Herndon Starts I-9 Campaign
By Greg L | 4 December 2008 | Fairfax County, Illegal Aliens, Crime | 5 Comments
The Fairfax Times reports that Herndon has again come up with a fascinating idea that will help ensure that federal employment laws are not willfully disregarded. A new “I-9 campaign” informs anyone who might be interested in hiring a day laborer that the law requires that an I-9 employment eligibility form be completed, and helpfully provides forms at several locations where day laborers tend to congregate to help with compliance.
In a November resolution, the council directed Town Manager Art Anselene to implement a campaign informing those who employ day workers that it is illegal to hire workers on private property and that federal law prohibits hiring workers without an employment check, typically conducted via completion of a federal I-9 form.
“The town’s zoning ordinance prohibits the hiring of day workers on private property – and federal law prohibits th.e hiring of day workers without an employment check, or I-9 form,” said Mayor Steve DeBenedittis. “Our aim with this campaign is to educate employers of day workers to these requirements and to follow through with our own zoning enforcement activity and with direct contact to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement if we note violations to these requirements.”
This could be an interesting model to follow after we have a chance to see how this works out in Herndon. Local and state law enforcement seems spectacularly uninterested in halting the flagrant violations of the law that regularly occur at impromptu day laborer sites in Prince William County and refuse to respond to citizen reports of the unlawful employment of illegal aliens. Should a local ordinance be passed that prohibits solicitations by day laborers on the private property of others, local law enforcement would be required to enforce it. Violations of that ordinance would immediately prompt questions about the legal status of the day laborer and establish evidence regarding a violation of federal law as well. It’s not an easy thing to craft such an ordinance in a way that would pass Constitutional muster, but provided that can be done, this would make a huge difference in the lay laborer problem here in the county.
This will be something to keep a close eye on, and provided this works out well in Herndon, this would be a great thing to implement in Prince William County as well. There’s no reason why our low skilled citizen workers should have to compete with illegal aliens for jobs, and no reason why we should be ignoring the huge number of likely violations of federal law that occur in our community.
Thanks to reader “info” for flagging this.
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BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT
WMAL-AM
12/2/08
MARK WEAVER: anchor:
The Town of Herndon has begun an educational campaign directed at people who hire day laborers. Mayor Steve DeBenedittis says it is illegal to hire illegals.
Mayor STEVE DeBENEDITTIS (Republican, Herndon):
We’ve been investigating the I-9 process, and we’ve contacted ICE and explained to them the situation, and they told us that somebody hiring a laborer for the day still needs to complete the process.
WEAVER: DeBenedittis says the town is making those I-9 forms available.
Mayor DeBENEDITTIS: It’s something that everybody fills out when they go to get a job, and there’s certain things that the employer is supposed to check and make sure that the person can legally work in the United States.
All well and good, but I think that parts of the CIS’s report on gangs might also be appropriate. Many of those MS-13 gang-bangers spend their days working construction, etc.
and after the illegal immigrant fills out the I-9 form, where does it go, and how is it validated?
It stays with the employer, and it is the employer that validates it - ala there is no record of it. At least with E-Verify, there is a record maintained by a third party that the search was performed.
For some reason (business wants it) out government does not want to fix the illegal immigrant problem - and neither do business owners big and small.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Obama/Reid/Pelosi’s fight for amnesty will progress as unemployment rates in the country rise. How can they justify adding 20 million plus new citizens to the dole, when the auto industry is on the edge of bankruptcy and we could be looking at double digit unemployment rates by the end of 2009?
We have double digit unemployment now. The figures were altered, throwing out long term unemployment to make it look better.