A headline caught my eye a little while ago:

U.S. Set for a Crackdown on Illegal Hiring

Naturally it sparked my interest so I read it, and have a few thoughts.

In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers.

Officials said the rules would be backed up by stepped-up raids on workplaces across the country that employ illegal immigrants.

It strikes me as odd that WE don’t know what these new rules are. How does this happen? While I hope these rules are truly tough, I suspect they won’t be…or will be so full of loopholes that businesses can still get away with hiring illegals over Americans.

After first proposing the rules last year, Department of Homeland Security officials said they held off finishing them to await the outcome of the debate in Congress over a sweeping immigration bill. That measure, which was supported by President Bush, died in the Senate in June.

Now administration officials are signaling that they intend to clamp down on employers of illegal immigrants even without a new immigration law to offer legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the workforce.

The approach is expected to play well with conservatives who have long demanded that the administration do more to enforce existing immigration laws, but it could also lead to renewed pressure from businesses on Congress to provide legal status for an estimated six million unauthorized immigrant workers.

If these rules had anything to do with the recent immigration bills that failed, we know, right off the bat, that this is a farce indeed.

“We are tough and we are going to be even tougher,” Russ Knocke, the spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said yesterday. “There are not going to be any more excuses for employers, and there will be serious consequences for those that choose to blatantly disregard the law.”

Experts said the new rules represented a major tightening of the immigration enforcement system, in which employers for decades have paid little attention to notices, known as no-match letters, from the Social Security Administration advising that workers’ names and numbers did not match the agency’s records.

Illegal workers often provide employers with false Social Security numbers to qualify for a job.

It’s hard to believe that serious consequences will be in place for the very people who lobby most members of Congress, our President and others, to keep illegals working over American workers. I don’t buy this shit about social security number mis-matches…illegals can BUY valid numbers for a price. AND often these businesses supply them with valid numbers. Let’s not forget too, that many illegals BUY SS numbers of deceased people.

Employers, especially in agriculture and low-wage industries, said they were deeply worried about the new rules, which could force them to lay off thousands of immigrant workers. More than 70 percent of farmworkers in the fields of the United States are illegal immigrants, according to estimates by growers’ associations.

“Across the employer community people are scared, confused, holding their breath,” said Craig Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a trade organization. “Given what we know about the demographics of our labor force, since we are approaching peak season, people are particularly on edge.”

Low wage industries? You mean low waged industries by cutting the demand and expectations…and pay of those who used to do this type of work (high school and college kids, seasonal workers, people on unemployment seeking a days worth of pay…) I read recently that ALL these farm type jobs could be given to prisoners, who could receive cheap pay rates, and it would END the need for illegals…WHY not do this?? It would cost more to provide supervision; and of course the prisoners, by law, would have to be paid MORE and treated better than illegals.

Immigrant rights groups and labor unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O., predicted the rules would unleash discrimination against Hispanic workers. They said they were preparing legal challenges to try to stop them from taking effect.

Oh yes…let’s not forget the labor unions. Who, by the very act of supporting illegals, are SCREWING over the very people who are PAYING them to represent them: American workers in those industries we consider LOW WAGE. Stupid people. Illegals SHOULD be discriminated against! They’re breaking the laws. They’re sucking up our resources. They put nothing back into the system. Whether they’re Hispanic has nothing to do with it. The labor unions and civil rights groups always play the race card in these debates; they never accept the FACTS and NUMBERS and NEVER ever admit just how much Americans are being discriminated against.

Some Republican lawmakers welcomed the administration’s stance. “If they shut off the jobs magnet in the workplace in a way that shows they are serious about restoring the rule of law, then I’m encouraged,” said Representative Steve King of Iowa.

I’d be encouraged too, if I had any level of trust in Congress on this. But I have none. It is true: Remove the attractions the illegals are drawn too, and they will stop coming. In fact most if not all would go back to their homelands and leave us alone.

But we cannot trust Congress to get this right. Besides the recent high level games we witnessed with this issue, we have this:

Some Republican leaders say they smell a rat in Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s compromise proposal to get an immigration-reform bill through the Senate this year.

Mr. Specter now suggests the 12 million illegal aliens he says are already here should be given the equivalent of “green card” status but “without the automatic path to citizenship” that critics labeled “amnesty.”

The mere mention of Specter’s name causes me to automatically NOT trust. Period. He’s not in this for American citizens. He’s just yet another pandering RINO who cowards down to the lobby. Giving GREEN CARDS to those who have broken our laws, who have abused the system and who have displaced Americans workers is JUST UNETHICAL. And it sends the very wrong message to the business community, other potential illegals. Screw this bulloney.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called the Specter proposal a form of congressional extortion.

“Specter is asserting that the Congress is blackmailing the American people,” Mr. Gingrich said. “The Congress will not enforce current law and will not insist on employers obeying the law unless we give an unknown number of people legal status. This is amnesty by blackmail — after the American people vehemently rejected amnesty a month ago.”

Newt says something here that I believe is the at the center of the problem:
Expecting businesses to obey the law. Expecting them to be ethical. To be honest. To place a higher value on patriotism over profits. American businesses are so selfish they will destroy our economic way of life, if we allow this to continue. Capitalism will fall apart– once more and more Americans lose their jobs, to illegals which these businesses so eagerly wish to employ. The desire for profits over all else will end our way of life as we know it….sooner rather than later. Jobs being outsourced; jobs be given to illegals; jobs being eliminated and entire industries being sent to Mexico. Does anyone else see a pattern here?