I'm going to start calling you CougarBreath. Rawr.

Could someone tell Chris Matthews to let the guests get at least halfway through their answers to the previous question before he fires off the next one? Does he have a question quota to meet, or what?

1: Now, now. Can I help it if I have a soft spot for wonky young pundits? But really, if he gets on the list of people who consistently get called to appear on these shows to talk about issues like immigration and health care, that'd be great, wouldn't it?

I think the practical unintended consequences are significant, though otherwise I think the idea is right on target. Lemme explain.:

Right now employers don't have a reliable way to check someone's employment eligibility, and I say this as someone who has been chasing down how to get employment eligibility for an immigrant fiancé for about six months now. The law says on the one hand, as a foreigner, you must have a social security number and work authorization to work. In the very next paragraph on the social security website FAQ, it says "what do I do if my employee doesn't yet have a social security number?" The answer isn't "fire them" but "get all of their information and update your files once they've received a card and a number." Why? Because it takes a while to get a SSN, and no one should be forced to starve because of a bureaucratic hiccup.

Employers aren't equipped to judge whether someone's employment authorization is forged, currently valid, or expired. Shivbunny's now allowed to work for 90 days, and many immigrants who are 'illegal' enter legally and overstay. If he works on the 91st day, technically, his employer is breaking the law. But shivbunny's got a work authorization document and has applied for a social security card that will look like any other card. They don't come and take away his card away on day 91, and even a scrupulous employer could be fooled.

I like the idea, but I'd worry that what would end up happening is that an employer faced with hiring an immigrant would have to judge someone's employment eligibility based on something beyond the documents they're been presented. Which means it's a ripe area for someone to say, this guy's paperwork looks okay, but he's dark-skinned and speaks with an accent. Want to chance it?

It might drive down the demand, but I'd worry that it would do so not by getting deserving immigrants green cards, but by making it a de facto policy not to hire anyone who looks illegal. This doesn't mean that the right idea isn't to crack down on employers, but that we're going to have to fix the work documentation problem first.

so do i infer that young ezra is a looker?

Ezra really does do a good job. He has a smart, trustworthy screen persona and great command of the facts.

This doesn't mean that the right idea isn't to crack down on employers, but that we're going to have to fix the work documentation problem first.

I just can't buy that as a difficult to surmount problem. Somewhere, in the bowels of the INS, is a computer with a database that has a record of shivbunny's work authorization/etc, including whether anything's happened to make it invalid (expired, some next step needed to happen, whatever). I don't believe there's anything fundamentally difficult at all about making it possible for employers to determine whether their employees are legally permitted to work in the US. (You want safe harbor provisions where an employer could report an employee as having something hinky about his documentation, but is in the process of straightening it out? That'd work fine.)

5: I think my comment that he 'looks good', which was meant to convey that he looks comfortable on TV, was taken by Becks as a comment on his raw animal magnetism. Now, were I looking for someone to take me to a soda fountain after a junior high sock hop, young Ezra would be high on my list. But he does look to be about fifteen.

8--

so now you're trying to walk back from your earlier claim that you'd like to jump his bones.

8 - I think the "looking comfortable on TV" thing has been the biggest contribution that BloggingHeads has made. BH doesn't make much news on its own but it does a good job of letting people see what they look like filmed and what does and doesn't work in front of a camera. I haven't seen Ezra's Hardball yet but, if you remember Jessica Valenti's appearance on Colbert, she had a number of big gestures and fidgets that were distracting and I bet Ezra has stuff like that much more under control.

I like the basic idea.

I'm with 7 - I think Cala's concern is a problem, but a fixable one.

I wonder if you would end up creating 29 day work arrangements.

I also wonder what would happen when it was immediately implemented. What are there, 11 million estimated illegal immigrants? That's a lot of people to not have jobs all the sudden.

7

"... I don't believe there's anything fundamentally difficult at all about making it possible for employers to determine whether their employees are legally permitted to work in the US. ..."

Not technically but politically. The open borders crowd doesn't want to make it difficult to hire illegals. "Cracking down" on employers doesn't make much sense unless the laws are changed as most employers are in compliance with existing law which is deliberately ineffectual.

7: Oh christ. I'd love to believe that. But it's not just INS. It's the Department of State, USCIS (what INS is now), CBP (the half of what used to be INS that guards the borders), and the Social Security Administration. None of these guys share information, and none of these guys know what the hell they're supposed to be doing.

Case in point: if you fly into JFK to activate a fiancé visa, they give you your stamp right then and there, and off you go to work. If you fly into any other airport, they'll tell you that CBP isn't authorized to do that. If you do a land crossing at Detroit, they'll give you the stamp and they'll tell you, if you call on the phone, that any port of entry can authorize you to work. If you call other crossings, you'll hear that the K-1 isn't work authorized at all. If you call one crossing, they'll tell you they can authorize you, and then when you get there, they won't and insist that no one gives the stamp. (Things that are fun: picking legal fights with border patrol.) The brilliant thing: if you fly into Boston, you can't get work authorization, but if you enter somewhere else, they'll tell you to go to Boston.

This is just one department and one small visa class, and they're not even sure whether shivbunny is work authorized because there is just no database set up to check that even within Homeland Security right now. That's before the bulk of USCIS gets ahold of the paperwork, and shares it with SSA so they can check it.

It is in principle, fixable. Make a big database, get everyone on the same page. They should be able to do that now! But my experience is that the right hand knoweth not what the left hand is authorized to give, and I'm wary of a solution predicated on the idea that there is going to be a nice database, accessible by employers, that isn't fucked up seventeen ways from Sunday.

Your basic comment is true -- that the problem is a political one, in that employers are better off if they have an underclass of illegal immigrants to exploit, so they don't want to either reduce or legalize immigration -- and I don't have a political strategy for overcoming that. But this: "most employers are in compliance with existing law" is nonsense. Anyone knowingly employing illegal immigrants (like, oh, the co-op I live in. I don't feel bad about it, because we're paying him union wages) is in violation of existing law.

14 to 12.

to 13: I know everything you're saying is true, but it's not a fact of nature or difficult (except politically) to change -- the system is a ridiculous, insane, mess because politically we want it that way. If we didn't want it that way, setting up a system that would work wouldn't be a significant problem.

More problems, that I don't think are insurmountable, but will fuck up an otherwise good plan if not addressed:
1) How are we counting the month of work? Man-hours? Date of hire? Full-time status?
2) Do we run the risk of consecutive 29-day training periods?

Date of hire. The SSA keeps track of who an employer is paying SS taxes on behalf of -- anyone showing a pattern of a whole lot of 29 day employees gets investigated up the wazoo and out the yinyang.

14

"... Anyone knowingly employing illegal immigrants (like, oh, the co-op I live in. I don't feel bad about it, because we're paying him union wages) is in violation of existing law."

As I understand the law an employer is required to ask for documentation of eligibility to work and is required to accept any of a long list of documents (some of which are easily forged) as long as they are facially valid. It doesn't matter if the employer suspects the applicant is not in fact legal. He is not required (and in fact is forbidden) to act on his suspicions. Does your co-op even hire workers directly? If you employ a management company it is their responsibility.

There'd also have to be more than getting a green card to just working a month (or even five hours a week) for an illegal employer. There is now: lots of medical forms, sponsorship forms, and other hoops through which to jump.

Another worry: it looks great on paper, but the immigrant is going to have guarantee (for one) that he won't end up a public burden, or else the green card application will be denied. It's going to be hard to demonstrate a continuous steady source of income when the green card eligibility is given by turning in one's employer.

