SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Farmers and other employers who rely heavily on immigrant labor said Friday that they could be driven out of business by the Bush administration’s plans to crack down on workers whose Social Security numbers do not match their names, and businesses that hire them.
Administration officials said the stepped-up enforcement would begin in 30 days.
“Everyone’s very anxious,” said Paul Schlegel, director of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation. “We’re heading into the busiest time of the year for agriculture, so you’re going to see a lot of worry from farmers and employers about how you deal with this.”
If they didn’t see this coming they have a problem that runs deeper than the illegals.
“We are concerned that the new regulations will result in employers in numerous industries having to let workers go as the economy is facing an increasingly tight labor market,” said John Gay of the National Restaurant Association.
New Regulations???
Apparently they were already being fined for the abuses and are well aware of the game they are playing considering the current fines are considered a cost of doing business…
Chertoff also said he will try to use the department’s regulatory authority to raise fines on employers by about 25 percent. Current fines are so modest that some companies consider them a cost of doing business, the agency said.
“It’ll just shut us down,” said Manuel Cunha, a citrus grower who heads the Nisei Farmers League, a farming group in California’s San Joaquin Valley, the nation’s most productive region for fruits and vegetables. “It’ll just be over if they start coming in here and busting employers. The food chain would fall apart.”
Somehow I don’t think so…
“We wish they had done this earlier, but even at this late stage they have an opportunity to regain the confidence and support of the American public,” said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform.
But unions representing immigrant-heavy work forces reacted with anger, including the Service Employees International Union, with 1.9 million members in janitorial and security jobs, and nursing homes and home care.
Eliseo Medina, the union’s executive vice president, said the Bush administration was trying to score cheap political points after failing to win support for comprehensive immigration reform.
What Eliseo Medina is saying, is he’s pissed that amnesty for 12-20 million illegals didn’t happen. They must have paid some big lobby bucks to get that crap bill passed.
