Email I received from the ACLU

Dear ACLU Supporter,“You’re fired!”Those are the words that millions of Americans could hear if Congress passes the SAVE Act.The SAVE Act would require every employer in the U.S. to use so-called “electronic employment verification,” cross-checking all current and potential employees’ citizenship status against databases that the government itself knows are filled with errors and inaccuracies.And what if the Social Security Administration (SSA) or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) get it wrong and can’t verify a person’s citizenship or right to work using their buggy database? Tough luck. That person is out of a job, with no right to appeal. This is unacceptable, and un-constitutional.Tell your representative you oppose any bill with electronic employment verification.The SSA estimates its records contain at least 17.8 million errors, of which 12.7 million involve U.S. citizens. Bills with mandatory employment verification, including the SAVE Act (H.R. 4088), contain no assurances that government databases will be accurate and updated, no privacy protections for the vast amounts of personal information to be handled by employers and absolutely no recourse for workers who are wrongfully denied employment. Take Action: Tell your representative to protect Americans’ right to work.  Thank you for defending our right to privacy and protecting everyone’s right to work.Sincerely,
Caroline Fredrickson, Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office

My Response to the ACLU

I wish you would rethink this issue.  This is about cracking down on employers for encouraging illegal immigration.  This is what many people have been asking for all along–cracking down on the employers is the best way to crack down on illegal immigration.

The blue collar people of the US losing their jobs to illegal immigration is no different from factory workers losing their jobs to China, or people in customer service and information technology losing their jobs to India. The main difference is people from Mexico are coming here so you are more aware of them.

My father just lost his $20 per hour construction job so his employer could hire more people who are here illegally at $12 an hour. You can’t support a family where I live at $12 an hour. The only way illegals can get buy on these wages is by living in slums or having groups of families living in the same house.
The company my father was working for knowingly had illegals using same social security number.

The government needs to crack down on these employers.

When you sell the blue collar people down the river, you are creating fascists. Poverty and lack of hope breads radicalized right wing extremists. That’s the point Chris Hedges was trying to make in his book American Fascists. You can see the interview he did with the CBC on Youtube

If the bill has flaws it needs to be amended, but not thrown out. I also wanted to mention NAFTA should be a big focus for trying to help the people of Mexico and the US. One of my all time heroes Berny Sanders posted this excellent article on the issue:The hidden costs of free trade (Boston Globe, Op-Ed) – 11/06/2007By Adrian Boutureira
November 5, 2007

We have already seen the devastating effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement in Massachusetts. According to conservative estimates, more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last decade alone. Nationally, at least 3 million jobs have been sent offshore, and the wage gap continues to expand.
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Our trading partners have suffered, too - with huge increases in inequality and massive displacement. For example, at least 1.3 million Mexican farmers have lost their livelihood under NAFTA. As a result, the number of annual immigrants from Mexico to the United States surged from 332,000 in 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, to 530,000 in 2000 - a 60 percent increase.