PennCustom4RP
08-03-2007, 09:13 PM
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/03/ldt.01.html
CNN.com - Transcripts
More from Lou Dobbs show earlier tonight.
Transcript:
DOBBS: The Department of Homeland Security says it will intensify its efforts to keep illegal aliens out of the workplace. The Department of Homeland Security saying as many as 10 percent of all employees' Social Security numbers are now suspect in this country.
And DHS will soon introduce rules to force employers to fire illegal aliens with phony Social Security numbers.
But, as Casey Wian now reports, critics are skeptical.
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Within two weeks, the Department of Homeland Security will publish new regulations requiring employers to fire illegal alien workers using phony Social Security numbers.
Current policy allows employers to ignore letters from the Social Security Administration, warning that a worker's number is not valid. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff demonstrated one eligibility verification system in June.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: What's bringing most of these people in is illegal work. And the only way to prevent that illegal work from being authored is to require the employers to use a system like this one.
WIAN: A Homeland Security spokesman, while refusing to discuss specifics, says the new legislations will lay out very serious consequences and eliminate any ambiguity over the responsibility employers have to verify Social Security numbers.
Skeptics say the system may encourage illegal aliens to steal identities, rather than use bogus Social Security numbers.
T.J. BONNER, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL: It's really naive to believe that people who are paying smugglers thousands of dollars, risking their lives walking across through our deserts are not going to pay a few hundred or perhaps even a thousand more in order to obtain these documents so that they can get the holy grail, a job in the United States.
WIAN: DHS says the new regulations will be combined with more frequent work site raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and give ICE another tool to prove an employer is fragrantly hiring illegal aliens.
Some employers complain restrictions on cheap illegal alien labor could drive them out of business or out of the country. The American Immigration Lawyers Association told reporters on a conference call, "It's a terrible choice that we're putting employers into."
The National Council of La Raza says, "Increased levels of immigration raids in workplaces and also in neighborhoods, separating parents from their children in many cases, it's a pretty ugly environment out there."
They predicted the crackdown will drive more illegal alien workers underground.
WIAN: Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza also says the Latino community is pretty angry about increased enforcement actions and the failure of so-called compromise immigration reform. She says Latinos are going to mobilize with voter registration efforts and by exposing what she called bigotry, adding, her community believes, Lou, the gloves really need to come off.
DOBBS: Well, they have made it pretty clear, Munoz herself referring to a wave of hate as the reason for the defeat of the legislation, now suggesting bigotry is behind the enforcement of existing U.S. immigration law.
This is absolutely absurd, the level to which La Raza -- and I spoke on this broadcast with Janet Murguia, who I respect, who I consider to be a rational advocate and spokeswoman for the interests of her organization. This is crazy.
WIAN: What's even crazier, I think, is, it's not just groups like La Raza. It's the Service Employees Union, it's the Catholic Church, it is the Immigration Lawyers Association, all on that same conference call with La Raza today, outraged that Department of Homeland Security would dare enforce immigration laws.
DOBBS: The American people had better realize that the immigration lawyers, La Raza, the Chamber of Commerce, the Catholic Council of Bishops all have a seat at the table in Washington, D.C., up on Capitol Hill, and that the American people are not represented -- well, almost unrepresented entirely -- at that table on the issue of illegal immigration and border security.
And, if the American people do not make their wishes and their views known, they are going to get rolled by every special interest, every corporate interest, every socio-ethnocentric interest in the country who care nothing about our laws.
It is -- the idea that an organization called La Raza would talk about bigotry and -- of any kind, when it it's -- when its title is La Raza, and to suggest that enforcement of U.S. law is somehow an abridgement of their rights, it's extraordinary.
Casey Wian, thank you very much, reporting from Los Angeles.
CNN.com - Transcripts
More from Lou Dobbs show earlier tonight.
Transcript:
DOBBS: The Department of Homeland Security says it will intensify its efforts to keep illegal aliens out of the workplace. The Department of Homeland Security saying as many as 10 percent of all employees' Social Security numbers are now suspect in this country.
And DHS will soon introduce rules to force employers to fire illegal aliens with phony Social Security numbers.
But, as Casey Wian now reports, critics are skeptical.
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Within two weeks, the Department of Homeland Security will publish new regulations requiring employers to fire illegal alien workers using phony Social Security numbers.
Current policy allows employers to ignore letters from the Social Security Administration, warning that a worker's number is not valid. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff demonstrated one eligibility verification system in June.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: What's bringing most of these people in is illegal work. And the only way to prevent that illegal work from being authored is to require the employers to use a system like this one.
WIAN: A Homeland Security spokesman, while refusing to discuss specifics, says the new legislations will lay out very serious consequences and eliminate any ambiguity over the responsibility employers have to verify Social Security numbers.
Skeptics say the system may encourage illegal aliens to steal identities, rather than use bogus Social Security numbers.
T.J. BONNER, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL: It's really naive to believe that people who are paying smugglers thousands of dollars, risking their lives walking across through our deserts are not going to pay a few hundred or perhaps even a thousand more in order to obtain these documents so that they can get the holy grail, a job in the United States.
WIAN: DHS says the new regulations will be combined with more frequent work site raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and give ICE another tool to prove an employer is fragrantly hiring illegal aliens.
Some employers complain restrictions on cheap illegal alien labor could drive them out of business or out of the country. The American Immigration Lawyers Association told reporters on a conference call, "It's a terrible choice that we're putting employers into."
The National Council of La Raza says, "Increased levels of immigration raids in workplaces and also in neighborhoods, separating parents from their children in many cases, it's a pretty ugly environment out there."
They predicted the crackdown will drive more illegal alien workers underground.
WIAN: Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza also says the Latino community is pretty angry about increased enforcement actions and the failure of so-called compromise immigration reform. She says Latinos are going to mobilize with voter registration efforts and by exposing what she called bigotry, adding, her community believes, Lou, the gloves really need to come off.
DOBBS: Well, they have made it pretty clear, Munoz herself referring to a wave of hate as the reason for the defeat of the legislation, now suggesting bigotry is behind the enforcement of existing U.S. immigration law.
This is absolutely absurd, the level to which La Raza -- and I spoke on this broadcast with Janet Murguia, who I respect, who I consider to be a rational advocate and spokeswoman for the interests of her organization. This is crazy.
WIAN: What's even crazier, I think, is, it's not just groups like La Raza. It's the Service Employees Union, it's the Catholic Church, it is the Immigration Lawyers Association, all on that same conference call with La Raza today, outraged that Department of Homeland Security would dare enforce immigration laws.
DOBBS: The American people had better realize that the immigration lawyers, La Raza, the Chamber of Commerce, the Catholic Council of Bishops all have a seat at the table in Washington, D.C., up on Capitol Hill, and that the American people are not represented -- well, almost unrepresented entirely -- at that table on the issue of illegal immigration and border security.
And, if the American people do not make their wishes and their views known, they are going to get rolled by every special interest, every corporate interest, every socio-ethnocentric interest in the country who care nothing about our laws.
It is -- the idea that an organization called La Raza would talk about bigotry and -- of any kind, when it it's -- when its title is La Raza, and to suggest that enforcement of U.S. law is somehow an abridgement of their rights, it's extraordinary.
Casey Wian, thank you very much, reporting from Los Angeles.