Tweet
The Postville, Iowa raid of a Kosher meatpacking plant earlier this month not only was unprecedented in terms of the number of workers detained - nearly 400 with warrants ready for up to 300 more. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did something it has rarely done before, and certainly not on this scale. It prosecuted 297 individuals for presenting false documents to procure their employment. 270 workers will spend five months in prison and another 27 received probation.
Whether you agree with this tactic or not, when DHS switches from administrative to criminal enforcement measures, various constitutional protections are triggered. Chief among them are the right to due process and the right to counsel.
The attached letter from the American Immigration Lawyers Association lays out the concerns.
Please read the following story.
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/05/two-lives-one-1.html#posts
In principle yes. But there are plenty of low-profile jobs where they let it pass. Again, LNLW has failed to understand a simple argument, and this discussion is really getting pointless already. I never said I condone working "off the books". I said these exact people are in jail because unlike millions of others they took a job at a highly visible company that explicitly requires loads of documentation. If you are using fake documents, you don't go and apply to IBM or Citibank for a job, and then expect to not get caught or the punishment to be light.
And I'm not sure who is the one unfamiliar with US laws here, but the idea of "borrowing" a friend or a spouse's SSN is utterly ridiculous. Things don't work like that here. Maybe in your country of origin this is OK; but not here. And good luck with that in court too. In the extremely unlikely circumstances that what you are arguing is really the case, most likely said friend or spouse, who allowed his card to be "borrowed", will be charged with conspiracy to commit fraud. Somehow I think these workers were not that ill-advised to plead guilty.
I think you should read the link ... There are some real victims as far as identity theft goes. If someone thinks that "borrowing" SSN is a victimless crime , they are wrong.