Illegal immigrants fired in face of federal crackdown

"Studies show most illegal immigrants find work using Social Security numbers that are either stolen, purchased, borrowed, taken from dead people or simply invented." by NumbersUSA -- by Brian Donohue, Star-Ledger (N.J.): For six years, Modesto Roque went to work at the sprawling Silver Line window factory in North Brunswick -- a union job with health insurance and wages that started at $7.50 an hour and rose to $9.25. No one, he says, ever asked about his Social Security number, a bogus ID he used to get hired in 2001. Roque says a former co-worker at another job gave him the number to use when he first arrived in the country. "I don't know if it's false or illegal," he said. "But I applied (at Silver Line), they accepted it and I was off and working."

But Roque's cover was blown last year when the company was sold and the new owners, Andersen Corp., began auditing personnel records and discovered his Social Security number did not match any on file with the federal government. Roque was given two months to fix his paperwork -- an impossibility, he says, given his status as an illegal immigrant -- and was fired in November. In all, more than 230 workers at the Middlesex County factory have been fired in the past three months as part of the audit, according to the union that represents them, Teamsters Local 97.

. . . The number of workplace raids and prosecutions remains small and there have been no recent major prosecutions of employers in New Jersey, home to an estimated 430,000 illegal immigrants. Nonetheless, cases like the 2006 sweep of six Midwestern meat processing plants in which managers of the Colorado-based Swift & Co. were charged criminally, have struck fear in the hearts of employers -- especially companies like Andersen, with name brand reputations at stake. . . . The Teamsters Union, meanwhile, has filed a grievance to get the {illegal] workers rehired or compensated for the firings -- a delicate political stance for a union whose members often accuse illegal immigrants of stealing jobs from U.S. citizens. . . . The decision by the Teamsters local to challenge the firing illustrates a larger shift on the part of organized labor, which once saw illegal immigrants as the economic enemy. Today, unions like the Teamsters increasingly see immigrants -- legal or not -- as the most fertile ground for boosting membership. . . .

Supporters of tougher immigration laws are cheering the move by Silver Line and other companies, saying the federal crackdown on employers is one of the most important steps in reducing the nation's illegal immigration population, currently estimated to be about 12 million. . . . [Read More]

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