Homeland Security plans new rules to clamp down on illegal immigration

[Universe Prince]

From NPR:

The Bush administration is about to clamp down further on the hiring of illegal immigrants. It's expected within days to announce new rules that would effectively require employers to fire workers if they use phony Social Security numbers. But employee and business groups fear the change could also hurt many legal workers.

   [...]

But the Bush administration says it needs the new authority to reduce illegal immigration, especially now that Congress has failed to enact more sweeping reform. A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department says that the change will help the government go after some of the millions of illegal immigrants now working in the United States and those who employ them.

   [...]

Avendano notes the case of one legal U.S. resident in North Carolina whose name ended up on a "no-match" list. "The employer told her to fix it. She tried. She actually did fix it. She came back with the correction from Social Security and the employer said, 'Oh this isn't good enough for me. You're fired.' There's nothing to prevent that." Homeland Security officials say that's clearly not their intent. In fact, they delayed implementing the new rules ? which were first proposed last year ? hoping for congressional passage of a bill that would not only tighten enforcement, but expand temporary job opportunities for immigrants. But that didn't happen. And now they say, they plan to more aggressively enforce the existing law.

Whole article at the other end of this link.

Personally, I think this will result in illegal immigrants driven further into crime like forged documents, and into the hands of less scrupulous employers, and essentially into a black market for labor. And some legal immigrants getting shafted because of mistakes, wary employers, and possibly even abuse of the rules. I am sure, however, this news will be greeted warmly by many as a sign of the government doing something about stopping the offensive employment of illegal immigrants.

[_JS]

Personally, I think this will result in illegal immigrants driven further into crime like forged documents, and into the hands of less scrupulous employers, and essentially into a black market for labor.

This is a distinct possibility Prince. The UK has followed a similar path (for example it is exempt from Schengen) and a lot of the people who have really made out are those who run human trafficking and smuggling rings as well as passport and document forgers (who tend to be citizens of the very country). For Britain it has been Turkish and Bulgarian smugglers who have become millionaires.

The problem is essentially the same as the War on Drugs. We are trying to prevent a basic economic transaction to occur through various means (ranging from brute force to physical walls). If you look at drugs, like cocaine, the basic transaction is A amount of cocaine for X amount of dollars. Now, if the profit margin of cocaine were very small or the demand for it very small, then a small amount of Government intervention would remove it from the market. Either no one would want it or the profit would be lost in shipping it.

For illegal immigration the economic transaction is simply the need for labor on one hand and the need for work on the other. So the basic transaction is A amount of work supplied by Mexican laborers and X amount of work demanded by American employers. Again, if the Mexicans had plenty of work in Mexico or if there were no work demanded by American employers (or if both were very small) then a small amount of Government intervention would be necessary.

Yet, the results of "tightening the border" are going to be no different than the results of the "War on Drugs." I can promise that. You cannot stop a very basic economic transaction though Presidents and Congresses decades from now will be pouring billions of dollars into this as if it were the best thing since sliced bread. New technology (Britain uses some really state of the art equipment to find smuggled labourers) costs a great deal of money.

What amazes me is that people who supposedly believe in the free market, even "saint" Ronnie Reagan couldn't grasp such a simple fact as this about the War on Drugs. And now the same so-called free market folks are pushing the same thing on the border patrol.

It is getting strange when the Libertarian and the Socialist are the ones who see through this thing.

[Universe Prince]

It is getting strange when the Libertarian and the Socialist are the ones who see through this thing.

'Tis indeed.

That you brought up the "war on drugs" is interesting to me. I considered bringing up Prohibition as a comparison. We didn't stop the production and consumption of alcohol, we just forced it to hide. And several truckloads of corruption and crime came with that. And in the end, as I understand it, the government repealed Prohibition when it decided, several years into the Great Depression, it could use the revenue from taxing alcohol sales. I only hope correcting the "war on drugs" and immigration does not take another severe economic depression. But it might take getting the government to focus on revenue.