Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the Lansdowne resort and detained 59 immigrants for visa violations.
In a written statement, ICE officials said the agency’s officers questioned more than 100 workers at the resort yesterday after a lengthy investigation of employment documents and practices there.This raid begs one question: Who does the raid help?
The statement said 59 men and women from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina were taken into custody for immigration violations and would probably be processed for deportation. It said two other women had been released for humanitarian reasons and that family members could call 866-341-3858 for information about those detained. - LoudounExtra
The ICE raid certainly didn't help the migrants who lost their jobs and will be sent back to countries that cannot support them.
The ICE raid certainly didn't help overcrowding and backlogs in detainee processing.
The ICE raid definitely did not help our local economy, as it removed 59 wage-earners who pay local taxes and buy from local merchants, while adding the costs of detaining and processing these people to our total tax bills.
The ICE raid will probably exacerbate the housing crisis, as 59 wage-earners will not be around to pay their rents and mortgages, further depressing housing values in some of our neighborhoods.
The ICE raid definitely did not help Lansdowne resort, one of our County's local businesses, the same businesses that many in our community are clamoring for and the same businesses that are suffering from the economic slowdown.
The ICE raid cannot help public safety, as those detained were not felons, they were hard-working employees trying to make a better life for their families. (Not to mention the fact that only a tiny percentage of Loudoun's convicted criminals are migrants.)
So who, exactly, did these raids help?
Many will say that it's a question of law. All laws must be enforced and respected, but that begs this question: If the law were changed, and these migrants were no longer in violation of their visas or using illegitimate documents, would the complaints end? Would the people who advocate "enforcing the law" say, "well, that's alright then" and leave our neighbors who hail from nations south of the Rio Grande alone?
The ICE raid in Lansdowne helped no one except perhaps some officials who want to ride to popularity on the backs of the weakest, least-protected members of our community. And that is no help at all.
(It is interesting to note that the discussion in the comments to the LoudounExtra article is fairly well-balanced between those advocating aggressive enforcement and prosecution and those questioning the use and efficacy of such raids. Perhaps the tone of the debate is slowly shifting from irrational to evidence-based?)
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Leesburg
4 comments:
Think about what you are advocating.
If we throw open our borders:
-We'd sure help all those countries that can't support their populations
- We’d relieve the deportation workload
- We’d help businesses that want to employ workers for below minimum wage
- We’d help millions of poor people from other countries better their lives
-We wouldn’t have to worry about enforcing immigration laws
However we would also:
- Dramatically increase the population growth rate of the country
- Introduce millions to the workforce, who would work for very low wages, driving down wages
- Introduce millions to the workforce who would displace American working poor and forcing more on welfare
- Add jobs at the low end of the pay scale, which (contrary to your suggestion) do not spend much on rent, of add much to the economy. Most send large percentages of their pay back to family in their home countries.
- Encourage people to come to the US, many of whom will not be able to find jobs and turn to illegal activity to survive
While it is laudable to want to help the world's poor, letting them stream into the US unabated is not the answer.
So what should we do?
- Insist on only LEGAL immigration.
- Carefully manage quotas to ensure that people can come legally to fill jobs for which there are not American workers
- Simplify the process for people who want to come legally under these quotas
- Dish out stiff penalties for companies who employ illegal workers (it is easy and free to verify credentials)
Insisting on legal immigration and simplifying it is absolutely an important part of necessary migration reform.
That doesn't change the fact that there are over ten million un- or under-documented migrants in America, and simply sending them back is neither practical nor wise.
For what it's worth, the ICE raid post wasn't an attempt to advocate one or another immigration reform policy. It just seemed to me that the raid was kicking a group of people and area when they were down.
It's about time. I hope this is the first of many of these types of ICE raids.
What many people seem to forget is these Illegal immmigrants broke the law to come here. "But they came here for a better life" many people say. There are many ways to better one's life and breaking the law isn't even on my list.
In comparison, when driving, a driver might speed in order to get to their destination faster, but knowing that breaking the law might get them at the minimum a speeding ticket. We know the risk when we speed, sometimes you get caught. When someone breaks the law by entering a country illegally, eventually they will get caught.. How do you think other countries deal with their illegal immigrants?
We need to secure our borders, and develop a process that identifies everyone that is attempting to come into this country.
It's time the US takes a stand on this issue.
smcabr,
Ah, perhaps there's a misunderstanding to be cleared up. Most migrants didn't cross the border illegally. On the contrary, they mostly came here legally, but have either overstayed their visa or gotten caught up in a paper chase with their documentation and status.
The driving analogy is valid. When you're driving, you're legal, when you're speeding (out of visa status) you're breaking the law, when you slow down (regaining visa/documentation status) you're legal again.
Now, imagine you're on a superhighway where every car has a different speed limit based on a set of criteria written in Tagalog. And if you break any one of those rules, your car is taken away for eight years. That is what navigating our immigration system is like for migrants who got in the country legally in the first place.
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