Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa, in keeping with his illegal alien sanctuary policies, has warned Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to leave their well-established businesses out of any future immigration enforcement actions:
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is asking federal officials to rethink their policy on workplace immigration crackdowns that involve established businesses and to focus on employers that mistreat workers instead.
The mayor said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that work-site raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have “severe and long-lasting effects” on the local economy, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
ICE made more than 4,900 work-site arrests nationwide in fiscal 2007, a 45-fold increase over the number in 2001, authorities said.
So, in an effort to increase border security, ICE has been going after businesses which hire illegal aliens. Sounds like a good start on removing the incentive for illegal aliens to cross the border. Why would Villraigosa want ICE to stop doing these raids? Oh yeah, the area is heavily Hispanic and he doesn’t want to lose any votes in the next election. Also, he probably feels he can do this since Los Angeles is a so-called “sanctuary city.” I mean, even he knows that these workers are more than likely illegal aliens:
Villaraigosa accused federal officials of targeting “established, responsible employers” in industries that rely on “workforces that include undocumented immigrants.”
“In these industries, including most areas of manufacturing, even the most scrupulous and responsible employers have no choice but to rely on workers whose documentation, while facially valid, may raise questions about their lawful presence,” he wrote in the March 27 letter.
No business has to rely on an illegal workforce; they do it by choice so that they can lower their overhead to compete with other businesses. Villaraigosa is simply making excuses for people who have broken the law, which unfortunately results in our borders being less secure. Also, if ICE were to back off enforcement, the job incentive for Mexicans to cross the border illegally would remain intact.
If we as a country are at all serious about securing our borders, we need to do two things. First, we must end access to those services, such as non-emergency medical care, which draw people across the border illegally. That includes citizenship for any child born on U.S. soil. Citizenship for a new-born child should be available only to those children who have at least one parent who is already a U.S. citizen. Secondly, we must eradicate the job opportunities which lure the illegal aliens into our country in the first place. Most, if not all, illegal aliens come here to find work; it is therefore logical to assume that if there were no work for them, they will stop crossing the border. The best way to do this is to make the fines for hiring illegal aliens extremely expensive, thus doing significant financial damage to those companies who engage in this practice. Once businesses figure out that hiring illegal aliens can put them out of business financially, they’ll stop doing it.
For now, at least, ICE will continue doing what they have been doing, which is a good thing as far as border security is concerned.
