The Raids in Mississippi: A Question of Selective Enforcement?
In law, selective enforcement occurs when government officials such as police officers, prosecutors, or regulators exercise enforcement discretion, which is the power to choose whether or how to punish a person who has violated the law. The biased use of enforcement discretion, such as that based on racial prejudice or corruption, is usually considered a legal abuse and a threat to the rule of law.—-Wikipedia
ICE Arrests Hundreds in Mississippi Raids Targeting Immigrant Workers
Aug. 7, 2019
“Federal agents raided several companies across Mississippi on Wednesday, rounding up hundreds of immigrant workers in what federal officials said might be the largest worksite enforcement action ever in a single state.
In a coordinated sting, more than 600 agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up at the sites with federal warrants that allowed them to search the premises. About 680 immigrants who were believed to be working without legal documentation were apprehended and taken away on buses….”
8 U.S. Code§ 1324a.Unlawful employment of aliens
(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 Statesan alien knowing thealien is an unauthorized alien (as defined in subsection (h)(3)) with respect to such employment, or
(B)
(i)to hire for employment in the United Statesan individual without complying with the requirements of subsection (b) or (ii) if the person or entity is an agricultural association, agriculturalemployer, or farm labor contractor (as defined in section 1802 of title 29), to hire, or to recruit or refer for a fee, for employment in the United Statesan individual without complying with the requirements of subsection (b).
(2)Continuing employment
It is unlawful for a person or other entity, after hiring an alien for employment in accordance with paragraph (1), to continue to employ the alien in theUnited States knowing the alien is (or has become) an unauthorized alien with respect to such employment.
So here’s the question:
During the recent ICE raids in Mississippi, how many plant owners, executives, managers, and supervisors do you think were subjected to being handcuffed and perp-walked to waiting law enforcement vehicles?
Jonathan Wolfman
08/09/2019 @ 10:29 am
The only one I know of happened abt a decade ago when Rabbi Shlomo Rubashkin hired and mistreated hundreds of Mexican workers to work at his dangerous not-so-kosher meat-packing plant in Iowa.
koshersalaami
08/11/2019 @ 8:13 am
He can’t arrest them, for two reasons, both political:
1. They are part of his base. The undocumented workers are not.
2. The point has never been to stop illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants are too valuable to the Republican businesses and Republican individuals who hire them. The point has been to make a political issue about immigrants while using them at the same time. If we really wanted to stop illegal immigration, particularly when it was job-based rather than asylum-based, what we needed to do was make jobs unavailable so they’d have no reason to cross the border. How you do that is to prosecute those hiring illegal immigrants. But that hasn’t been done. Why not? The reasons are obvious.
koshersalaami
08/11/2019 @ 8:14 am
By the way, the proof about what I just said during this administration is that Trump businesses hire undocumented workers. We knew this during the campaign and it’s still happening.
Ron Powell
08/11/2019 @ 9:12 am
The law against hiring illegal aliens is clear and unambiguous:
8 U.S. Code§ 1324a.Unlawful employment of aliens
The point I’m making here is that the business owners and managers who routinely hire illegal aliens are white people.
If the businesses were owned, operated, and managed by black and brown people there would be prosecutions aplenty…Economic impact and consequences be damned!….