Sunday, October 20, 2019

Do You Say Illegal or Unlawful Alien? What the Law Says

ICE Raid in Mississippi (August 8, 2019)
People get into arguments over this question. In tomorrow’s immigration and employment class, we cover “U.S. Code §1324a— Unlawful employment of aliens.” Google that expression—see for yourself: It says UNLAWFUL, not illegal and not criminal.
The law states: “(a) Making employment of unauthorized aliens unlawful … (1) In general, it is unlawful for a person or other entity—
(A) to hire, or to recruit or refer for a fee, for employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is an unauthorized alien (as defined in subsection (h)(3)) with respect to such employment.”
It does not refer to aliens as “illegals.” They are “unauthorized.”
Is the law PC?
No. When it was drafted in 1986, Congress created civil fines for employers who knowingly hire unauthorized aliens.
Why? Congress didn’t believe employers should actually go to jail for this.
Also, Congress didn’t criminalize “unlawful entry” to the U.S. because enforcement would add millions of people to our jails, and break the criminal justice system with the sheer volume of this population.
***
If our nation feels more strongly now than in 1986 that this practice is criminal, we don’t need to build a wall. Start throwing the hundreds of thousands of employers in jail who hire people who have entered the U.S. unlawfully. And throw millions of people in jail who have done this.

I don’t believe our country wants that. I’ll give a proof point: The Mississippi meat packing companies who were raided by ICE in August for hiring hundreds of unlawful aliens are not being prosecuted under a state law that criminalizes this hiring practice. If a ruby red-state cannot enforce its own criminal immigration hiring law, it means that this approach to our federal law would not be effective.
Here’s the bottom line: Our nation doesn’t want to imprison the large numbers of white professional employees and company owners who hire these aliens. That is why this employment is unlawful, not criminal.


No comments: