Don’t Pass the Buck On Immigration Enforcement to Doctors and Hospitals
It looks like the latest excuse for opposing health care reform in Congress is that the illegal immigration issue has not been solved. It really isn’t that difficult to solve – you just have to follow the money. And the money in illegal immigration is the additional corporate profits it generates.
How do you solve that?
- Stop giving companies warnings of impending immigration checks.
- Make finding a certain threshold number of illegal immigrants at a plant legally defined as “willful violation” of the relevant laws, and make the penalty for “willful violation” include the immediate forfeiture of the location, its buildings and equipment.
After a few chicken plants or carpet mills are seized, you can bet that corporate policy will no longer reward plant managers who cut their labor cost by hiring illegal immigrants. No tax dollars need be wasted on fences or other ridiculous attempts to convince voters that Congress has “done something” about illegal immigration. No immigration enforcement dollars need be turned into health care dollars. We need to reduce health care administrative costs, not add to them.