Oh, if anyone came after us, we'd be in for a long and annoying argument with the managing agent about who was on the hook for the fines, but our porter is openly undocumented -- he didn't show up with any forged documentation. (And until he got hired, the building had a terrible mouse problem. Virgilio does not tolerate rodents in his building. Three weeks after he started, he figured out the choke point in the passageways by which the mice were accessing the garbage room, and took care of business by methods which will not be explained given that Bitch may read this. The man is a mouse-control genius, not that that matters to his immigration status.) But IME, being openly undocumented is as common as not for undocumented workers in the NY area.

19: My version had the employer on the hook as the immigrant's sponsor.

19: If you like, you could set it up as, say, a two year work-authorization convertible to a green card at the end of that period assuming that you could meet the other requirements for a green card by then. Figuring out a way to make it work really wouldn't be all that tricky.

Oh, if anyone came after us, we'd be in for a long and annoying argument with the managing agent about who was on the hook for the fines, but our porter is openly undocumented -- he didn't show up with any forged documentation.

And if you can argue that you shouldn't be on the hook for the fines and Virgilio's green card (ten years of guaranteeing the state that he won't end up on welfare), so certainly can any other business. A green card can't be approved without the support affadavit, and so the risk is that the undocumented worker comes forward, and is tied up in court battles until forever, during which time he's in a worse position: not only is his immigration status fuzzy, it's fuzzy and on the record. What if the company goes under while the courts have it tied up? It's easier for companies to die than people.

(One of the weird things about immigration is that you get no points for trying to do it legally and failing. If you run a significant risk of failing, you're better off not trying.)

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but this sort of thing

13: Holy crap, that sounds like a mess. Back in my day, the fiance immigrant didn't get a stamp at the airport to work, but had to apply for the permit after entry and wait (a couple of months, I think, maybe it was even after the wedding) for the work permit card to show up in the mail. Or maybe we were just doing it wrong and the lazy slacker just had no excuse for not working...?

The fiancé immigrant's allowed to work. You're supposed to file for the permit, but the cute catch is that the permit takes about 90 days to process and of course, a fiancé's 'official' status is only good for 90 days. So some ports will give you the stamps in lieu of filing the permit. But no one tells you which ones they are, and honestly, half of the guys don't know what they're doing. And at the end of 90 days, it expires anyway (though if we don't tell shivbunny's employer about it, the employer has no way of knowing unless he's read up on immigration law), so by and large, it's not worth the effort.

Once we're married we have to file the same damn forms all over again.

20

"... But IME, being openly undocumented is as common as not for undocumented workers in the NY area."

Even if this is true, all that "cracking down" would accomplish (without a change in the law) is a bit of increased business for the document forgers. It is interesting that Bush has so gutted enforcement that people are no longer even pretending to obey the law.

23: In Virgilio's case, we'd be arguing with the managing agent about whether they were responsible for reimbursing us -- he's our direct employee, so vis-a-vis the government we're absolutely on the hook. And his status wouldn't have to be dependent on our solvency -- you could, weird though it might seem, change the rules to make people legalized under this policy eligible for green cards even if their corporate sponsors became insolvent. It's a law, which we can make whatever we like, not a fact of nature.

Everything you're bringing up is a question that would have to be answered in order to implement the policy, but none of it looks like a significant obstacle.

Speaking of the SSA, I got a benefits statement once, like 6 years ago, but haven't received one since. Aren't you supposed to get one every year if you're older than 25? Should I be worried about this?

26: While I like blaming Bush as much as anyone, I don't think these laws have been seriously enforced since well before he took office.

27: This is harder than it looks. If we change the rules so undocumented workers no longer require sponsorship, we are talking a very large potential hit to the social safety net. They should be allowed to self-sponsor, but you're going to need the form that says "I won't take means-tested benefits" or else this is never going to pass politically. And now our motivation -- get the employers on the hook -- is gone. Who cares? I'll hire illegals, a couple lawyers, if they turn me in, they get a green card, and I argue my way out of a fine and support.

I think the temporary work-authorization as an intermediate step is probably the best way to go. We already have paths for work-to-green card, and I think the undocumented worker who turns in an employer should be rewarded not with the green card, but basically a floating work permit that they can, after two years, get all the other ducks in a row.

Aren't you supposed to get one every year if you're older than 25?

Yeah, I get them. Maybe they've just lost track of where you live. Should be pretty easy to get in touch with them, and it's not like your benefits have been frozen just because you didn't get the statement.

29

I don't know anything about the third way but this report claiming a substantial reduction in enforcement under Bush is consistent with everything else I have read.

And now our motivation -- get the employers on the hook -- is gone. Who cares? I'll hire illegals, a couple lawyers, if they turn me in, they get a green card, and I argue my way out of a fine and support.

You don't argue your way out -- I'm talking about an exception only for corporate insolvency, so the employer stays on the hook as long as they're doing business. Again, it's not that it's not a problem, it's that it's a soluble problem.

32: Oh, it may certainly have gotten worse, but it's always been pretty bad.

31

At least it used to be you only had three years to correct errors in your earnings for SS so I would say this is worth worrying about a bit.

13: are you sure you haven't outsourced your immigration department to the Indian government? Because that all sounds really familiar.

Everything you're bringing up is a question that would have to be answered in order to implement the policy, but none of it looks like a significant obstacle.

LB, I'm sympathetic to your broader point, but Cala is right, right, right. The current system is exceptionally complex -- dozens of types of work permits, multiple different routes to a green card, many kinds of legal immigrant status that DO NOT include work authorization (e.g. college students).

You can make it less complex, but a lot of the moving parts are connected to each other for good reason, and some of the less-good reasons are pretty intractable. Your proposal isn't quite as over-simplified as the flat-tax proposal, but there are unfortunately some similarities.

Part of the issue is that we don't have a clear public policy goal. If we as a country could agree: "It is always better for people who want to work to be able to work" then a lot of other decisions would flow from that.

But in actuality it's more like "If you want to work then you should be able to work, except if you were born in a foreign country and are going to college here, or maybe if you married a US citizen overseas or no wait maybe if you married them HERE but came over on a tourist visa or -- no -- let's see, what if you came here as an engineer but now want to work in the healthcare field -- ooops, sorry, not possible -- wait, what do you mean when you were fleeing the death squads in South America you didn't bring your birth certificate?!?!" Etc.

20

So you are paying Virgilio union wages but he is working off the books? No withholding of social security, workers comp, unemployment insurance or any other taxes?

Part of the issue is that we don't have a clear public policy goal. If we as a country could agree: "It is always better for people who want to work to be able to work" then a lot of other decisions would flow from that.

The deal is that I'm assuming a clear public policy goal. I'm not claiming that this is politically an easy sell, or even that it's politically possible -- just that as a policy matter it's not unworkable.

The fact that the INS is too overloaded to do a sane job with the workload it has now isn't a constraint on possible policies, it's a policy choice we've actively made, and the same for the rest of the difficulties.

Becks, I get a statement every year, and I do think it's worth making sure SSA has your current address. You *do* want to make sure your earnings are being counted properly, as Shearer says.

I'm not saying the problems are insurmountable, but that about the worst thing that could happen is for another law to be passed having to do with immigration where the consequences haven't really been thought through. Not that LB is making the laws here, but half of the reason we need to file the same forms twenty gazillion times is that laws are introduced to fix a small problem without figuring out all the details.

The devil is completely in the details.

There was talk during the first go round of this (Simpson-Mizzoli) of having a magnetic strip on a SSN card like a credit card that the potential employer would swipe to determine status. Back when I was in Agribusiness, everyone had good paperwork, even the day hires. I was audited by the then INS twice and got a clean bill of health each time because our paperwork was all in order. Do I suspect that the majority of my labor force was wet? You bet. Did I do anything past making a copy of the documents they presented and filling out the I-9? No, and you can't make me. Cala is exactly right, anything more is a one way ticket to a discrimination lawsuit.
Personally I think that we should look at the reality on the ground and expand the number of legal entrants into the millions as opposed to the thousands currently allowed.

Becks, I would try to track down where the SSA statements are going, but maybe not to get all Paranoid Bridgeplate about it.

LB, what did Virgilio do to the mice? I need to know.

38: Nope, all of those taxes are being paid. I assume that means that he has some form of fraudulent SS number, but it wasn't presented to us in a manner intended to deceive.

43: Found a duct through which they were entering the garbage room; put a trash can full of bleach where they were landing as they jumped out of it. I didn't see it, but apparently it was full.

The fact that the INS is too overloaded to do a sane job with the workload it has now isn't a constraint on possible policies, it's a policy choice we've actively made, and the same for the rest of the difficulties.

I hear you, but I think the answer is yes and no. To give an example from a not-unrelated arm of the federal government: The GWOT is supposedly the most terrible danger confronting us as a nation. And our borders are supposed to be key part of keeping us safe. And what happens today? Incompetence and in-fighting between the Department of State and Homeland Security cause the new passport rules to be suspended.

43--

yes, yes, the mice!!

did he cut off their tails with a butcher knife?

no--something that would offend bphd, so it can't be merely violence. or sex.

hmmm--did he drive the mice away by telling them that they shouldn't talk about philosophy when they don't know anything about it?

or worse: did he tell them that there is no such thing as good literary criticism, only muddle-headed philosophy?

ooooh--that would send them shrieking, like the pied piper in reverse. mice *hate* that sort of thing.

45--

oh, you posted the answer before i echoed the question.

you know, many mice are plagued by parasites, fleas, etc., which make them very uncomfortable.

i think virgilio probably cured them of those problems.

44: He probably has an ITIN, which you can use to file taxes if you don't have a SSN.

Wow.

37: Something else to consider.... it's not as though there aren't supposed to be limits on what you can do legally as an immigrant or legal non-immigrant. Driver's licenses, bank accounts, leases, employment, getting a loan. None of these are illegal, usually, but since everything requires having a social security number, in principle, it should be hard to get anywhere in the U.S. while having questionable status.

Of course, it isn't, either because people don't, or can't, check (TLL's story I suspect is very common) or because documents are very easy to forge. I'm suspicious of a solution that says 'we'll create extra hurdle (ID card) X and that will solve the problem" because the only people who are going to suffer through extra hurdle X are they people who are already committed to being legal. Demand is really, really high. People will forge papers if they have to.

This may have already been said, but this:

to 13: I know everything you're saying is true, but it's not a fact of nature or difficult (except politically) to change -- the system is a ridiculous, insane, mess because politically we want it that way. If we didn't want it that way, setting up a system that would work wouldn't be a significant problem.

is wildly optimistic.

I have limited experience working with legacy systems, but it's enough to tell me that what your talking about would be years and years of difficult work.

We could, of course, just try scrapping large portions of the federal immigration bureaucracy and re-building them from scratch, but that also seems incredibly difficult.

It isn't just a problem of political will.

I'd love it if it were possible, but I don't think "assume a database" will work in practice.

44

A social security card (which I believe is easy to forge) is sufficient to prove work eligibility .

What does that have to do with 44?

54

If he didn't present you with a SS card nothing. If he did you are in compliance with the law.

I hate pulling out the I'm a lawyer and you aren't card, but that's both false and just silly. As I've said a bunch of times, Virgilio told us he was undocumented. Whether or not he also showed a forged social security card, we're in violation of the law given that we actually know that he's not legally in the country. The level of forged documentation that's sufficient to cover you if you suspect that an employee is undocumented but don't look into it, doesn't make it legal to hire an undocumented immigrant when you have actual knowledge of their status.

56

Ok, if he actually told the person hiring him (not tenants in the building) that he was not eligible to work then he is being employed illegally. However in practice if the employer has a copy of a social security card on file he is covered.

I'd love it if it were possible, but I don't think "assume a database" will work in practice.

Nick is completely right. Although I don't know if it makes it better or worse to know that when you submit your green card or naturalization application on the fancy-dancy website, it is immediately printed out and thereafter processed as a single paper file for the rest of your immigration experience. If the file's in Nebraska, nobody's able to get information on it from the California office, etc.

Calling the current setup a "computer system" is almost a misnomer. The FBI background check, the fingerprints, all the hundreds of steps that Shivbunny is going through are currently done more or less manually.

"Covered" in the sense that "If you lied to law enforcement officials about your actions, they'd have a hard time making anything stick" is a very, very different concept than "in compliance with the law", Shearer.

58: I don't mean to minimize the practical difficulties of setting up a database here, but seriously, it's not the Manhattan Project. There's no technical reason that a database that would serve the purpose necessary would be all that difficult to construct; it's a matter of money and the political decision to make it happen.

58.---That pokes a fond memory I have of my immigration dossier in France---which was a big-ass green folder with my name on it.

it's a matter of money and the political decision to make it happen.

Sure, but it is also a matter of whose Al is being Gored. Much like universal health care, there are too many actors to enact a comprehensive immigration and naturalization plan without a sort of Manhattan Project, and we know how that ended up with Hillarycare.

There's no technical reason that a database that would serve the purpose necessary would be all that difficult to construct; it's a matter of money and the political decision to make it happen.

Sure it's possible. I just think it's monumentally unlikely. I think we're arguing at the margins here.

Let me arbitrarily make up numbers. Pretend it will cost $100B to build the database and will take 7 years of effort to get the system up and running. Granted that this COULD happen, I think the odds that it WILL happen are roughly in line with, I dunno, establishing a space elevator.

it's a matter of money and the political decision to make it happen.

If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs?

Argh. Fine, I agree with everyone. Bureaucratic systems are inherently unchangeable, as we can tell by the fact that every governmental agency and department has not changed its methods or systems since 1776. It is absurd to talk about things like 'databases' and 'computers' when, as we all know, the clerks at the INS still rely on quills from the national flock of geese and the finest of red cloth tape imported from Madras to bind the stacks of foolscap that constitute each immigrant's file.

59

How common is it for illegal workers to present forged documents to potential employers while telling them that the documents are forged? Whether or not it happened in this particular case cracking down on it wouldn't accomplish much even if it were feasible. As long as the law requires employers to accept easily forged documents as proof of work eligibility cracking down on employers is just political rhetoric.

I believe the national flock of geese was privatized.

How would you pronounce NFOG, the acronym for the National Flock of Geese?

The underlying issue here is the creation and use of identity cards, isn't it? There are lots of reasons that people on all sides of the political spectrum have problems with such plans. The obvious lefty one is the use of identity cards in connection with voting. We'll probably have to do it sooner or later, but there are real reasons that people are prefer the non-working systems that we presently have.

I believe the national flock of geese was privatized.

Under Reagan, I think. The surplus birds were then sold to the Chinese, who are using the decendants to feed everyone in Hunan Province and send one to Kim Jong Il every Christmas (as a Commie practical joke).

Argh. Fine, I agree with everyone.

Oh, yay. Because otherwise I was about to break out my new favorite link.

Darn it. Link.

66: If you correct for the fact that an employer is still in violation of the law if they become aware that an employee is not authorized to work in the US after the moment of hiring (that is, you're not "in compliance" with the law if an employee hands you a forged SS card, you hire them, and then the next week they mention that they aren't legally in the country), all the time.

The deal is that undocumented workers are extraordinarily competitive in the labor market because they will take jobs where labor laws are violated without protest or appeal to law enforcement. Unless the employer is actually aware that the people they are hiring are undocumented, they don't have that advantage. (While this doesn't describe Virgilio's situation -- he's costing us as much as he would if he were legal -- it's largely the case) Organizations who systematically hire undocumented workers often do so intentionally, and therefore with actual knowledge of the status of their employees.

Organizations who systematically hire undocumented workers often do so intentionally,

I think that there are fewer of these than you suspect. Of course, there is no way to document it, so it is a case of preconceived notions about status and intent.

