Millions of workers pay taxes with Social Security numbers that are obviously bogus (SS numbers aren't random) and the government does nothing. Here are people basically sending a form to the government saying "I am an illegal worker employed here at XYZ Corporation, please come deport me and fine my employer" and the government, of course, does nothing at all.
Lefties have to stop getting so hysterical about deportations. America's policy towards illegal labor is "don't ask, don't tell". The people we catch, we treat very badly. The people who try to use the system legally are essentially mocked. But so long as the immigrant gets the message we send from our insane immigration bureaucracy and our arbitrary, capricious and cynical "enforcement" and just shuts up and works, he can expect many decades of hassle-free low wage employment.
Anyone who knows anything about the food industry has known that meat processing is but one part of that industry that is totally dependent on illegal labor. These companies are organized racketeers, knowingly violating the law thousands of times for profit. This is what RICO statutes were MADE for, but there is no enforcement.
In my view, lefties should be pushing for lawsuits like this: http://library.findlaw.com/2005/Aug/24/194505.html where workers in Georgia are suing their employer for conspiring to bring in illegal workers to bring down wages.
boddi
On 12/15/06, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> > Do people on PEN-L and LBO-Talk know that the struggle against
> > "identity theft" and "cybercrime" led the U.S. federal government
> > to round up and process for deportation thousands of meatpacking
> > workers in six states of the Union?
>
> When I read that story, I was wondering if the (relatively common?)
> practice of undocumented workers submitting Social Security numbers that
> aren't theirs to employers was what is being called "identity theft" ...
>
> There's a bit of controversy and pointing of fingers going on:
>
> - IRS says "you must pay taxes on income"
> - Worker says "I'll gladly pay taxes, but I don't have a number"
> - SS says "you can't get a number unless you're a citizen or have DHS
> paperwork proving you can work here"
> - Worker shrugs
> - IRS says "Here's a number that's not your SS#"
>
> http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96287,00.html
>
> The IRS also has a long-standing policy of not cooperating with other
> law enforcement agencies for crimes that aren't directly related to
> non-payment of taxes. That is, a request by DEA for anyone who filed
> their tax return with "Drug Dealer" as their occupation will likely be
> rejected.
>
> At least that's what it has been like; in the future? Who knows. I
> don't THINK that DHS has had any luck asking for the list of numbers
> that IRS gives out as a way of finding uncodumented workers, but I could
> be wrong. If the list of people they were after was only 175, I doubt
> any large-scale harvesting is going on.
>
> /jordan
>
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