Illegal Immigrants Tell Tales of Police Brutality in Mexico

Newsweek reported the following in June:

As tough as the United States can be for workers who slip in from south of the border, Mexico is in a poor position to criticize. The problem goes far beyond the predatory gantlet of thugs and crooked cops facing defenseless transients like Moisés. There's ample precedent in Mexico for just about everything the United States is—or isn't—doing. Calling out the military? Mexicans may hate the new U.S. plan to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops on the border, but five years ago they cheered President Vicente Fox for sending thousands of Mexican soldiers to crack down on their southern frontier. Tougher laws? Hispanic-rights groups are enraged over U.S. efforts to criminalize undocumented aliens—yet since 1974, sneaking into Mexico has been punishable by up to two years in prison. Foot-dragging on amnesty? Fox has spent the past five years urging the United States to upgrade the status of millions of illegals from Mexico. Meanwhile, his own government has given legal status to only 15,000 foreigners without papers.

Some of the worst abuses take place on the coffee plantations of Chiapas state, where some 40,000 Guatemalan field hands endure backbreaking jobs and squalid living conditions to earn roughly $3.50 a day. Some growers even deduct the cost of room and board from that amount. "If you ask them, 'Why are you bringing in Guatemalans to work?' they say, 'You can't depend on Mexicans. They don't work hard; they're irresponsible'," says George Grayson, a political scientist specializing in Mexico at the College of William & Mary. "The truth is, you can pay [the guest workers] a pittance. And if they cause the slightest disturbance, you can send them back to Guatemala."

Help Wanted: How to Avoid Hiring Illegal Immigrants in the UK

Recuriter Magazine pubished a self help guide for UK employers in October's issue:

It is a criminal offence for an employer to employ an individual who does not have the right to live and work in the UK.

Not only could the business itself be liable, but senior management could also be personally liable. Such liability can be avoided if the business checks and copies certain original documents belonging to the employee.

The Home Office and police have wide-ranging powers of enforcement under UK immigration law. They may enter premises and seize documents, and employers will be familiar with the concept of the 'dawn raid' even if they have not experienced one themselves.

The onus is on the employer, so the agency may still be liable in respect of temporary employees on its books.

These temps may well be seen in employment law terms to be employees of the agency rather than of the client, so ultimately you could still be liable and responsible in respect of compliance with immigration law. Even if the agency is providing permanent staff, it is still good practice to ensure that the individual has the right to work in the UK. By doing this you can be sure that, if the individual is later found to be an employee of the agency, the relevant checks have already been carried out.

The Great Fence of China

This from today's AP wire:

In a sign of Beijing's wariness about refugees, construction of a massive concrete and barbed wire fence along parts of its 880-mile border with the North has picked up in recent days. Scores of soldiers have arrived in communities along the banks of the Yalu River, up from Dandong, over the past week to erect the barrier, farmers and visitors to the area said.

"The move is mainly aimed at North Korean defectors," said Professor Kim Woo-jun at the Institute of East and West Studies in Seoul, South Korea. "As the U.N. sanctions are enforced ... the number of defectors are likely to increase as the regime can't take care of its people."

Knee Deep in the Middle of the Rio Grande

One issue that I have avoided discussing on this blog is that of illegal immigration. Quite frankly I just don't know what to think about this issue. Everything is turned upside down. I look at every side of this issue and have come to the conclusion that the entire debate disgusts me. Everything is right and everything is wrong. I usually hate those that stand in the "whishy-washy" middle but that's exactly where I find myself today. The radical extremes, which are driving this issue, are so far apart and so wacky, that there is no other place to be for any rational thinking person.

It makes me sick to hear Patrick Buchanan's claim that there is some great Mexican plan to take back the American southwest. That's just plain stupid. Somehow he expects us to believe that the Mexican government, who isn't competent enough to pick up the garbage off the streets in their capital, has come up with a grand scheme to win back Texas.

Every bit as ridiculous is Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who seems to be advocating that illegal immigrants have unfettered access to our legal and social welfare state without regard to our economy and national security. At the height of Gutierrez's idiocy was his fight for clemency for the imprisoned members FALN, the Puerto Rican terrorist group who staged over 130 bombings in the hopes to gain Puerto Rican independence.

With extremists in the mold of Gutierrez and Buchanan leading the debate for and against illegal immigration I have no hope that the problem will be resolved anytime soon. What we need is someone sensible enough and with a large enough following to frame the debate in the following manner:

• Keeping an open boarder that allows people to cross unchecked is a national security issue that must end.
• Since it is a national security issue to allow illegal immigrants to come into this country, it seems obvious that we have to find out who is already here. So we need to find some way to account for those people.
• The illegal immigrants are not creating the jobs they are filling, the employers are. If they weren't being hired no one would be coming over. It is imperative that the laws we have on the books against hiring illegals are enforced.
• There is a demand and a need for unskilled laborers in our workplace. As more baby boomers retire and as the average size of the American family gets smaller we simply do not have the workforce to fill all our jobs.

These are the talking points that need to be accepted before we can expect a satisfactory resolution to our national dilemma. Building a fence along the boarder and using the race card as a reason not to enforce our laws serves no one except those that are playing on the extremes of the political spectrum.