immigration system, the critical need for reform, and the massive raid in nearby Postville:

It’s time to look at immigration reform as more than a political problem. It’s an economic and a social problem, as Postville illustrates. The U.S. work force needs the labor of new immigrants as it faces a shortage with baby-boomer retirements. The country needs the vitality that new immigrants bring to communities…The nation needs higher, realistic immigration quotas to meet work-force demands. It needs a flexible guest-worker program. It needs a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are otherwise in good standing…Then there would be less need for raids like the one in Postville. – “Raid a reminder of need for reform” (link)

When the Washington Post revealed the appalling conditions facing our returning soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in March 2007, a national outcry arose, senior government officials were fired, and changes were made.

Now when the Washington Post, New York Times, CBS News, and others spotlight deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, the state of medical care for detainees, and the drugging of those in ICE custody to sedate them for deportation, will we see a similar outcry?

Our understanding is that a report is pending from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will further expose the issue of deaths in detention.  Meanwhile, detainees like Roxanne Brown, held in a facility at SEA-TAC Airport in Washington, continue to die.

So far, the response from ICE has been something less than outraged.

The detention of individuals who are unlawfully present in the United States and pending removal raises strong opinions and merits a more balanced view.  We regret that the New York Times, the Washington Post, and “60 Minutes” have failed to provide such balanced reporting.  This website and its contents are meant to correct the record and provide a comprehensive overview of ICE’s commitment to detainee health care.

Compare this with March 2007, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates, shortly before firing Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey for his handling of the Walter Reed debacle, stated:

The care and welfare of our wounded men and women in uniform demand the highest standard of excellence and commitment that we can muster as a government…When this standard is not met, I will insist on swift and direct corrective action and, where appropriate, accountability up the chain of command.

And Secretary Gates made good on that statement.

And what does DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff or the President have to say and when do they plan to say it?  Who will get fired and when?

One final point, this week we saw the largest ICE raid in the nation’s history as 300 plus detainees were marched to a makeshift detention facility in Postville, Iowa after their meat plant was raided.  To the best of my knowledge, there has not been one national network news story. Generally, any enforcement action resulting in 300 arrests would be cause for countless hours of cable reporting. Do we simply tune these actions out when it is immigrants who are arrested, detained, or denied due process? Have we become comfortably numb?

Secretary Michael Chertoff is right to feel disappointment that the Senate immigration reform proposal he helped craft and shepherd died at the hands of his own party. Yet he has taken his revenge out on immigrants rather than politicians.  With increasingly spectacular raids and seemingly unresponsive nonchalance to deaths in detention, it almost seems as if he is saying, “You wanna see what no immigration reform looks like, here I’ll show you;” letting the cowboy element at ICE and DHS have free rein over the country and her immigrants.

How long until the President says to Secretary Chertoff “You’re doing a heck of a job, Cherty!”

Today’s hearing in the House Committee on Ways and Means on mandatory electronic employment verification threw some cold water on Members of Congress who have been pressing, zombie-like, for mandatory verification of employment authorization. 

The most compelling testimony came from Barbara Kennelly, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a Social Security advocacy group. Ms. Kennelly, a former member of Congress, talked about the impact of verification schemes now being considered by Congress on the Social Security Administration (SSA):

These proposals would divert SSA from its central mission of serving its own beneficiaries and would ask it instead to create a national employment verification system, using SSA databases and employees, to confirm the employment status of every American worker.

The problem, she noted in her testimony, is that Congress does not have a good track record for pairing new mandates with new resources.  Another witness, Greg Heineman, President of the National Council of Social Security Management Associations, Inc., estimated that if the current E-Verify system were to be expanded nationwide (as proposed in the SAVE Act, for example), it would add an additional burden to the Social Security Administration of 889 work years to process the requests.  Work authorization checks would be added to the workload of an agency that is so backlogged in making disability determinations that the average wait is more than 500 days! 

And if that doesn’t sound challenging enough, Ms. Kennelly noted that,

…the front edge of the Baby Boom generation is just beginning to move into its retirement years. In January, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, the nation’s first Baby Boomer, applied for Social Security retirement benefits. …she will be followed by nearly 80 million additional Boomers who will also expect swift and accurate processing of their retirement claims.

It is no wonder that the AARP recently expressed grave concern about proposals to expand the SSA’s role in conducting verifications of employment authorization.

Ms. Kennelly noted that it took advocates years before Congress (last year) appropriated some additional funds to allow SSA to increase its output to slow the growth of the backlog in disability claims.  Putting down her prepared text in the middle of her testimony, she practically begged the Committee members not to burden the agency with a new workload.

“We are all embarrassed about the backlog,” she said. The new Commissioner was doing his best, but if E-Verify on a national scale is made part of the mandate of the SSA, progress in claims determinations will halt. “I have never felt as strongly about anything in a long time,” she said.

If members of Congress think they hear too much from constituents who are upset about illegal immigration, wait until seniors can’t get their Social Security checks because the SSA is too busy checking into the work authorization of those who are still working.

The hearing was the first of several planned on immigration, employment verification, and related issues.  A Forum Press Release about these hearings was picked up today in the Orange County Register.

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