« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

MEMBER DIARY

Law? What Law? SEIU Now Opposes E-Verify.

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  February 14th, 2011 at 06:00 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

It seems incredible in a country supposedly ruled by law and not men that an institution, regardless of what kind of institution, is permitted to exist while openly, willfully, and without shame encouraging and profiteering off of violations of federal law. Yet, that seems to be the case with the SEIU time and time again.

Last year, the SEIU organized protests against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (better known as ICE) for the agency’s enforcement of the law. At the time, the SEIU stated in a press release:

Rather than wasting limited funds to chase hard-working, tax-paying cleaners, home-care providers and nannies, the activists will call on President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano to re-focus ICE enforcement on its original goals of targeting crooked employers and criminals.

Okay. So, we get it. Señor Medina doesn’t like illegal aliens rounded up. After all, this is the same union boss that wants to convert those aliens into U.S. citizens so he can have eight million more “progressives” to rule.

However, if he doesn’t want illegals rounded up for being—well…illegal—it seems Eliseo Medina doesn’t want employers to comply with the law either.

E-Verify is a government-run system that many employers are using to verify whether job applicants are legally permitted to work. Simply stated, the E-Verify system:

…compares information from an employee’s Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to data from U.S Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to confirm employment eligibility.

That sounds rather benign, doesn’t it?

Yet, on Thursday, the SEIU issued a press release quoting Medina, who stated:

“Mandatory E-Verify is the wrong solution at the wrong time. Unless E-Verify is part of broader, more comprehensive immigration reforms that restores fairness to our economy by ending illegal immigration, this job-killing bill would undermine economic recovery, waste billions of taxpayer dollars, and actually expand the underground economy.

“Once again, Republican ideologues would rather play politics than offer thoughtful policy solutions to one of America’s greatest challenges. This government mandate would cost taxpayers billions of dollars by pushing undocumented workers off the tax rolls and deeper into the underground economy…”

Wait a minute! So, Medina knows there are illegals employed unlawfully, and he doesn’t want them identified?

No. Of course not.

After all, according to the SEIU’s logic, laws are apparently made so they can be broken.

__________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.”  Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

X-posted.

Follow laborunionrpt on Twitter

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • Locked and Loaded

    Insane, these people.

    • scmom

      the “crooked employers” aiding and abetting the illegal aliens. ?????

  • Locked and Loaded

    Insane, these people.

  • edintexas

    Medina said “…restores fairness to our economy by ending illegal immigration,…”. Because e-Verify is designed to assist in the effort to end illegal immigration, it must be that Medina is simply confused. Maybe he’s off his medication?

    It currently seems to be a close run thing as to whether the illegals (and their children) will learn English well enough to function in society, or whether my grandsons will have to learn Spanish in order to fully function in future Texas society.

    • texasjohn

      .I wonder if I’m going to have to take a class myself to get on in my own town. I’m too old for this foolishness.

  • bobmontgomery

    …..if the State of Arizona shouldn’t be about the business of enforcing the law, neither should private businesses? I always thought that, well, yes, maybe employers shouldn’t be about knowingly hiring illegal aliens, but that Republicans signing on to the idea of business protecting the nation’s borders
    was a little distracting. Besides, although your highlight of SEIU, et al, displaying affection for lawlessness is spot on, in this new age of Soc. Sec. benefits, Medicaid benefits, unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, drivr’s licenses, support from uncountable NGO’s and many new opportunities for income in drug trafficking, prostitution, slavery, et cetera, illegal aliens have far more resources available to them than just the odd employer, who these days isn’t hiring anyway.

    • johnhandel

      The most basic answer to your question revolves around simple details.

      Yes, it is possible that some of them are only in the union because they had to join the union to take that job. On the other hand, they did go after a job that would require they unionize. Beyond that, very few of them are doing anything to get rid of the union.

      To all the really good employees everywhere that work hard and hate the union, but only have the choice of union or unemployment in a bad economy: You have my respect. Good luck in getting rid of the union oppression and corruption.

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    They don’t need no stinking verification…

  • momofthecastle

    since the ’60s. The lawbreakers protest, sometimes violently; the lawmakers give in and change the law to one that ceases to protect the rights of the law-abiders. And we wonder how we got in such a state of affairs, where right is wrong, good is bad, and freedom is restrained.

