US Incorporated – by Allan Wall
Illegal aliens are being hired to work in America because there are businesses willing to employ them. That’s common sense.
So if we want to reduce illegal immigration, punishing the employers of illegal aliens has to be part of the solution.
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw an article about the Biden administration’s Department of Justice actually punishing an employer of illegal aliens.
As a matter of fact, I ran across the article on our own Border Hawk website which I encourage you to check regularly – there’s a lot of news there and it’s frequently updated.
The article from the Washington Times begins thusly:
The owner of a Maryland seafood and ice processing company that employed at least 89 illegal immigrants was sentenced last week to a year of probation and a $15,000 fine, and had to promise to use E-Verify to screen new hires in the future.
E-Verify is a great tool to determine legal status, and we ought to make it mandatory nationally.
Philip J. ‘Jamie’ Harrington III worked out the deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to a single charge of unlawful employment of illegal immigrants. His company, Captain Phip’s Seafood, was sentenced to three years of probation and a fine of $240,000 for felony visa fraud.
But Mr. Harrington made a special request that was granted.
Harrington also asked that his probation officer allow him to make his usual trips this year to Florida and the Bahamas for Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year’s holidays.
Whew, that’s a relief. I’m sure we were all worried about Harrington’s trips to Florida and the Bahamas.
The no-jail-time sentence comes even as the Biden administration promises to get tough on employers of illegal immigrants, saying it wants to stop arresting the unauthorized workers themselves.
I applaud the Biden Administration for going after employers, although they ought to arrest and deport the illegal aliens themselves. Why not do both?
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has told his agents and officers that being in the country illegally is no longer a sufficient reason, on its own, for someone to be arrested or deported.
That of course is ridiculous. Any illegal alien is, by definition, illegally in the country and subject to deportation simply for that fact. But the Biden/Mayorkas administration has exempted itself from enforcing the law in that regard.
The Captain Phip’s company was reportedly employing both illegal aliens and underpaid guest workers.
…federal investigators found the firm [Captain Phip’s] and a network of other companies [!} cheated the legal guest-worker system, bringing in foreigners for lower-wage jobs but giving them tasks that should have commanded higher pay. That move denied Americans the chance to take those jobs at the higher pay.
Good point.
And Harrington admitted he had hired other migrants who were in the country without any legal status at all — including some who came legally but overstayed their visas, and others who snuck in without permission. Several of the workers had even been arrested and were in deportation proceedings, but Harrington employed them anyway…Prosecutors said they found records showing 89 illegal immigrants were employed between 2013 and 2018.
Federal agents seized more than $700,000 from the company and Harrington, and the combined $255,000 in fines were taken from that. The rest of the money will be returned, prosecutors said.
The article also refers to a separate case:
Earlier this month, prosecutors completed a case against a national steel manufacturing and carport construction company, ordering it to forfeit $6 million in profits from illegal immigrants it employed. But the owner of that business, a former illegal immigrant himself, had his smuggling charges dropped.
The attorneys of this illegal-alien-turned-employer-of-illegal-aliens provided a curious cultural defense of their client:
”In his [the defendant’s] culture laws are there but few respect them,” the company’s lawyers wrote in defending the lenient sentencing.
Is that what we want here?