Immigrant Workers

Immigrant workers at the University of Maryland, College Park hope that a coming bus ride that will carry them and others to rallies throughout the Northeast will help draw attention to their problems, including low pay and long hours. "We need help to improve our lives," said Maria Elena Torres, a janitor at the school who says she earns $8.77 an hour. Torres spoke at a news conference yesterday to help raise awareness about Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a bus caravan that begins Sept.

Imposing harsh "enforcement-only" measures like the flawed "E-Verify" system on immigrant workers without fixing our broken immigration system will only make matters worse by pushing undocumented workers deeper into the shadows -- something that benefits only the most unscrupulous off-the-books employers. ("E-Verify urged for Baltimore County," Feb. 2.) The E-Verify verification system that Baltimore County Council Chairman John A. Olszewski Sr. wants to impose on Baltimore's workers and businesses is not the solution to our broken immigration system.

Saying their clients were duped by unscrupulous employers, an immigrant advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against a Howard County contracting company, saying it refused to pay 35 Maryland laborers hired for cleanup projects along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, contends that the Mount Airy firm MFC General Contractors Inc. refused to pay its workers the $10 an hour it promised them and offered no overtime pay. The owners of the company denied the accusation yesterday, saying delays in worker payments resulted from problems with the firm that hired them to do the work.

SAN DIEGO - In the immigration wars, you have to choose your battles carefully. Nativists on the far right make bad choices when they try to limit legal immigration, declare English the national language and revise the 14th Amendment so that in the future, the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants would no longer be U.S. citizens. Those on the far left - liberal Democrats, labor unions, immigrant advocates, open-border enthusiasts, etc. - are making a bad choice by railing against raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

The arrest of two dozen men waiting for work in a convenience store parking lot on charges of being illegal immigrants renews the urgency to establish an indoor employment center in Southeast Baltimore, say city officials and advocates. Despite last month's arrests, a throng of mostly immigrant day laborers continue congregating outside the 7-Eleven at Broadway and Lombard Street, seeking to earn their living each day as part of the area's thriving underground economy. But immigrant advocates say the system desperately needs to be changed.

IVORY COAST'S name is a misnomer. Although its state emblem depicts an elephant's head, hardly any of those majestic tusked animals are left there. Instead, cocoa is the West African country's claim to fame. It's the world's leading grower of beans that give chocolate its delicious flavor. That distinction, too, is in danger of disappearing. A rekindled rebellion has disrupted this year's harvesting, curtailing output and sending world cocoa prices to new highs. Ivory Coast used to be West Africa's wealthiest and most stable country.

Under a new federal directive, millions of workers whose Social Security numbers differ from government records will be threatened with dismissal, and employers who don't act within 90 days against those workers will face penalties, including heavy fines and possible prosecution. That sounds good for those of us who believe in secure borders and respect for the law. But this enforcement-only focus on Social Security "no-matches" is an unrealistic approach that will severely disrupt our economy, hurting employers and workers.

Local labor and immigrant advocacy groups in Baltimore yesterday sharply criticized President Bush's proposed changes in U.S. immigration law, saying the reform benefits only employers and could create more problems for immigrant workers. They argued that the proposed changes, which would allow immigrant workers to work and live in the United States legally for a limited time, would leave workers too afraid to complain about unfair labor practices for fear of losing their jobs - and being deported.

STRAIGHT-TALKING maverick Sen. John McCain recently posed a rhetorical question for fellow Republican lawmakers who have criticized President Bush's plan to reform the nation's immigration system. "I would like to know how many of my colleagues want to shut down the homebuilding industry, the resort industry and the restaurants that we patronize here in our nation's capital," he asked, referring to jobs generally held by immigrants, many of them illegal, in industries that serve moneyed Americans.

Agents from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) raided a Columbia direct-mail company early yesterday morning and arrested 12 alleged illegal aliens from Central America working the night shift.The agents now are turning their attention to the facility, a mail processing plant for ADVO, Inc. on Gerwig Lane in the Guilford Industrial Center. The agents seized personnel and payroll records during the 4: 30 a.m. raid."Our focus is on the employer," said Benedict J. Ferro, district director of the Baltimore INS office.