  • ihateliberals

    with the “If it feels good do it” crowd. SEIU is a very dangerous international organization bound on controlling al lthe working people of the world not just the USA. They loath the USA because of our laws that protect us from such organizations as SEIU. They had the congress and the WH in their hip pockets until the Tea Party came into the picture. They have even infiltrated the Republican Party. Why do you think the Republicans hate the Tea Party so much. SEIU needs to be stopped and right now.

  • Common_Cents

    for which we already paid taxes to the feds to do their job.

    Like a bar paying a cop to card people at the door and that cop writing up the bar at the end of the night for serving minors.

    But I digress.

    SEIU: Rules? there are no stinkin rules! It’s all about political advantage and anything is fair game.

    Our side has to get more street smart and play the game better than the opposition.

    The older I get(hopefully a bit wiser) the more I realize we are still in the wild west! ;)

    • acat

      You’re right that if we were doing a better job of stopping illegals at the border, we wouldn’t need the defense-in-depth *as much* .. but it’s more sensible to accept that each layer of defense is a human system, and as such each layer will leak some.

      Slipping across the border will remain possible, short of some pretty draconian solutions. Not that I oppose draconian or even semi-draconian solutions – but the end is that they’ll still leak – just… less.

      Slipping across the border and working an all-cash under-the-table job (cleaning pools in Cali, mowing lawns in Illinois, construction in Louisiana) will get past eVerify as far as income, and most stores don’t care where cash comes from, so food is possible.. but fewer will be able to do this.

      Shelter is another issue – requiring the use of eVerify to rent an apartment would also reduce the number of illegals in the mix. Ditto getting a car. Ditto getting insurance.

      The realistic goal must be “reduce to tolerable levels”, not “eliminate” .. the latter is not possible without some fundamental – I’d say almost totalitarian – rewrites to the rules of our society.

      Mew

      • Common_Cents

        rather than bailing.

        • johnhandel

          is pushing both stronger border enforcement and strunger internal enforcement…as well as changing certain laws, such as the present US birthright citizenship. The present situation can change, but only if we stop catering to the soulless thugs at the SEIU.

  • jlm01

    It’s all about power. Numbers give unions power. Illegals increase union power.

    If several companies discuss how much to charge for their product they are ‘price fixing’ and violating federal law. If the unions representing those same companies get togetner to ‘fix’ the wages the company will have to pay, that’s O.K.It’s O.K. to have laws as long as they restrict hte other guy.

  • myron_j_poltroonian

    is that, just like an employer trying to check the SSN with Social Security prior to hiring a prospective employee, an employer can only access it after he hires someone, not before. And then, further adding insult to injury, if the employer finds out that that the employee they’ve hired is an Illegal Alien and fires them, they can (and will) be slapped with both federal criminal charges for violating the employee’s civil rights and civil lawsuits as well. There is no “Glass Ceiling” when we’ve “Fallen through the looking glass”.

    • myron_j_poltroonian

      My understanding of e-verify is that, just like an employer trying to check the SSN with Social Security prior to hiring a prospective employee, an employer can only access it after he hires someone, not before. And then, further adding insult to injury, if the employer finds out that that the employee they

      • johnhandel

        Oh, employers can access the system before hiring the person. It is just illegal for them to do so.

        The most fundamental flaws in the e-Verify system are the rules to use it.

        Bad rule: You must employ the person before verifying them. Even though it is illegal to hire someone not legally authorized to work in the US, you must do exactly that before you can legally verify their legal status. (Yes, it is against federal law to hire an illegal, but it is also against federal law to check if they are illegal before hiring.) So, you cannot say, “You have the job provided you pass verification.” Even if you would put a contract in writing and notarize it saying that they will have the specified job provided that they are actually legally authorized to work in the US, it is against the law. (In other words, this rule has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the worker from discrimination.)

        There may be a few other primary flaws in the system, but all that I have seen, as an employer and e-Verify users, revolve around this single very bad rule, and would fall apart if this rule were taken out.

        I don’t know if you can be taken to federal court for hiring an illegal and then firing them when finding the e-verify result, though it is plausible. Likewise on the civil trial. Either way, I would make what I hope would be a very strong defense. Actually, the civil trial should be very easy. Aside from the requirement to comply with federal law and not employ anyone here illegally, it is still legal to fire a person if you discover that they made blatantly false statements in their application/interview/hiring process. Since practically every application asks about legal authority to work, their clear lie there would be a strong defense in a civil trial. Of course, it would be an even stronger defense if your paperwork/applications/etc make it abundantly clear that any falsehoods are grounds for immediate termination upon discovery.