You seem to be finding fault with ICE for not criminally prosecuting employers much. Do you think aggressive prosecution of employers of undocumented immigrants is a wise policy? It would certainly drive even more immigrants out of formal work-places and further into such pick-up positions as day-labor.

It seems like there are immigration issues everywhere and everyone has an opinion on them. Just this morning I read an interesting article about child immigration. A attorney is trying to fight the KS law that allows undocumented children in-state tuition if they have attended three years of school. Here is the link to the story if you would like to take a look....www.pitch.com.

While it is true that is easier to go after the undocumented, we must also consider that when they are deported, they risk criminal prosecution and must leave family and their wives and children while the employer faces no criminal consequences. How is that really fair. I think there really needs to be a give and take when it comes to employers. In fact, within the immigrant communities, through word of mouth, they already know which employers are cheating the system. If they are already know and with all the government surveillance that is going on in this country, I positive both ICE and Homeland Security are also aware.

By not going after repeat offenders, you end up having businesses feeling they are above the law. With all the rhetoric about immigrants taking jobs away, you would think people would be people would be lining up in droves to the HR office a business that just got raided. But they are not, they continue to skirt the law to import more laborers.

Take the case of the Postville, Iowa meatpacking plant, AgriProcessor. Just days after ICE raided their plant, AgriProcessor once again went actively recruiting more laborers from Guatemala. Of course they will deny it, but also you have a middle man to do the dirty work, like largest immigration-law firm that is currently under federal scrutiny, they will always look clean.

The nation's largest immigration law firm is under federal scrutiny over whether it helped major U.S. corporations disqualify American job applicants and give thousands of high-paying positions to immigrants.

Fragomen's prestigious client roster includes General Electric Co., IBM Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Bank of America Corp., according to company publications and trade journals. The firm also represents The Associated Press on immigration issues.
Shouldn't we go after these businesses for breaking to law, since we proudly proclaim we are a nation of laws. Or are we that Orwellian where "some animals are more equal than others."

Edmundo writes: "While it is true that is easier to go after the undocumented, we must also consider that when they are deported, they risk criminal prosecution and must leave family and their wives and children while the employer faces no criminal consequences. How is that really fair"

FAIR?!! How is it "fair" that some foreign national decides it's his RIGHT to break the laws of my country simply because he wants to? How is it "fair" for him to lie and cheat to get a job and reside in my country illegally? How is it "fair" for him to shove his way into my country when there're MILLIONS of people filling out paperwork, paying their fees, and waiting patiently in their own country for the chance to come to America legally? It's NOT fair. It's not fair to all those who play by the rules and respect the right of America to decide who we want here and who doesn't belong.

And you say the illegal, when he's caught, "must" leave his family behind.? Well, that's not exactly true now, is it? After all, his entire family can MOVE WITH HIM and live freely in HIS country of origin. Not much of a punishment if you ask me. After all, he CHOSE to sneak into the country. He CHOSE to marry, knowing he might get caught and deported. He CHOSE to have anchor babies, probably hoping that they'd earn him sympathy if get gets caught and deported. He KNEW the consequences of his actions might affect his family, as did his wife. If their family gets broken up, it'll because of the choices THEY made; his choice to break the law, and her choice to abet him.

As for the employers...sure, toss 'em all in the pokey. Fine the he11 out of'em. Revoke their business liscences. Heck, dust off the RICO statutes and charge 'em with organized crime. I'm good with that.

Trunk Monkey - If you were hoping that I would get into an emotional debate with you, you are sadly mistaken. I understand that you frustrated, but instead of targeting people, should we look at how we got to this point. If do not address this issue, nothing is ever going to change.

Lets start looking at how our trade policies impact Mexican workers, which is how we got here in the first place. If workers in Ohio and elsewhere in the US have been squeezed, Mexico has been hammered.

If you think the Mexicans aren't doing their part to fix their country, your sadly mistaken too. On January 31, tens of thousands of Mexican peasants and workers marched in Mexico City to demand the repeal or renegotiation of NAFTA, under the slogan, "without corn, there is no country."

This was a response to the elimination at the end of last year of Mexico's tariffs on corn, beans, sugar and powdered milk--the final stage of reductions in Mexican controls on agriculture imports, as required under NAFTA. Mexican agriculture has been devastated by NAFTA because it is unable to compete with US producers, which benefit from subsidies from the US government that were 20 times higher than Mexico's as of 2005.

If these foreign nationals stole our jobs, then it was OUR US corporations and OUR policies that stole their livelihood. They are doing what another human being would do to survive, find work to feed their families. Under NAFTA, 3 million farmers from the countryside migrated to Mexico's cities. There is no way an urban area can be absorbed them into the workforce. It is impossible, we couldn't even do it during the Great Depression and we expect Mexico to do it. As long as you have business as AgriProcessor willing to be an escape valve, they are going to take it in a heart beat. It is called survival.

If you don't like how the situation is now, well, it is going to get a lot worse, now that we passed CAFTA. But if it makes you feel better to use them as scapegoats so you can sleep better at night, fine, but it won't change a thing unless we are willing to tackle the root cause of our immigration problem.

I can understand why some people don't want illegal immigrants. We are all entitled to our own opinion, however, I think that when American children are having thier mothers and fathers torn away from them we need to come up with a better solution.

These children are American and I think we need to think about them. There are enough fathers who ditch out on their kids. I wish we could deport them! Seriously though, there is more to this issue than what we are making of it and I would love to see our great country use a little bit of common sense and compassion when tackling this problem.

Great information.

It's a tricky one, a well presented post though....

Trunk Monkey - If you were hoping that I would get into an emotional debate with you, you are sadly mistaken. I understand that you frustrated, but instead of targeting people, should we look at how we got to this point. If do not address this issue, nothing is ever going to change.

Lets start looking at how our trade policies impact Mexican workers, which is how we got here in the first place. If workers in Ohio and elsewhere in the US have been squeezed, Mexico has been hammered.