74: Well, there are levels of intentionality. Your statement about working in agribusiness was:

Do I suspect that the majority of my labor force was wet? You bet. Did I do anything past making a copy of the documents they presented and filling out the I-9? No, and you can't make me.

Now, I figure you weren't setting hiring policy, so I'm not blaming you for this, but I'd be very surprised if hiring/labor policy where you were working wasn't set with the assumption that the people you intended to hire were undocumented. The fact that the law is now set up to make plausible deniability easy for you doesn't mean there's anything inherent in the nature of the situation that means it has to be set up that way.

Now, I'm a city person, so the businesses I'm familiar with personally where undocumented workers tend to work are restaurants, residential buildings, and domestic workers, smallish workforces where people end up knowing a fair amount about each other personally, so actual knowledge of the specific status of each worker is probably a lot more common than it is in agribusiness. But I'm not buying that agribusinesses aren't intentionally hiring undocumented workers.

SCMT goes to the nub of the argument. The row over ID cards and various putative databases that might feed into/off them in Britain has been rumbling on for years now and there's no sign of consensus between those who oppose them on civil libertarian grounds and those who support them in the interests of efficiency. There is however general agreement that humungous centralised IT projects like that are invariably a SNAFU from the get go, because they are inevitably over-spec'd and impossible to manage because of the number of contractors involved. So we're not expecting a working ID database any time soon, government threats/promises notwithstanding.

And without such a thing, I don't see how you can realistically appeal to technology to solve the immigration issues. I doubt if it'll happen.

Okay, appealing to technology to solve the immigration issues at the level of being able to send in a SSN and get a response as to whether that corresponds to someone legally authorized to work in the US and not employed elsewhere inconsistently within a few weeks really, really can't be unrealistic.

The SSA has a file that shows where I've worked since I was 19 and had my first on-the-books job, and they know they're getting taxes on my behalf now. For every SSN, then, they should be able to answer either "Never heard of him" or "He's employed right now in Denver" or "It's a valid number, we have a file, and we have no indication of any funny business."

It's not so much "assume a database" that I wonder about--it is certainly possible; it's "assume the political will to actually create a working database." We skimp on funding the immigration system across the board, and very few of the people who talk about the need for enforcement seem to actually know the system or to have thought through exactly what is necessary to enforce the laws. They are only interested in:

1) making already punitive-but-unenforced-or-arbitrarily-enforced-laws even more punitive. Tom Tancredo wants to freeze legal immigration. James Sensenbrenner has tried to make it a felony to be here illegally, and to provide ANY assistance--food, shelter, medical care--to an illegal immigrant. John Cornyn wants to make illegally crossing the border not only a felony but an aggravated felony, which bars you from political asylum. etc. etc.

(Believe me, the laws are plenty harsh as it is--and while there are apparently 12 million people here illegally, there is also no shortage of people who get screwed: people who get denied asylum & deported even though their lives are genuinely in danger; people who came here as toddlers & never naturalized deported for one lousy marijuana conviction because their lawyer had no clue about the immigration implications of their plea; etc. etc. Then there's the fact that legal aid societies lose all their federal funds for representing people in immigration proceedings...The laws are very harsh, they're just not consistently enforced.)

2) Building a wall along the Mexican border.

3) Hiring more border patrol agents.

4) Building more jails to detain people during the deportation process.

But as far as actually providing the necessary resources for enforcement across the board? They aren't interested. I've never dealt with the INS/DHS as an applicant so I don't the intricacies of employment authorization, but take the immigration courts, where I worked last year (I'm pasting this from another blog comment):

Even the immigration hawks are only willing to shell out $ for fences, border patrol agents, and prisons, but not, say, to do anything about the fact that we have 230-odd immigration judges who are supposed to sign off on every deportation in America other than an "expedited removal" of someone caught at a border or port of entry. Let's see, 12 million divided by 230 = 52174 cases per judge. Let's say you deal with an average of 3 a day per judge (a little less than the current goal--but one that it is only possible to ever meet because of the number of people who no-show for their hearings & get ordered deported in absentia). Okay, so that leaves 17391 work days per judge, divided by approximately 240 work days per year per federal employee, equals....72 years per judge to deal with the backlog of cases if immigration services rounded up everyone tomorrow.

The immigration courts ALREADY aren't bound by the administrative procedure act, don't issue written decisions in an overwhelming majority cases, finish their cases in less time than any comparable administrative court I can think of, and are already getting routinely chewed out by the federal courts for not providing due process even in cases that are genuinely matters of life and death. And hiring more judges to speed up cases is probably more cost effective than building jails to hold people (including, sometimes, refugees, whole families, children) while they wait for months for their hearing. But the grand immigration bargains that I see tend to pay for maybe 50 more judges, or simply ignore the issue entirely.

I'm sure the work authorization system is equally dysfunctional--I'm just less personally familiar with it.

It can't be impossible for a country with the U.S.'s resources to enforce its immigration laws better, but I don't think the political will is actually there. Especially since you'd need not only a one-time bill, but adequate funding for years to come.

All the public schools require proof of vaccinations before kids enter schools. Institutions can get used to requirements on this scale. I agree with LB.

I think what's cool about this idea is that it would work like gravity: it aligns the best interest of the individual with the best interests of the country.

I'd be very surprised if hiring/labor policy where you were working wasn't set with the assumption that the people you intended to hire were undocumented

Be surprised then. The work is seasonal, but we had a very low turnover rate, i.e. most workers returned season after season. There was no recruiting or anything systematic in any way about the seasonal hires, but outside of the fact that most spoke only spanish ther was certainly no intent to hire only illegals. In fact, after the first amnesty many became legal and still worked in Ag because that is what they knew. I can't speak for restaurants or hotels of janitorial, but the extra level of explotation you are envisioning because of immigration status happens more to the sex workers you were helping, not someone who has overstayed a visa.

It's not so much "assume a database" that I wonder about--it is certainly possible; it's "assume the political will to actually create a working database." We skimp on funding the immigration system across the board, and very few of the people who talk about the need for enforcement seem to actually know the system or to have thought through exactly what is necessary to enforce the laws.

I completely agree with you about this. I'm stifling the impulse to snap at you, though, because a point I've been trying to make (admittedly not explicitly) is that the question of "What would a good policy be" and "What's a policy we can pass" are entirely different questions, and shouldn't be confused. Immigration policy is an area where regulation has been captured to a great extent by employers who like having an undocumented underclass. Any change in the law that has a shot of passing, given that fact, is going to be as bad as what we've got now.

What this means to me, is that there's no point in talking 'realistically' about what sort of immigration reform can pass. If we're being 'realistic' about the fact that employers have captured the process, then nothing can pass that constitutes reform. If we're going to talk about policy, the only productive thing to do is to talk about policy that's good on its merits, and worry about what's politically 'possible' after we've figured out what would be a good idea.

but the extra level of explotation you are envisioning because of immigration status happens more to the sex workers you were helping, not someone who has overstayed a visa.

Bullshit. Half the restaurants in NY employ undocumented workers being paid less than minimum wage. I simply don't believe that your hiring policies were such that they would have remained unchanged if you had been required to actually verify the status of the people you hired -- if you had, most of your workforce (from your own statement) would have been unhireable, and you would have had to make the job more attractive to fill positions. Setting the pay at a level where the job is primarily attractive to undocumented workers, and relying on them to provide you with plausible deniability, is intentionally hiring undocumented workers.

75

"... The fact that the law is now set up to make plausible deniability easy for you doesn't mean there's anything inherent in the nature of the situation that means it has to be set up that way."

So are we in agreement that with the current laws "cracking down" on employers won't accomplish much?

Pay was piecerate, but averaged over $10.00 per hour in the early 80s. We also paid health insurance, and it was available for dependants. We had to pay this to be competetive for the labor, so stuff your explotation, LB.

Sure. What have we been talking about throughout this conversation other than changing the laws?

81

You talk as if the only people supporting ineffectual laws on verifying eligibility for employment are employers. In fact there is also a large illegal immigrants lobby. Why do most liberal Democrats oppose effective measures against illegal immigration?

I know. It's just, it's not a situation where I've seen a bill that would do the trick and we have to find the votes; it's not even a situation where I could give you a general idea of what the bill should say. The devil's in the details, and I know such a small fraction of the details, and Congress seems to know even less. The bill's are always full of sheer stupidities like the 'touchback' provision...disheartening.

I thought that it was a widely held belief that illegal immigrants weren't suppressing wages very much. That would seem to support, if indirectly, TLL's position.

84: Stuff your self-righteousness right back at you. Whatever you were paying, if the people you were were getting were primarily undocumented, it was because if they had been able to count on the protections of the law they would have been able to hold out for more. I'm not saying that your workplace was a grinding swamp of misery, but your employers were counting on the existence of a pool of desperate workers outside the law so that they could pay lower wages than if the only workers available were legally in the country. Minimum wage or no (and I was exaggerating about the number of undocumented restaurant workers in NY not getting minimum wage, that's probably pretty rare. But they're getting less than they would if they were documented.) that's exploiting vulnerable people.

"Why do most liberal Democrats oppose effective measures against illegal immigration?"

I'm enough of a bleeding heart that I might oppose such a proposal, but in fact, I've never actually had the chance, because I've never actually seen one.
Could you point me to one?

88: Not suppressing wages very much in terms of the overall legal labor market doesn't mean that they aren't getting paid significantly less than you'd need to pay to fill the same jobs with documented workers.

I'm not sure most liberal Dems do; more likely, they oppose Republican implementation of such measures b/c they suspect, for good reason, that it will be done in a way that is most punitive to both the illegals and the Hispanic (or other visible minority) population. Dem politicians are another matter.

86: What Katherine said. Plenty of Democrats oppose measures calculated to keep undocumented immigrants frightened and vulnerable. Those are not 'effective measures against illegal immigration', they are punitive measures against undocumented immigrants. I haven't seen 'effective measures against illegal immigration' proposed for anyone to support or oppose.

91: I may be misremembering the claim, but I think it is that the wages that are not substantially effected are those of the legal population that would otherwise do the job.

85

In your post you said:

"... He opens with an idea that I think highly of, enlisting the aid of undocumented workers in enforcing the immigration laws by rewarding them with green cards for turning in employers who break the laws. ..."

which ignores the fact that it is easy for employers to comply with existing law while still hiring illegals.

Oh, STFU, James. We've been talking about changing methods of verification for the whole goddam length of the thread. If you can't figure out that that would involve a change in the law, I can't help you.

89. I know that what you are arguing is a widely held belief, but the fact is we were competing with other employers for their labor and it was relatively competetive. Ag labor, althoughed classified as unskilled is actually very skilled, it is just a different skill set. One also has to be willing to work outdoors, in varying weather, and use muscle power. Most "Americans" pay to have this done to them at the gym, whereas the work is many steps up from what is available back home for your typical farmworker. I am not so naive of self righteous to think that exploitation does not occur. The migrant workers get exploited because of the seasonality of their jobs, following the crops so that it is difficult to get housing, medical care, etc.

97: "Highly competitive" still doesn't rule out "much less competitive than if you were hiring documented workers." Seriously, do you have a theory for why most of your workers were, if your surmises were correct, undocumented, other than the fact that a documented worker with the same skills could get paid more elsewhere?

Followup on 96: As usual when I start swearing at people, that was intended to express irritation and impatience, not some sort of Unfogged policy statement that you're not welcome here.

98. My theory is that the people who we hired actually wanted to work in Ag, as opposed to being a construction worker, or dishwasher. Like I said, different skill set, but not "unskilled".

98

Because most people willing to do arduous physical labor for the offered wage come from very poor countriea and are here illegally. They would still be willing to accept such employment if they were here legally. Do you really believe a system in which anyone could work legally in the United States would raise the wages of such workers?

And your theory for why the majority of such people were undocumented rather than citizens or documented immigrants? (By the way, my not-quite-an-apology for swearing at Shearer goes for you too -- I just figured the 'Bullshit' to you was less easily misunderstood.)

101: Yep, I do.

To expand, documented immigrants are going to have an easier time changing jobs, because they're not afraid of having forged documents detected. They're going to be more willing to bargain after taking a job, either explicitly or by going elsewhere for work, because they're not afraid of being turned into the INS. And of course they're going to have a much easier time organizing. All of those things would, I expect, drive up wages.

102. Actually I think JBS is right. The workers come from countries that stll have significant rural populations, peasants if you will. Ag is what they know, so they tend to stay in that field.

LB, if I wasn't planning on getting cussed out by you I couldn't have been paying much attention, now could I?

LB:

I'm not clear why legal/illegal status need make such a difference (though I don't doubt that it could and often does). If you assume a labor pool like that which we have, and remove all worries about legality--everyone gets treated as if a legal immigrant--you still have the hardest jobs going to the lowest people on the totem pole. If you restrict the pool, the price will go up. But if you leave the pool the same size, I'm not sure what happens except some switching of people near the bottom into different industries.

106: I'm guessing that was posted without seeing my 104. Short answer is that not being afraid of deportation gives you more bargaining power.

And of course they're going to have a much easier time organizing.

UFW under Chavez was against illegal immigration on these grounds. Makes it hard for me to see Dolores Huerta at the rallies for that reason. Racial solidarity over worker solidarity, I guess.

107: Yep. We just disagree about what will happen, I think.

And I don't have solid data supporting my position -- I don't think there is solid data one way or the other. The basis for 104 is "makes sense to me" not something I can link to.

Ag is what they know, so they tend to stay in that field.

Did you hear the story about the guy who won "Best Farmer" at the county fair?

He was out standing in his field.

107

But the ability of your employer to easily replace you with any of billions of desperately poor third world agricultural workers gives him more bargaining power also. I don't see this benefiting the worker.

I'm not clear why legal/illegal status need make such a difference (though I don't doubt that it could and often does). If you assume a labor pool like that which we have, and remove all worries about legality--everyone gets treated as if a legal immigrant--you still have the hardest jobs going to the lowest people on the totem pole.

The thing is that all other things are NOT equal. The "hardest jobs" are harder than they need to be because the pool of labor doing them can't object to serious risks. (Lack of protective clothing when dealing with pesticides, or a meat-cutting line that moves way too fast to be safe for human hands.)

In my experience, TLL is right that people from rural areas often have skills for agricultural labor, and will often choose to stay in that field because it's what they know. And it is true that if someone waved a magic wand and everyone in the U.S. had legal status, the dirtiest, hardest jobs would still need to be done.

However, LB is completely right about leverage. When it comes to meatpacking, poultry processing, mushroom farming, etc. etc., one of the reasons that those jobs are so undesirable is because people are scared to complain. And it goes beyond their own health and safety -- we all suffer when farmworkers aren't permitted to have bathroom breaks, because it heightens the risk of E. coli on the vegetables they're picking.

112: What you're assuming there is that the number of total immigrants will go up a great deal over the current number of legal+illegal immigrants. I don't know that that's a safe assumption -- part of the goal of the 'green card for snitching' program is to make hiring illegal immigrants massively undesirable, and therefore to make immigrating illegally equally undesirable, because there won't be available jobs.

At which point we will look around and say "Oh noes, we have a labor shortage", and raise the number of legal immigrants to something comparable to our total immigration now.

When it comes to meatpacking, poultry processing, mushroom farming, etc. etc., one of the reasons that those jobs are so undesirable is because people are scared to complain.

