Dear Editor –
If you come toward Monmouth and you smell an odor, it isn’t coming from Farmland’s hog processing plant. It is coming from the federal government! We read that on August 22, 2011, the Justice Department settled with Farmland for, what seems to us, following the law!!!
The settlement of $290,400 was because Farmland was essentially protecting itself from litigation if they hired illegal aliens to work at the plant. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 established a prohibition on employers from hiring unauthorized workers and established criminal and civil sanctions. The lawsuit sited Farmland for “imposing unnecessary and excessive documentary requirements on non-US citizens and foreign-born US citizens when establishing their authority to work in the United States.” It seems to us, Farmland was covering itself because of all the fraudulent documentation that is available to illegal aliens.
Part of the problem is that on August 24, 2009, Illinois enacted S1133 prohibiting the state or localities from requiring employers to use an employment eligibility verification system. As of June 15, 2011, Illinois is the only state to impose limited usage of the E-Verify system. E-Verify was implemented by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to help employers determine employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers. How else is Farmland to determine eligibility other than asking questions of potential new hires? Farmland is a private company. Where does the government get off thinking they have the right to control a company? The company has all the risk and provides a service to the community – jobs. What is government’s contribution? Uncertainty about the future.
To add to the uncertainty and confusion, IL passed HB 1743, which creates privacy and antidiscrimination protections for workers if employers participating in E-Verify do not follow the program’s procedures. Is your head swimming yet?
Government says it is OK to be here illegally but damned the company that works to have a legal operation.
Western IL can not afford to lose industry which in turn causes a loss in jobs!!! I’m not sure President Obama or Governor Quinn makes that correlation when they add more tax and regulation to companies, sign wishy-washy legislation and sue those companies that are needed to provide jobs. Western IL does not have an over abundance of industry. When one shuts down, the effect is devastating. Just ask Galesburg after Maytag left.
Businesses are there to make a profit. When they hurt, the entire community hurts along with them.
D. M. Wasson and C. J. Parrish
Monmouth Tea Party
link to the original article: http://www.galesburg.com/news/business/x1153511442/Farmland-to-pay-290-400-in-penalties
I have asked "city officials" about this, and most of them hide their heads in the sand, and tell me that, even if they are illegal, they bring a lot of money into the city. The city would probably fold up its' streets and businesses would close! (Well, maybe all of the mexican restaurants or grocery stores we have here!) Even a real estate agent told me that some of them pay in cash for their homes! I, for one, don't like the current look of our community that we have been a part of for over 40 years.
ReplyDeleteI frankly don't see a problem with this, the company is protecting itself IF it has hired illegal workers, since all of the incoming potential employees are put through the same hiring process. If I were a company that literally spends over a million dollars a week on my payroll, I would want to potentially protect myself from losing that money to the unknown. As for the crude racial remarks, I'm sure you understand that it is an equal opportunity employer and given the high amount of foreign people that are here legally, it would be highly inappropriate to ask everyone if they are an alien. P.S. more white people go into the Mexican restaurants than Hispanics and if you could pay for your home in cash, wouldn't you?
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