Rep. Stace Nelson (R-19/Fulton) has been remarkably quiet during this Legislative session. No outbursts, no seating chart troubles, no rumblings of moves by the GOP leadership to expel the pugnacious Marine from the House chamber... come on, Stace! We bloggers count on you for excitement!
But Rep. Nelson is set to rattle cages with his latest anti-illegal-immigration legislation. His House Bill 1175 takes another stab at throwing the book at employers who exploit illegal workers. On its first violation of immigration law, a business faces all sorts of scrutiny and, if it doesn't get rid of all illegal workers and stay clean, court-ordered shutdown. On second violation, the offending business loses all of its licenses.
Rep. Nelson also brings House Bill 1159, which cleverly expands identity theft law to hold employers' feet to the fire on immigration. HB 1159 expands the definition of identity theft to include an employer's acceptance of stolen identity information as hiring documentation. In other words, if an illegal immigrant hands an employer someone else's Social Security Number, and if the employer knowingly accepts that false information, we throw the book at the employer for identity theft. Nice!
Rep. Nelson made similar efforts last year, to no avail. If the amicable quiet in Pierre is a sign that Rep. Nelson has learned to play nicely with others, perhaps others will play nicely with him and hold law-breaking employers accountable for exploiting illegal immigrants.
Go Stace! The immigration dilemma has been mishandled so far like the failed "War on Drugs." The emphasis has been on the millions of individuals who cross the border ... to get a job in the USA. In the drug scenario, the emphasis has been on the users with little traction made against the dealers and those who benefit financially from the black market drug trade. If they want to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, shut down the reason they come here.
I don't agree much with Stace but I'll give him a high five (maybe if I can reach that high) on this. Most of the time Republicans just go after the illegal aliens and thats it. You have to go after the business owners as well who exploit these people.
Good job Stace
And if it don't pass it'll be interesting to see the reasons why.
Any ideas on the scope of the illegal immigrant employment problem in South Dakota?
there are no problems, just opportunities. from 2009:
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2009/04/14/iv-social-and-economic-characteristics/
What about the budget? Get that passed FIRST and then we can worry about other bills.
it's important to remember that this dealio is a dog whistle for stace and his alec buddies.
More on the voter suppression intended by Stace's dog whistle:
http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/01/the_massive_hurdles_native_voters_faced_from_arizona_to_montana_in_2012.html
"At the peak, about 770,000 immigrants were arriving annually from Mexico, the majority of them illegally. By 2010, the inflow had dropped to about 140,000, and the majority arrived legally, according to the center’s estimates.
In addition, the number of Mexicans and their children who moved from the United States to Mexico between 2005 and 2010 roughly doubled compared with the five-year period a decade earlier, the center said." http://tinyurl.com/akvxuuz
This issue is taking care of itself without any help from Nelson. His issue is moot.
The economy tanked and Wall Street and the corporate monster didn't want to take any part of the blame for that, so they convinced you your jobs were taken by "illegal immigrants". Kurtz's link shows a graph where Hispanic unemployment is higher than citizen unemployment.
"Illegal immigrants" are not your boogeyman, just the scapegoat.
Many of these people are refugees of the 'war on drugs' per this just-released piece from Pew.
(Just released in June of last year?)
The drug-related violence is escalating in Mexico, yet there are fewer immigrating out and more than ever are returning to Mexico.
Doh! Pew Research is tweeting older findings. More:
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/net-migration-from-mexico-falls-to-zero-and-perhaps-less/
""Illegal immigrants" are not your boogeyman, just the scapegoat."
Taunia, why do you defend criminals? You like the chaos they create so that more government is justified?
Rep. Nelson sees the strain that the uninsured puts on counties: if he had any nards he would argue for an expansion of Medicaid instead of taking glee in torturing the victims.
"Taunia, why do you defend criminals? You like the chaos they create so that more government is justified?"
Criminals Steve? Maybe some are but most of these people are just looking to provide for their families.
You have a good Christian attitude Steve.
re: Medicaid expansion
Concur, Kurtz.
Statement by U.S. Rep Luis V. Gutierrez, Chair of the Hispanic Caucus Immgration Task Force in regards to today's announcement of a Senate immigration reform plan:
"We are on track to pass a bipartisan bill this year that legalizes millions of immigrants, keeps families together, strengthens our country, and eventually allows immigrants to apply for citizenship. All of the pieces are falling into place."
"The most important thing right now is to keep the various efforts moving forward and not to draw lines in the sand.”
"If they want to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, shut down the reason they come here."
Well, if our government's profligate spending causes a collapse of the U.S. dollar, maybe those immigrants will be better off staying where they are.
Maybe someday we'll have to build a wall topped with concertina wire and paralleled by crocodile moats on either side, just to keep U.S. citizens from fleeing to Mexico.
Stranger things have happened in this big old world.
Seriously, I think we ought to give these immigrants every opportunity to become legal citizens so they can get legitimate jobs and pay taxes like the rest of us do.
this came over the intertwit earlier today now the rcj has picked up: Brokaw.
True dat... but it's a hard dog whistle to argue with. Someone tell me what the upside is of not punishing business owners who break the law to exploit cheap labor?
Boy, Taunia, if this issue is moot, with factory dairies and other businesses engaging in this exploitation on a daily basis, then school shootings, which haven't happened in South Dakota once since I started this blog, must be hyper-super-moot. (If I can trade killing this bill as moot for killing the school-gunslinger bill as moot, I'll go for it!)
Scope of illegal immigration in SD? Hard to say, John:
—This Congressional Research Service report from Dec. 2012 says that in 2010, South Dakota was among the bottom ten of states for estimated illegal immigrant population, with fewer than 45,000 (see map on page 7).