I suspect people are scared to complain for a variety of reasons, some of which do not regard legal status. Sexual harassment seems like an type of harm that might similarly be effected by an inability to complain. I don't doubt that now illegal immigrants would be better off with legal protections accorded legal immigrants; I'm more doubtful about the extent of the effect of such a change.

114. Yeah, but LB what you will end up with with your "green card for snitching" program is alot of unemployed brown people and a labor shortage at the same time, and people yelling "Do something!!11!!" even more than what we have now. Right now I believe the electorate could be classified as "sullen, but not mutinous", which was how the admissions director told me he likes the alumni in re legacy admits.

Tim, I mostly agree with you, which is why I said it was *one* of the reasons. But on this: I don't doubt that now illegal immigrants would be better off with legal protections accorded legal immigrants; I'm more doubtful about the extent of the effect of such a change.

Well, that's where we differ. I think it's substantial enough to matter.

When you say 'unemployed brown people', do you mean 'undocumented workers who weren't the snitcher, so they're still undocumented'? In any case, if we've got a labor shortage, open up the gates to more legal immigrants until we don't -- what's the problem?

101 103 114

We are talking past each other. My hypothesis in 101 was a completely open market in labor, anyone anywhere in the world could legally accept a job in the United States.

119: Oh, sure, that'd drive down wages - if there were no political barriers to the movement of labor worldwide, wages might not become equal worldwide (they aren't across the US for example) but I'd bet they'd equalize a lot. From a social justice point of view, this is probably the best thing that could happen, but as a resident of the richest country in the world it would be awfully dislocating.

Anybody remember Hoffman Plastics?

José Castro was fired by his employer, Hoffman Plastic Compounds, because he was trying to unionize his workplace. Nobody disputes that. And the fact that Hoffman violated the National Labor Relations Act by retaliating against him? Well, nobody disputes that either. In fact, that's exactly what the federal National Labor Relations Board concluded in its proceedings against Hoffman for its unlawful labor practices. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer agreed, describing Hoffman's actions as "a crude and obvious violation of the labor laws."

However, because Mr. Castro happens to be an undocumented immigrant worker, a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court decided that he and others like him who were fired because they took part in lawful and protected union activities can still be denied their lost wages under the National Labor Relations Act.

Under the status quo, employers wield enormous power over their undocumented employees with extremely minor consequences.

(Anyone who brings up the fact that Monaco has a higher per capita income (if it does) will be sworn at. I'm sure the prior comment should have read "One of the richest countries in the world".)

What do you mean by "labor shortage"? A good job market?

To the extent that opposition to immigration is crypto-racist, the same argument of "these people are coming here and taking our jobs" will still have force. To the extent that illegal immigrants are being hired at $6/hr while legal workers are getting hired at $12/hr, to the extent that wages/working conditions/what have you equilibriate at something higher than what they are now, there will still be a "labor shortage".

Or we could end up like Norway where there are very few restaraunt jobs because no one eats out because there's a high minimum wage.

118. As said upthread, anyone with an accent won't get hired. Just asking, but have you ever employed anyone, ie run a business? You really don't want to hire the wrong person, it is expensive. Squeezing the employee while twirling your moustache really isn't a part of it, esp. in a small business. Ken Lay, not so much.

Plenty of Democrats oppose measures calculated to keep undocumented immigrants frightened and vulnerable.

This humanitarian/labor position is probably the defining sentiment, but as you go further left, you also hear a bit of "it should be as easy for people to move at will across borders as it is for capital." I find the former easier to think through.

I've always been an employee myself, but there's a small business that employs five people or so being run out of my spare bedroom, so I've got some reasonably close up perspective on how small businesses run. And I'm afraid that arguments of the form "no one wants to exploit their workers, it's just not profitable" aren't terribly persuasive.

126. And I am willing to assume that they pay their employees what they have to pay them regardless of legal status. It's not as if you can say "Austin you get $10.00 per hour, while Pedro here you will get $3.00". A restaurant puts a sign in the window for a dishwasher and will pay whoever comes in the door the $4.50 plus tips.

It's not as if you can say "Austin you get $10.00 per hour, while Pedro here you will get $3.00".

No, really? There are laws requiring that all employees in the same job titles be paid the same amount? Damn -- that silly woman who just lost her case for discrimination in the Supreme Court should have sued under those laws.

And of course, the assumption is that employers who are unscrupulous enough to purposefully hire undocumented immigrants under the assumption that they will work for less simply hire at lower wages. Workers with other options work elsewhere; undocumented immigrants take what they can get.

Well, I'll agree to the same thing, only backwards. An employer will pay what he thinks it will take to hire someone to do the job. The unskilled and undocumented tend to fill those lower paying jobs for a variety of reasons, including perceived risk of getting caught/ deported. But I disagree with the characterization that it is purposeful explotation on the undocumented specifically. As per your cite, exploitation occurs at many levels, not just entry level.

It's not as if you can say "Austin you get $10.00 per hour, while Pedro here you will get $3.00".

Which is why certain jobs tend to become all-illegal or all-immigrant. Get rid of Austin.

Illegals also tend to work under the table or in day labor where they can be cheated easily.

Yep. No one ever purposefully means to exploit anyone. It just somehow happens that way.

(I'm not calling you a bad person: after all, I'm a part owner of a small corporation that employs an undocumented immigrant, I haven't got a leg to stand on. But the fact that no one working for your agribusiness employer was acting maliciously or twirling their moustaches has nothing to do with whether or not your workforce was getting exploited, or whether the law should be changed to make that sort of thing impossible.)

131. OK Karl, workers are always exploited, I get it. I'll get me a UAW job in Detroit, to so I won't be as exploited as my non union buddies. Oh, wait...

128

"No, really? There are laws requiring that all employees in the same job titles be paid the same amount? Damn -- that silly woman who just lost her case for discrimination in the Supreme Court should have sued under those laws. "

Not exactly, but Ledbetter did sue under the wrong law. From Ginsburg's dissent

"Ledbetter, the Court observes, ante, at 21, n. 9, dropped an alternative remedy she could have pursued: Had she persisted in pressing her claim under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), 29 U. S. C. §206(d), she would not have encountered a time bar.8 See ante, at 21("If Ledbetter had pursued her EPA claim, she would not face the Title VII obstacles that she now confronts."); cf. Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U. S. 188, 208-210 (1974) . Notably, the EPA provides no relief when the pay discrimination charged is based on race, religion, national origin, age, or disability. Thus, in truncating the Title VII rule this Court announced in Bazemore, the Court does not disarm female workers from achieving redress for unequal pay, but it does impede racial and other minorities from gaining similar relief.9 "

131: Wait, whoa, what? Clearly I need to read this thread. You employ someone illegally? As a lawyer that seems like an especially bad idea.

120

So we agree even legal immigration can drive down wages? I gather we also agree that the level of immigration we are currently experiencing is driving down wages particularly in areas which primarily employ illegal immigrants. However we disagree as to the cause of this. I believe it is primarily due to an Econ 101 supply and demand effect while you believe it is primarily because of the illegal status of many immigrants. In other words if we had the same level and composition of immigration but it was all legal you believe (and I do not) this would significantly raise wages in the areas that currently rely on illegal workers. Is that correct?

133: That's got nothing to do with the argument (the Equal Pay Act is another antidiscrimination law, not a law forbidding paying people in the same job different wages) and you don't understand what it means.

135: Pretty much, with the caveat that you're ignoring working conditions, which is a lot of what I'd expect to improve if our current workforce were all documented.

134: The porter in my co-op, which I am, as a resident, an owner of, is an undocumented immigrant. We pay him union scale and pay the taxes on his salary; there is some potential that we'll eventually get hit with a fine for hiring him, but in our current political climate I'm not terribly worried about it.

Maybe you can bunk with Paris.

Kinda like how Johnny Cash ended up in Folsom Prison for shooting a man in Reno.

