UPDATE: I seem to have used a certain term in this post, a term that I have always understood as referring to immigration status, but which i am now informed is racially/ethnically insensitive. I apologize. I won't change the word on my site, though, because I do not go back and hide my mistakes or bury evidence of my own errors.

I've have no desire to ignore employers -- and neither do any of the other conservative bloggers I know.

Just once, I'd like to see a corporate executive whose company has knowingly hired illegal immigrants doing the perp walk for his offenses --- handcuffed, disgraced, chaperoned by law enforcement officials as cameras record his every tentative step. For just a few days, I'd like to see the conservative blogosphere roasting the textile mill managers and onion field owners who routinely make a mockery of immigration law with a wink and a nod at forged documents.

I don’t disagree up to this point – and have seen many of my fellow bloggers make exactly that point. We would like to see much greater enforcement of employer sanctions. In fact, one reason we don’t like the amnesty proposals set out by the hug-a-wetback crowd is because we recall that the last time there was an amnesty (back in 1986), the feds quickly dropped all pretense of employer sanctions once the amnesty was in place. Indeed, that simply opened the floodgates, as more and more illegals came with the certainty (confirmed by current rhetoric) that another amnesty would come once critical mass was reached. We don’t blame these folks for wanting to come to America – we blame their governments for pushing them north and or government for doing so little to stem their tidal flow.

That is why I am outraged by the next part of this column.

Business executives remain a core Republican constituency, so it's unlikely they'll end up facing criminal charges for illegal hiring. Besides, darker-hued Mexicans and Guatemalans seem to make more inviting targets than middle-aged white men.

From time to time, I've suggested that the most inflammatory rhetoric swirling at the fringes of the illegal immigration debate is born not of legitimate concern about overwhelmed social services but rather out of an old-fashioned xenophobia that cannot accept "the other." That suggestion is usually greeted with denunciations from critics who claim they merely want the nation to enforce its laws.

So why is there so little criticism of business executives who routinely flout the law? Why has the legislation endorsed by law-and-order Republicans emphasized border security but slighted workplace enforcement?

Are there some xenophobes out there? Yeah – but most are much more concerned about law and order than the Latin Peril. While many of us are concerned about the displacement of America’s culture, history, and language, we are more concerned about the economic impact of illegal immigration. And the Sensenbrenner bill (supported by most conservative bloggers) did include harsh sanctions against employers – it is the Senate bill and the President’s proposal, both trashed as harsh by the liberals, that fails to substantially address the demand side of the illegal immigration equation.

So while Cynthia Tucker wants to make it about race, for most conservatives it is not. I guess it is just her reflexive liberalism requiring that anything involving conservatives ultimately come back to our presumed racistsexisthomophobicfascist tendencies. Too bad she cannot move past that crap and stay on point, for she has a good one.

She is, after all, right when she notes the failure of government to act to stop employers from hiring illegals.

The more promising solution lies in cutting off the flow of jobs. If a few business executives were imprisoned for illegal hiring, the practice would experience a sudden drop in popularity. And if our southern neighbors come to understand that there is no work available for undocumented workers, fewer --- far fewer --- will try to sneak into this country.

The technology required to implement a nationwide system for instant verification of Social Security numbers would be much cheaper and more reliable than the motion detectors, dirigibles, unmanned predator drones and other high-dollar gizmos that Homeland Security wants to buy for the southern border. It would work as easily and quickly as an instant credit check. With such a system, business owners could be required to verify employment status; they'd lose the ruse of forged documents. But Congress has not appropriated funds to develop a nationwide verification tool.

Nor has it made any effort to remove the myopic regulations that hinder workplace enforcement. For example, the Social Security Administration is able to identify companies that routinely employ lots of workers using fake numbers. But by law, Social Security is forbidden from forwarding the names of those companies to Homeland Security.

Don't think this useless system results from mere oversight or incompetence. The dysfunctional hodgepodge of regulations is preferred by the GOP, its business constituency and more than a few middle-class Americans, who benefit from cheap labor. Sure, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has started to do a few high-profile raids of factories and fields certain to yield undocumented laborers. But those raids will wither away after November.

I cannot disagree with a word she says on the matter. We have the technology, but not the will to use it. LetÂ’s send Congress and this administration the message that it is time to take real steps against employers of illegals.

Posted by: Greg at 04:18 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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