Mr. Speaker. as I raise this issue with my colleagues. first I want to acknowledge that I believe that there are a number of efforts trying to make their way through the House and Senate on immigration reform that really should give us an opportunity to have a degree of synergism to respond to the concerns of the American people. I rise today because I just finished a hearing in the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims on the important topic of employer sanctions. It would seem we should have agreement that employers should be penalized when they engage in the hiring of undocumented aliens. But interestingly enough. there is not agreement. The business community is particularly sensitive to this. claiming they are not able to find enough workers to fill these jobs. Then. of course. I think the AFLCIO has a meritorious argument that when you enforce employer sanctions. employers who are unscrupulous will then enforce them against innocent persons. some documented and some undocumented. by either massively firing them or punishing them with lower wages and bad working conditions. Interestingly enough. those who are fired will go out the door and that unscrupulous employer will then find others who are more timid to fulfill those jobs and they themselves may be undocumented. There are many issues that cannot be handled piecemeal. Let me share another thought that came up in the hearing.
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Immigration undocumented immigration