There is a growing chorus arguing that the best way to deal with illegal immigration is to take away the incentives for illegal immigrants to enter the US. Specifically this includes social services and employment opportunities.
This week ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) came down hard on three employers.
“ICE is taking an increasingly tough stance against egregious corporate violators that knowingly employ illegal aliens,” says ICE Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers. “Bringing criminal charges against these unscrupulous employers and targeting their ill-gotten gains is a tactic we are adopting nationwide. This is a wholesale departure from the past system of sanctioning corporate violators with minor fines, which were rarely paid in a timely manner or at all.”
So who were these immigration king pins that ICE brought to justice? Some large corporate meat processor? A mega corporate farming operation? Was it the large employers in New York City who Mayor Bloomberg said would go out of business without illegal immigrants? Guess again.
They were three small businesses. In Arkansas it was a small construction framing business. In Kentucky it was a franchise owner of a few hotels in the small town of London, Kentucky. And in Ohio, it was the owner of Bee’s Buffet in Fairfield, Ohio.
A former official of ICE being interviewed on Fox News this morning speculated that small businesses were targeted because they were cheaper and easier to go after. To make a public relations bust to show our citizens that the government was finally cracking down on illegal immigration, ICE busted a few motel maids, carpenters, kitchen workers, and the small business owners who employed them.
I agree with enforcement of our immigration laws. But why focus on a few small employers to grand stand for the media? That will do nothing to quell the illegal immigration crisis.