Employers Fight Tough Measures on Immigration

By JULIA PRESTON
Published: July 6, 2008
Under pressure from the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in two decades, employers across the country are fighting back in state legislatures, the federal courts and city halls.
Business groups have resisted measures that would revoke the licenses of employers of illegal immigrants. They are proposing alternatives that would revise federal rules for verifying the identity documents of new hires and would expand programs to bring legal immigrant laborers.
Though the push back is coming from both Democrats and Republicans, in many places it is reopening the rift over immigration that troubled the Republican Party last year. Businesses, generally Republican stalwarts, are standing up to others within the party who accuse them of undercutting border enforcement and jeopardizing American jobs by hiring illegal immigrants as cheap labor.
Employers in Arizona were stung by a law passed last year by the Republican-controlled Legislature that revokes the licenses of businesses caught twice with illegal immigrants. They won approval in this year’s session of a narrowing of that law making clear that it did not apply to workers hired before this year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/us/06employer.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1215355511-y4hoELscvAXkgLpkXyFiYg
Let me state quite clearly that I am not against "legal immigration". I work for two doctors who legally immigrated to this country. Both are hard working model citizens.
My issue is not with the illegal immigrant, they come here because there are employers who hire them. They come because they want better conditions for their children and the the "American Dream".
The "illegal employers" hire illegal immigrants to take advantage of their status. They pay them less in wages. Often the working conditions are less than crappy. The illegal worker has no choice, they cannot go to the authorities to report any abuse.
The employers benefit greatly by driving down the wages of the working people of the U.S. By driving down wages they put more "bucks" into their own pockets. Products don't cost of less at the retailers, houses don't cost less when they are built with "illegal immigrant labor".
Our so called leaders, The House of Representatives and Senate will not stand up to the "illegal employers" to tell the NO.
So here I am "STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU".