Blame Government for Businesses Hiring Illegal Aliens
By John Conlin www.americanthinker.com
There is a lot of chatter these days about holding those evil companies that hire illegals to some type of legal retribution. Let me explain why this is the willful failure of government, not the actions of some greaseball company owners.
There are certainly bad actors in any area, but let me enlighten you about how things work out there in the real world. For this we’ll use the construction trades as an example, as over the past decades they have almost completely been taken over by illegal alien workers.
My buddy was a builder of custom homes and through him I met many general contractors. They all talked of a similar trajectory. Most initially held the line against hiring illegals. They were generally good friends with their work crews -- working alongside them, partying with them, getting to know their spouses and families. And they tried to stick with their employees rather than hiring much cheaper illegal labor and victimizing their present employees.
But not everyone did so. Some unscrupulous contractors saw illegal workers as the way to win every job they bid on. And it worked.
Think of the situation. A good rule of thumb in many things is labor will be around 50% of the cost on a job with materials being the other 50%. Illegals would work for at least 30% less than the present American workers. Assuming material costs are the basically the same for all bidders, taking 30% off labor costs can reduce the bid amount by 15%.
If you have ever operated in a competitive bid environment, 15% is huge. Materials are basically the same for all and assuming the work quality is about the same -- or at least close enough -- then these folks will seldom, if ever lose a bid.
Some contractors refused and in effect left the industry while others stayed and one-by-one replaced their American workers with far cheaper illegal aliens. And thus, the primary language on most job sites across the country -- big or small -- is now Spanish.
Everyone knew this was happening, and you can’t really blame most of the contractors for ultimately relenting.
But it was government action -- or lack thereof -- that drove this entire process. When the first unscrupulous contractors started working with illegal aliens, they generally paid cash under the table. No payroll taxes or anything like that were paid.
When this percolated up to the powers that be, there was an outcry. About hiring illegal aliens and putting hard working American citizens out of work? Not a chance.
They came down hard on these contractors and pushed them to take out payroll taxes, Social Security, etc. But that was it! It was clear the problem the government had with this was not the hiring of illegal aliens -- people who have no right even being in the country, let alone working here.
No, the problem was the government wanted “their” money. As long as the contractors did this, government knowingly looked the other way about hiring illegals.
Think of that. You can hire all the illegals you want, but you better damn well pay taxes on their wages! With this acceptance, the entire construction trade abandoned American workers by the millions. All with government's very clear approval.
So let us not be too fast blaming unscrupulous employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. And trust me, everybody knew then and they know now. What are they to do if the government won’t enforce the law? Just happily go out of business as others take their work and income? Would you do that?
E-verify? A freaking joke. A government-provided “get-out-of-jail-free card” to give cover to those hiring illegal aliens -- and to show government is actually doing something about it. And again, everyone knows it.
Think of the “issue” of using stolen Social Security numbers to show you are eligible to work in the country. Why can’t the government do something to stop it? Because they don’t want to.
Many of you have some experience with spreadsheets. One of the first things you were taught was how to do a data sort. It is very simple.
So how difficult would it be for the Social Security Administration to do a data sort for any and all Social Security numbers, looking for those with more than one person associated with them? You wouldn’t need to be an expert sleuth to quickly identify those probably using stolen Social Security numbers.
Let’s see, one person associated with this number is an 80-year-old woman from Iowa who looks like she never moved more than 40 miles from where she was born and started working when she was 16. The other person with this number appeared only 10 years ago -- out of nowhere. Which do you think is using a stolen Social Security number?
It would be quite easy to identify the illegal alien, along with contact information, etc. and remove him from the country. This is supposedly a criminal act. But government gives it a wink-wink, nod-nod approval.
And if you are an owner or manager in any of these industries, what are you to do if the government quite clearly doesn’t mind hiring illegal aliens -- and paying them far less than their American counterparts -- as long as payroll taxes are paid?
Sooner or later, you end up going along with the charade, all thanks to government knowingly looking the other way. And over the decades this has been a bipartisan effort -- both Republicans and Democrats are to blame.
So, if you want anyone to blame for these things, blame government. By allowing the first unscrupulous players to take hold, market forces drive all the rest.
Want it to end? Only government can do this. Blaming employers is just a useful distraction for government and politicians alike. The government has the power to greatly reduce this but they simply don’t try. They like all those extra dollars flowing into their tax coffers -- regardless where it comes from or the damage it does to the very fabric of America.
Once government truly enforces sanctions against hiring illegal aliens, then you can go after the handful of bad actors who try to scam the system.
This is a relatively easy problem to solve. Why hasn’t it been? Because they don’t want to.
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