Employer Sanctions

The vast majority of migrant laborers working in the agricultural fields of California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas are of Latino decent. In addition, many of these individuals are non-U.S. citizens, either possessing temporary work permits, or working in this country illegally with fake documents. congress, in an effort to enforce the president's "war against terror" has passed laws limiting the freedom, both personal and in the work force, granted to non-U.S. citizens, including migrant workers. For example, if a non-U.S. citizen commits a crime (infractions that qualify as a crime are listed in a Congressional master list, including getting into a bar brawl, driving under the influence, and robbery, among other crimes), he/she will be most likely sentenced to undergo immigration detention proceedings, in addition to having to undergo and criminal proceedings. Before the proceedings even begin, the non-U.S. citizen would be detained at an immigration detention center, no questions asked. In short, this wave of detention of non-U.S. citizens is consistent with the president's effort to rid the U.S. of possible terrorists, people who, according to the administration's ideology, are not citizens. Though anti-terrorist enforcement has the possibiliy of limiting the freedoms of non-U.S. citizens, regardless if they have intentions of committing terrorists act or not, the administration's strategy also has the possibility of hindering employer's objectives.

Given that there is a lack of citizen employees who are willing to work the agricultural jobs, for instance, employers are "forced" to choose from a group of non-U.S. citizens, as mentioned. In order to find work, millions of illegal workers pretend to present valid documents, and thousands of employers pretend to believe them. The law imposes no obligation on the employer to verify that a worker is actually qualified to work, and as long as the proffered documents are not patently phony, the employer will nearly always be insulated from liability merely by having eyeballed them. In order to find an employer guilty of "hiring fraud", the one would have to prove that the employer knew that phony documents were in fact fake, an almost impossible task. Moreover, employers could qualify for "employer sanctions", giving them the freedom to not ask for any type of documentation at all, and although this may allow them to hire more workers, it also gives them the freedom to discriminate against employees who, given that they may not be citizens, have limited options in retaliating via a law suit. Granting employer sanctions is just one strategy used by the administration to support the lack of workers in the agricultural industry while still focusing on the enforcement of illegal aliens. What do you think? Hypocritical? Is it fair?

-Aldo Huitzil