Illegal Immigration Law and Your Duties As an Employer

Obviously, by now every business in this country knows that it is illegal to hire an illegal alien, that is to say someone who is in our country without permission, doesn’t have a work visa, or has simply crossed the border to find a job. Many employers are upset because the work visa process is too slow, and the immigration courts are backed up, and it is hard to get workers to do certain types of jobs. In Atlanta there have been so many illegal immigration raids, that is hard to get migrant workers to work in the fields.

Regular Americans don’t wish to do this type of work, even though 50% of the people in Georgia are on food stamps, or collecting a check from the government. You can understand the problem if you can’t get Americans to do the work, and there are plenty of legal illegal aliens in the country, but you aren’t allowed the hire them. Of course if you do hire them you could be put in jail in charge with a criminal offense. That’s the law, and obviously you cannot hire legal aliens.

Not long ago, there was an interesting article in The Desert Sun titled “Arizona Law That Punishes Hiring of Illegal Aliens Upheld – Some Experts Say Such a Move Here Would Hurt the Local Economy” by Nicole C. Brambila. One interesting thing is that the Obama Administration is now doing what are called; “silent raids” and auditing employers who they suspect might be hiring illegal aliens. This is contradictory towards the actions of the Obama Administration previously took or publicly has stated on television, and remember the Administration had filed a lawsuit against the State of Arizona for their new law.

Now then, I live in a valley which has typically been a farming community for the last hundred years or more. There are also a huge number of Hispanic families, which are mixed between legal citizens, and illegal immigrants. That is to say some of the people in the household are here legally and legitimately are US citizens, but they are also allowing friends and family to stay with them, perhaps harboring them from the Mexican drug wars in Mexico. This is a tough situation all the way around.

Many of the folks here seem to be law-abiding citizens, and they are working and have jobs, as illegal immigrants. Most everyone keeps their mouths shut, but this is a significant challenge, due to the unemployment rates, which are quite high here actually. Still, since the immigration courts are so backed up with huge waiting lists, many of these people would like to become citizens, but either don’t have the money, or can’t get a better job to pay the money it would take to become a citizen and hire an attorney right now.

No, this challenge will not be solved overnight, but it is a serious one indeed. I hope you will please consider all this and think on it regardless of which side of the political fence that you stand on today.

Source by Lance Winslow