← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · JAT
Thread ID: 10748 | Posts: 11 | Started: 2003-10-25
2003-10-25 23:47 | User Profile
[QUOTE]MEXICO CITY, Oct 24 (Reuters) - U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Friday police raids on dozens of U.S. Wal-Mart stores in the search for illegal immigrants this week amounted to "terrorizing" workers.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2003/10/24/rtr1122877.html[/url]
2003-10-26 00:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE] MEXICO CITY, Oct 24 (Reuters) - U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Friday police raids on dozens of U.S. Wal-Mart stores in the search for illegal immigrants this week amounted to "terrorizing" workers.[/QUOTE]
I am sure she says that everytime a lawbreaker ends up on the receiving end of Justice.
2003-10-26 00:47 | User Profile
If arresting illegal whites is terrorizing, arresting illegal hispanics must be genocide.
[edit]Of couse, I realize that the only reason why arresting illegal whites is terrorizing is because it hit's a little too close to illegal hispanics.
2003-10-26 04:34 | User Profile
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of workers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. locations across the country were arrested on immigration charges in an investigation into contractor cleaning crews, and some company executives knew about the alleged illegal hirings, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
They said the investigation, known as "Operation Rollback," involved allegations the contractor had recruited illegal immigrants, [B]mainly Eastern European nationals,[/B] to work on cleaning crews at stores of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer.
Two officials initially said about 300 workers had been arrested at 61 stores in 21 states. But the officials later revised the numbers and said about 250 had been arrested at some 60 stores. They said investigators were still pursuing at least 50 workers.
Federal law enforcement officials said some Wal-Mart executives had direct knowledge of the alleged scheme, based on recorded conversations, surveillance and monitoring.
One official said federal agents conducted searches at the Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters of Wal-Mart, the largest U.S. private sector employer, with about 1.1 million workers in the United States and 1.4 million worldwide.
Another official said federal grand jury subpoenas have been issued for the Wal-Mart executives to testify. The executives were not identified.
An official said the U.S. investigators believe Wal-Mart has shown a "reckless disregard" for U.S. immigration laws, exploiting workers, and has continued to hire some contractors who were already convicted of felony violations.
A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company was "committed to cooperating" with federal officials, who he said came to company headquarters with specific requests for information.
"These are third-party contractors," spokesman Tom Williams said. "We require that the contractors use legal workers."
"We don't know at this point if the current investigation includes one or more outside contractors. We use hundreds of them," he said, adding that about 1,000 of Wal-Mart's U.S. stores have outside cleaning services.
Wal-Mart already faces dozens of lawsuits alleging discrimination and violations of wage-and-hour rules. The company has drawn fire from labor groups, who say the company has an anti-union stance.
WORKSITE ENFORCEMENT EFFORT
Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the arrests were part of a "worksite enforcement" effort.
"If a company knowingly hires illegal workers it can be penalized up to $10,000 per person," he said.
The latest arrests stemmed from two prior investigations by federal immigration officials involving contractors and Wal-Mart stores, one in 1998 and the other in 2001, the officials said.
One official said the cleaning contractor at issue in the latest investigation was owned by two Illinois men and a Missouri man.
The company, which was not identified, allegedly hired illegal aliens, who had been recruited in the United States and in Europe, the official said.
Kurt Barnard, head of the consulting firm Retail Forecasting Group, said, "This is going to be a major public relations problem, with lots of tongues wagging about it."
Still, he said the news would probably have little effect on Wal-Mart's sales or profits because the company's low prices will continue to attract shoppers by the millions. Wal-Mart estimates more than 100 million Americans visit their stores every week.
On Wall Street, the stock closed up 47 cents at $58.71 on the New York Stock Exchange.
In March, a federal court jury acquitted leading poultry processor Tyson Foods and three of its executives of conspiring to smuggle illegal immigrants to work at its U.S. plants. (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles and Emily Kaiser)
Copyright é 2003 Reuters Limited.
2003-10-26 21:16 | User Profile
The Chimp's game in this (or more likely Karl Rove's) is plain to see: make a big show of "roundin' up them daggone illegals" for O'Reilly-watching Joe Six Pack (elections will be here soon enough) - without "alienating" their beloved cucarachas.