Businesses export many more jobs Many people decry the presence of 12 million illegal immigrants in this country who take away our jobs and use our government services. Dan Rodricks had an excellent response to this view in his column "Happy Fourth! Now hit the road" (July 3). But many of us stand silent when American businesses export many more millions of jobs overseas. These businesses deprive more Americans of jobs than illegal immigrants ever will. Yet many of us don't care because we want to buy our goods and services at the lowest possible cost.

A day after a federal judge ruled that the government could not use mismatched Social Security numbers to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, a coalition of immigrant advocates, faith leaders and workers gathered near the Social Security Administration headquarters in Woodlawn to voice their outrage at the proposal. The regulation is part of a recent Bush administration push to get tough on employers and weed out illegal immigrant workers. But advocates said yesterday that the proposal encourages employers to fire millions of workers with questionable Social Security numbers, harming immigrants and citizens.

Under a new federal directive, millions of workers whose Social Security numbers differ from government records will be threatened with dismissal, and employers who don't act within 90 days against those workers will face penalties, including heavy fines and possible prosecution. That sounds good for those of us who believe in secure borders and respect for the law. But this enforcement-only focus on Social Security "no-matches" is an unrealistic approach that will severely disrupt our economy, hurting employers and workers.

In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers. Officials said the rules would be backed by stepped-up raids across the country on workplaces that employ illegal immigrants. After first proposing the rules last year, Department of Homeland Security officials said they held off finishing them to await the outcome of the debate in Congress over a sweeping immigration bill.

The arrest of two dozen men waiting for work in a convenience store parking lot on charges of being illegal immigrants renews the urgency to establish an indoor employment center in Southeast Baltimore, say city officials and advocates. Despite last month's arrests, a throng of mostly immigrant day laborers continue congregating outside the 7-Eleven at Broadway and Lombard Street, seeking to earn their living each day as part of the area's thriving underground economy. But immigrant advocates say the system desperately needs to be changed.

Labor advocates are pushing for the state to beef up its oversight of companies that fail to pay their employees, one of several workers' rights issues that they say have been pushed aside in recent years. A coalition of labor groups said yesterday that workers in low-wage industries are vulnerable to wage theft, in part because the state has been lax in enforcing existing laws. Immigrant workers are particularly at risk, they said. "This is a crisis that has been building over a number of years, and to expect a quick fix is not realistic," said Eliza Leighton, an attorney with CASA of Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group.

In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers. Officials said the rules would be backed by stepped-up raids across the country on workplaces that employ illegal immigrants. After first proposing the rules last year, Department of Homeland Security officials said they held off finishing them to await the outcome of the debate in Congress over a sweeping immigration bill.

The debate involving immigration reform weighs on business owners in Maryland and around the country as President Bush and Congress try to find common ground on temporary-worker programs and border security. Some business owners say a temporary-worker program and other proposals may help, particularly in the short term. But others say lawmakers must find a permanent solution to the problem of undocumented workers, since many expect the job market for unskilled employees to get tighter during the years ahead for industries like hotels, construction and restaurants.

The immigration debates always focus on small brown bodies jumping fences and scooting through the brush of our Southwestern states (land that was Mexico about 150 years ago). Our self-righteous anger at those brown bodies is fueled by our narrow use of the word "illegal" - a term reserved only for those immigrant workers. Yet aren't there other "illegals" hiding in the American underbrush, and isn't it time to add to the American immigration lexicon a new term? But where are those other "illegals" - the illegal employers of the illegal workers?

The debate involving immigration reform weighs on business owners in Maryland and around the country as President Bush and Congress try to find common ground on temporary-worker programs and border security. Some business owners say a temporary-worker program and other proposals may help, particularly in the short term. But others say lawmakers must find a permanent solution to the problem of undocumented workers, since many expect the job market for unskilled employees to get tighter during the years ahead for industries like hotels, construction and restaurants.