Every once in a while, the door cracks open and we're forced to look at what's been hiding in plain sight all along.
Yesterday was one of those days. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided eight companies that had contracted with a temp agency suspected of sending them undocumented workers, and arrested 69 employees. Later in the day, advocacy groups staged a protest, decrying the arrests as inhumane and highlighting the plight of children left behind when immigration officials carted off their mothers.
And now, if past patterns hold true, we'll soon go back to conveniently ignoring the fact that an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S. and, except for these occasional round-ups and endless Washington talk of reform, there really isn't a comprehensive plan on what, if anything, to do about that.
For now, the federal government and states like Maryland are on divergent paths when it comes to illegal immigrants. Even as the feds heighten their efforts to arrest undocumented workers -- seven times the number they arrested five years ago -- some states increasingly are accepting the reality: Illegal immigrants are here, despite these crackdowns most aren't going anywhere, so get used to it.
To see just how divergent those paths are, you only had to pick up yesterday's Sun. The lead news story on the front page was about Gov. Martin O'Malley's support for legislation that would allow some illegal immigrants to pay the less expensive in-state rather than out-of-state tuition at Maryland's public colleges. Meanwhile, the lead story on the Maryland section was about the principal owner of Kawasaki sushi restaurants being sentenced in federal court to five months in prison for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
And then, maybe even as you were pondering the juxtaposition of those two stories, yesterday's raids got under way -- agents descended on a placement firm, Jones Industrial Network, which was under investigation for enlisting illegal immigrants, and eight companies that had contracted with Jones for workers.
Immigration officials took great pains to note that their target is Jones rather than the companies -- such as Baltimore's Under Armour -- that the workers were sent to.
No one from Jones has been arrested in connection with the case, although ICE continues to develop its case against the company.