2003-10-27 00:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=N.B. Forrest]The Chimp's game in this (or more likely Karl Rove's) is plain to see: make a big show of "roundin' up them daggone illegals" for O'Reilly-watching Joe Six Pack (elections will be here soon enough) - without "alienating" their beloved cucarachas.[/QUOTE] I could be wrong, but I think anyone who watches the illegal situation will see right through this one. They'll respond the same as us "what about all the illegals from mexico?" And, it won't make any difference about the brainless neocons who'd vote for Bush if he was a convicted child rapist.
2003-10-27 01:12 | User Profile
I[I] could be wrong, but I think anyone who watches the illegal situation will see right through this one. They'll respond the same as us "what about all the illegals from mexico[/I]?"
True story. All the Freepers are saying the same thing. Maybe the worm is going to turn?
2003-11-04 23:35 | User Profile
[QUOTE]If a company knowingly hires illegal workers it can be penalized up to $10,000 per person," he said[/QUOTE]
Yeah Sure....
They had the Tyson exec's dead to right's with bribes to Mexican smugglers on company letterhead and exactly nothing happened and no one was fined or imprisoned.
Just showboating for the benefit of a gullible public. This is a ploy to make it seem they are doing something about illegal immigration enforcement while the congress attempts to sneak 10 or 12 million mexicans in the back door as "guest workers".
Hang onto your wallets. Property Taxes to fund education and keep hospitals open are going up up up. But once here you can't deny "basic rights" to illegals.
Hell someone has to subsidize cheap labor so corporate exec's can throw 2 million dollar birthday parties for their wives.
2003-11-07 16:16 | User Profile
I think here we see how democracy works out: any large potential voting block will be courted, regardless of rationality.
In my view, no one in the US government cares about hispanic immigration. If they wanted to bust some illegals, around here they could simply arrest the customers in Wal-mart and 40% of them would be heading back to Mexico.
2003-11-07 23:52 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Craig Smith]I think here we see how democracy works out: any large potential voting block will be courted, regardless of rationality.
[B]In my view, no one in the US government cares about hispanic immigration.[/B] If they wanted to bust some illegals, around here they could simply arrest the customers in Wal-mart and 40% of them would be heading back to Mexico.[/QUOTE]
Oh, but they [I]DO[/I] care about hispanic immigration... IMHO, I think they want a vast army of poorly educated slug workers to do the shit jobs that nobody else will, just like they always have in the past (at least in the short term). This time it's the hispanics in the bucket (not that I have any empathy for the hispanics. Personally, I'd like to see a double layered electric fence with a minefield going from Brownsville to the Baja Gulf, but that won't happen).
One other thing to ponder: All the assembly plants set hard up against the US border with Mexico, where all the US companies currently have their poorly paid employees making t-shirts, washing machines, etc, are going to be abandoned soon. Companies are figuring that they can move to India and pay some half-starved Hadji 4 cents an hour vs. the 5 bucks a day they pay Julio and Maria. Simple economics. The Mexicans currently working these assembly plants largely come from the same area in Mexico: Chiapas.
Chiapas is the traditional hotbed of socialist/communist/marxist trouble in Mexico. Every time they have a revolution or attempted revolution, the radicals come from Chiapas. Currently, it's the Zapatista's making noise. In response, the Mexican Government has promised jobs and opportunity assembling things for the Gringos in northern Mexico. When the situation implodes and US companies bail out for cheaper pastures, where do you think thousands of displaced, disgruntled radical Mezitos are going to go? 1000 miles back down south to Chiapas and back to their mud and stick huts or the 10 miles to the north to the country where the streets are paved with gold?
Easy choice.
Presidente Fox is one smart bastard. He moved all the radicals and troublemakers north to get them out of Chiapas to where he can keep an eye on them. Once the industry implodes and the work dries up, they're going to bail north, meaning: They're not his problem anymore. It's a win/win for him. And the thought of hundreds of thousands of those bastards crossing the border where they will be largely ignored (until it's too late) fills me with a warm fuzzy feeling.
Ausonius
2003-11-08 04:54 | User Profile
They only want to stop ukranians from coming in. Illegals have all rights , that's the absolute truth. Just another power blow . It's ok. we know the lie. I don't know how they sleep at night. Time will show