—this chart from StateMaster, based on USCIS data, says that during the 1990s, SD's illegal immigrant count was below 2,500.
—This Pew report from Feb. 2011 says that the monthly BLS/Census Current Population Survey finds so illegal immigrant households in South Dakota and 33 other states that extrapolations from their data are shaky. It guesstimates that the SD illegal immigrant population is less than 10,000, less than 1% of our population and less than 1.5% of our workforce.
Doesn't anyone remember the 1986 immigration amnesty fiasco? We are still cleaning up after that mess. Stace has the right idea. Throw the book at them, 3 or 4 if you want.
Any idea how many of that 1.5% are working for the unscrupulous perps that Stace has a bead on or have moved to the oil patch since those stats were written, Cory?
The illegal immigrant problem in South Dakota is vast and becoming vaster.
Re the drama from last year's legislative session. Perhaps Stace was not the one causing the drama?
View Pew "research" carefully. I haven't looked at it for several years, but when I did, their imputed economic benefit of illegal aliens in Arizona disappeared into the money sent back to Mexico. The bank revenue from such money movements indicated the total amount being siphoned out of the US.
Legalization of Medical Marijuana in Colorado and elsewhere is expected to cost the Mexican drug cartels 1.4 Billion dollars.
Mexico is so corrupt the illegal aliens from their have no regard for law or regulations. They are a huge unfunded mandate to schools and law enforcement, and courts.
We have spent untold billions keeping the Russians and Chinese and Koreans out of the US, but let 11 million undereducated, superstitious illegal aliens enter the country. Their continued presence here is a huge sign indicating all our military expenditures in the last 50 years have served no purpose.
The benefits of diversity are non-existent. Time for vigilante painting teams to wipe out all Spanish language signs in stores. It is a huge inefficiency that we don't need in a modern world where computers may be the primary threat to labor of all kinds.
Law and order is meaningless if we tolerate 11 million illegal aliens. We don't need immigration "reform", we need deportation reforms. Get out of here in 90 days or have all your property here confiscated.
Fascinating slam poetry, Doug.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/01/28/health/qa-afforable-care-act
Good discussion on Diane Rehm about immigration law reform:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-01-29/new-immigration-reform-proposals-take-shape
The right, who seem to be the proponents of market forces have to come to grips with the fact that THEIR market forces - the provision of low-wage jobs to illegal immigrants - is a key pulling force for illegal immigration. Paying sub-minimum wages in some cases is exploitive and should end.
Hospitals in the Bakken are near breaking point:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/us/boom-in-north-dakota-weighs-heavily-on-health-care.html
Saw an illegal on TV the other day. She came with her mother when she was young and now her mother and brother got deported. So she cried on UTube and they could stay. Her main problem is that she wanted to be with her family. Well, first of all, they left family for the more important dollar that they could make here. Secondly, if she really wanted to be with her family, they could have deported her also and she could happily be with all of her family in Mexico. Total joy and elation would have happened in her life then since she would have been with ALL of her FAMILY.
When they switch their priorities so fast from money to family to money again, then at least they understand our materialistic society. But then I saw a twenty yearold who was driving illegally since he could not get a license without being deported, and he casually said while driving illegally, well what else can I do. Once they justify being illegal they justify anything else illegal that they want also. Not people of character. But try and tell them that they do not have character and you get the macho hispanic side coming out.
But that is where they are wrong. Our situation is that the top one percent, maybe ten percent, want cheap labor so they take advantage of this. Then all our wages go down and people would rather collect a disability check, or have to collect an unemployment check, so this gives the top ten percent the excuse that the problems in the world are those lazy people who will not work cheaper than a Mexican, are the reason that the economy is bad. Well I do remember when the unions were strong and wages were higher and workers paid more taxes and bought more, that the economy worked just fine then. The government paid their bills then. The trickle down of stopping the illegals is enormous. Less unemployment, less crime, less government deficits, less welfare checks and less students that can not speak English. Only the rich do not want to understand this.
But do not take a cheap shot at Mr. Nelson for following alec. He only has noticed that the democrats actually are right a few times also. Alec and the dems both see that illegals can mess up a good thing. My Dad told me when I was a kid that his parents had to waite their turn to come to this country since to fast of immagration would be to much stress on or society and the economy. Basic truths are still basically true. Back then we reached zero population growth when we passed two hundred million in population. Now we have three hundred million in population and the excuse that we killed fifty five million babies in abortion is not a good enough excuse to let one hundred million immagrants in and only say that we have eleven million illegals. Math either makes it simple or just complicates things.
"Proverb
bad money drives out good
Debased coinage (with low levels of precious metals) replaces purer coinage (with higher levels of precious metals).
(metaphorically) Mediocre talent drives away real tale"
Counterfeit "citizens" mess up the system in a modern welfare state which is what the US has become.
We don't tolerate counterfeit money and we should not tolerate counterfeit citizens.
Every country south of the US is plagued with poverty and corruption and birth rates that exceed the economy capability to support the growth. We will turn the US into another third-world failed system if we do not control immigration and language.
US Hispanics fleeing christianity:
http://www.pri.org/stories/politics-society/religion/hispanic-american-immigrants-increasingly-finding-home-is-islam-12754.html
Prison industry has skin in immigration game:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/03/special-interests-weigh-in-on-immig.html
Awesome work Stace!!! Companies that hiring these criminals are accessories to the crime and they should be held just responsible or even more responsible. Your work will also help to protect our children! http://kidsandidtheft.eu.pn/