Well, if he shot him just to watch him die, that would be a hate crime right? So a Federal prosecution, right? Then overcrowding in Lompoc, transfer to Folsom per judges order. QED.

She might yet transgress in your neck of the woods.

Didn't you swear to do your utmost to respect and uphold the rule of law (or something like that) when you were admitted to the bar?

Yep. Ever speed, Brock? Did you turn yourself in afterward?

Yes, I do, every time.

And of course I'm a shareholder. I could turn this guy into the INS, but I didn't make the hiring decision, nor do I have control over the people who did, other than to vote for or against board members at the shareholders meeting. I'm really not sweating my obligations as an officer of the court.

Not exactly Kimba Wood, but it could prevent your appointment to the bench. esp. if they troll the interwebs.

"Yes, I do, every time."

Was sodomy illegal in your state?

"Officer, I'd like to turn myself in bc my wife just gave me a blowjob."

Possibly. On that standard, though, they'd knock out an awfully broad spectrum of NY residents; I'm told that a whole lot of members of that union are undocumented. In any case, I'm not expecting to be nominated to the bench any time soon.

Aren't the other lawyers now obligated to report LB? Is everyone who reads this blog now guilty of a crime?

146. Like the eighty year old Jewish fellow who went to confession. "Bless me father, for I have sinned. Last night I got a blow job from Linsay Lohan."
"Mr. Goldstein, the Church no longer considers that a sin, and besides, you're not Catholic. Why tell a priest?"
"I'm telling everbody!"

148: Seriously? No. Hiring an undocumented immigrant isn't a crime, it's a civil violation, and there's no general responsibility to report even a crime. If I stand in front of you and knife Leech, and you do nothing about it and tell no one, generally you haven't done anything in violation of law.

And of course the same applies to me with respect to my co-op: owning stock in it doesn't make me personally responsible for its civil violations. That's part of why they call corporations 'limited liability'.

I wasn't serious, but I'm sure the kids reading at home are happy to know 150.

148: you're thinking of Sarbanes-Oxley. I don't think LB's actions have crossed any lines in violation of that statute. Yet.

I worry about Brock sometimes, who seems a little tightly wound on this sort of thing.

And of course the same applies to me with respect to my co-op: owning stock in it doesn't make me personally responsible for its civil violations. That's part of why they call corporations 'limited liability'.

You havent been reading the Enron trials or the barge cases, have you?

Ever heard of Spitzer?

I"m not so troubled by the co-op thing... as you say, you're not making the hiring decisions. At first (before reading the thread) I thought you were saying your husband hired an illegal employee for some sort of work at home business (of which you were co-owner), which I would think more problematic.

150. Is that a knife in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

You've got a case where they pierced the corporate veil to come after a less than 5% shareholder? Seriously, if you have something like that, email me. I could use it.

158 to 155.

156: Oh, there is the sweatshop in the back bedroom, but we make sure they have access to water and snacks, and we usually let them out after a 15 hour day or so.

158:

hahaha. Yeah. I would have used it too. Then, I would be RICH!!!! Rich, I tell you!

159: okay, as long as they're not children. Well, at least as long as they're not child-prostitutes. Lines must be drawn somewhere.

136

What's wrong with Virgilio's working conditions?

Why do you expect working conditions to improve? Because legal workers are freer to complain to OSHA? There would be some such effect but I don't think it would be large. Because legal workers can switch to better employers more easily? I doubt this would make much difference. Many illegals aren't competitive for better jobs.

It's not about Eliot Spitzer, LB, it's about Immanuel Kant.

Nothing, to your first question, and we disagree on the facts as to your latter questions.

156

As I understand it she doesn't even know for sure that he was hired illegally.

Oh, put a sock in it, Shearer. I've told you what I know.

You're going to be sorry if Shearer turns out to be the warden at the jail you're going to, LB.

That sounds like the world's dullest women in prison movie:

SEE -- Unflinching exploration of ambiguous phrasing which may conceal logical inconsistencies!

WATCH -- As unsupported claims of fact vie with other unsupported claims of fact!

FEEL -- The tension mount until mild profanity is resorted to!

Hott.

LB, those are just plot devices working up to the catfight in the shower. You know that. Your part will be played by Scarlett Johansson, of course, who besides being an atheist will also show mad nude fighting skillz.

I need a t-shirt with "I have mad nude fighting skillz" emblazoned across the front.

Wow, so Buck runs a Mexican child prostitute wing in the spare bedroom of LB's apartment? And their co-op board does not have a problem with this, or was cowed into submission by LB's threatening to expose their illegal hiring practices?

wing s/b ring

"wing" worked fine.

And no one said anything about Mexicans, racist.

Clownae reveals his west coast origins. Wouldn't be a Mexican ring out in the Northeast.

gswift reveals his Utahn parochialism. There is a large and growing Mexican community in and around NYC.

I didn't say there were no Mexicans in NYC. There's a lot more in the last 10 years or so, but come on, it's like a couple hundred thousand total. Relative to other groups they're still pretty small.

Look, we don't really know anything about the child prostitution ring run out of LB's spare bedroom. The children could be Mexican or Puerto Rican or Chinese or Romanian. Or maybe they're from all over. At this point saying anything more is pretty much pure speculation.

Perhaps I am indeed behind the times. Looks like the Mexicans are carving their niche out there.

http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2005/Apr/06-922355.html

Further thought. I now think this proposal, while not a bad idea, is worse than an option that would give them a reward of a temporary work authorization (good, say, for two years.)

The main reason is this. The I-485, the main document for successfully adjusting status, requires a documentable reason for adjusting status. This isn't a requirement that will go away. In shivbunny's case, it will be the I-797 I received ten months ago plus our marriage license. In the case of the green card snitch, they'd have to add a category for them.

That's no big deal. What is a big deal is how to prove it. Surely the company will have a chance to appeal the charge that they were hiring illegals, especially if they're going to be on the hook for ten years of support. And while they're appealing, the snitch has absolutely no legal status, and if it's refused -- it's found that the company did nothing wrong -- then he's now 'open' and in the system. And probably deported with a three or ten year ban. They won't have the status as 'snitch' until the court wraps up, just like shivbunny won't have status as 'married' until we get the marriage certificate.

(No, the requirement for a reason to adjust status isn't going anywhere.)

If we make the snitching requirements weaker, then we're going to stick companies with a burden of ten years of support without giving them court time. If we give them the court time, then chances are it just isn't going to work. Would you risk coming out of the woodwork for a chance maybe in three or four years that someone might find that the company was innocent and that you are now in the system? And in the meantime, no legal right to work? Being known to ICE is pretty much the only way to get deported.

If you just give the snitches a work permit -- one that leads to a green card -- you don't have the burden of having to wait the company's appeals out before you can approve a work permit. The burden's a lot lower, and affords them an immediate legal status, instead of one contingent on an appeal.

181

The problem with relying on snitches to enforce the immigration laws is twofold.

First it assumes the main problem is dishonest employers are not asking potential hires for documentation of eligibility to work legally. In fact the main problem is that the documentation (which employers are required to accept) is easily forged.

Second to the extent that employers are cheating, no problematic system of snitching is required to catch them. Just send in wired undercover cops to apply for work and see if the required checks are done. If not a conviction should be easy to obtain without relying on the testimony of illegals with a big incentive to lie.

Of course catching employers won't help much if the penalties aren't big enough to encourage employers to comply with the law.

what reason would the illegal workers have for not snitching? none, their jobs suck so why not snitch and get chances at better jobs. Why would this be a bad thing?
Because within a month of passing the law every illegal worker would have snitched the companies providing valuable services by using them would all go belly up and there would be fucking economic chaos. There is a difference between companies that hire illegal aliens and organized crime: the U.S needs those companies (maybe not all of them, but a high number of them).

The many layers of unintended effects that would ripple off the implementation of such an idea are so mindblowingly destructive that it argues for a Bush-like level of stupidity.

My god! If we enforce the laws, chaos will be upon us, and darkness will cover the face of the waters! The only safety is in allowing the businesses that protect and care for us to choose freely among which laws they will obey.

Truly, bryan, you have enlightened us all.

Too funny.

I wonder why no one ever runs a 183-style argument for, say, the economic effect of deporting 11 million illegals. Not the effect of losing 11 million workers, but the tax increases necessary to buy the personnel necessary to deport them.

One reason procuring a visa is such a bitch is that everyone knows that once you're in the country, if you keep your nose clean, there's very little likelihood that you'll ever be deported.

"My god! If we enforce the laws, chaos will be upon us, and darkness will cover the face of the waters! The only safety is in allowing the businesses that protect and care for us to choose freely among which laws they will obey.

Truly, bryan, you have enlightened us all."

I'm glad that I've helped you to understand that there are stupid laws and if they were actually efficiently enforced the U.S would fall apart.

Shorter above: you're an idiot.

Longer above: Hey, when's the last time the cops put you in the stocks for fornication?

That said I don't mind the U.S falling apart. Rather enjoy what's happening so far (war, shitty economy and all that stuff)

How seriously are we supposed to treat someone who thinks that now we shitty economy?

you don't have a shitty economy now (I'm going to assume you're American)?

or, to be more precise, you don't think the U.S has a shitty economy now?

Relative to my memories of the early 90s, early 80s, and sclerotic 70s, gawd no.

hmm, well that may be so. Not going to try to read through mountains of statistics to figure it out. I am of the persuasion however that the situation will worsen.

Minus the hostility, it doesn't seem that Bryan's point is a bad one. There would be some pretty major disruptions during a transition to strict enforcement of immigration laws.

And thinking about this plan a bit more, the snitching part really bothers me. Why is it ok to force immigrants to betray their principles and do something they might hate themselves for? Because we think it'll be worth it for them? Also, the government should never encourage snitching. This is more than my personal anti-snitching bias; it's bad news when people don't trust each other--corrosive and all that.

Whatever, Petyon. Did you remember to get your donations to the various Goodling/Libby funds in?

Seriously, Iran, in the days of the Shah, was a snitching culture, with informants in every business, every classroom, etc. That is not the kind of society you want.

East Germany, too. Not that I'm happy about "snitching" being extended to telling the police who you saw shoot someone on your street, which it seems to have become.

I agree, but...we have whistleblower provisions, and we (generally) think that's a good thing. Not every kind of private cooperation with the police apparatus of the state leads inexorably to a Soviet state. In the absence of such cooperation, you get private policing, which is very, very problematic itself.

197 is a fair point, but not every business owner who hires an illegal is an evil person, and not every job held by an illegal is exploitative; the relationship between employers and illegals is often perfectly normal and mutually beneficial, and it seems rotten to provide an incentive that's nigh unto coercive for the aliens to break that relationship for their own benefit. I don't know; it's a tough problem.

You don't have your papers, do you?

Hey, I just got my new passport and you can't prove a thing.

To be clear, I'm not crazy about LB's proposal myself, on grounds that are related to yours. In the end, it would require something like a National ID card, and there are reasonable reasons to be really, really uncomfortable with the amount of potential state control made possible by such a card. LB's basically a communist, though, so she's much more comfortable with children snitching on parents and other Stasi-like methods of guaranteeing freedom for the people through state intervention and control.

I don't think the employee/illegal immigrant relationship is one where the dynamics usually described as snitching would exist. Hence the reason why I think the law if enacted would have the following relatively quick succession of steps:

1. 90% illegal immigrants turn in employers.
2. Employers get hit with fees and negative publicity. I suppose after the first few dozen the fees would be dropped, but who knows, someone somewhere might get greedy and be able to control the system. What if Dick Cheney got a deal that all illegal immigrant snitching fines got paid to the office of the vice president!!
3. Illegal immigrants now compete fairly for jobs because they are legal.
4 heightened unemployment.
5. disruption in labor causes lots of companies to slow down productivity.
6. losses in productivity have wider repercussions in economy, slowing down other companies, slowing processing of money.
7. Recession!
8. People get laid off.
9. there is still a reason for illegal immigrants to come into country, mainly refugess, because those seeking employment are no longer hired, but there are less so the big infrastructure for stopping illegal immigration is no longer maintained as intensely.
10. Various slow downs in economy related to lack of cheap labor. Iraqi war bill starts to come due.
11. Depression.
12. Rising anger in right wing circles against Mexicans who tricked their way into citizenship.
13. Lots of skinheads.
14. racial violence.
15. Rescind law.
16. Legal structure no longer in habit of dealing with lots of illegal immigration cases.
17. Flood of illegal immigration now there is a reason to come to America to get employed again.
18. Somebody makes a silly suggestion on the tv and I lose my temper.

Thats just one scenario though. The main thing is that this a very very big legal change that could have so many repercussions that the whole system would be thrown dangerously off kilter. Of course this is the perfect time to be throwing the American system off kilter because everything is working so well, do it now and I am sure there is plenty to brace against the shock.

202

". 90% illegal immigrants turn in employers."

Turn in employers for what? The laws against hiring illegals are not strict liability. If the applicant has (easily forged) documentation employers are not allowed to question it.

193

"... There would be some pretty major disruptions during a transition to strict enforcement of immigration laws."

Depends on how you do it. If the new laws only apply to new hires this would reduce the disruption considerably.

"If the applicant has (easily forged) documentation employers are not allowed to question it."
hmm, well this might be so, but I was under the impression that most of the times documentation is not present. This impression is caused by three things
1. things I read here and there
2. The last job I worked in the U.S where about half of the employees were undocumented Mexicans. This I guess also puts the lie to that they do jobs other people wouldn't, although it was one of the worst jobs I've ever had (concrete walls construction, moving, I sucked at it - I hate construction. ) I was praised for my attendance record of only calling in sick once per month (pretty much everyone, illegals included, called in sick once every week. )
3. If it is so easily forged why does any company ever get busted then?

"If the new laws only apply to new hires this would reduce the disruption considerably."

probably, I am usually on the side of "well slice the law another way and it fits fine" theorizing but it should be noted that in the U.S when the law applies to certain subjects: child and teen safety, sex, drugs, crime, and immigration, the law slicing is anything but fine, usually the law is given out in big macho lumps with plenty of toughness to let people know that this is serious and there is no more liberal wishy-washiness about this big important matter and so on and so forth by the legislators, but hey YMMV.

205

"If it is so easily forged why does any company ever get busted then?"

It is rare for companies to get busted. Even when a plant is raided and lots of illegals are found the company may not be charged with anything. For example there were recent raids on 6 Swift meat packing plants which found hundreds of illegal workers but:

"ICE officials began their investigation on identity theft cases within the company in February 2006. McHugh said after 15 months of investigation, no charges have been made by the government against the company for employing hundreds of illegal workers."

its strange though isn't it, the wording of that quote, it sounds like they think the company should be charged, not that the company couldn't have any way of knowing. Because one of the continual complaints I read of, and which seems to have increased in the recent past, is that there is not enough money to prosecute the companies that employ illegals. And this quote sounds like that kind of thing, if it was as you implied before I would have expected a quote more like: The company will not be charged as it is unlikely anyone knew of the status of their foreign workers. Officials said that unfortunately documentation is so easy to forge nowadays that any illegal worker can prove themselves legal and a company has, by law, no choice but to accept that proof.

I would expecft to read something a little more like that.

I guess its just bad reporting though.

That said, a lot of the article was about the company losing money having to retrain and hire new employees. so if illegal immigrants snitched would that mean that they would get rehired by their companies to save on costs of retraining?