Employers must support immigration reform to secure a legal work force

Companies can get a clean slate. Some undocumented workers should, too: Hattiesburg-American, a Mississippi echo editorial opinion.

ICE raids sweep up 680 undocumented immigrants across Mississippi

U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst made it clear that his office is investigating the companies in Mississippi that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided last week. It has been called the largest single-state immigration round-up, ever.

While Hurst obviously will not talk about specifics of the investigation, he attempts to allay fears that these companies will get off with no scrutiny by pointing to his past record as an assistant U.S. attorney. Hurst was the first person to prosecute a company or organization in the state for hiring undocumented workers. He’s since prosecuted multiple companies.

His first prosecution, however, is an interesting case that ironically makes a strong argument for immigration reform that includes some sort of path-to-citizenship component.

In 2006, the Country Club of Jackson became the target of an investigation by the federal government into illegal hiring practices. Federal officials contacted the CCJ in May of that year and informed them that they were currently employing 43 undocumented workers. ICE visited the country club on three separate occasions, even training CCJ management on how to identify undocumented workers and screen job applicants. Each time the feds visited, some of the original 43 identified workers were still there.

David Michael Hurst Jr. is an American attorney who currently serves as the United States Attorney for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. 

Hurst says CCJ leaders told the feds that they could not fire the workers until later in the year when golfing started to die down for the year.

When enough was enough, ICE raided the CCJ, detained 18 undocumented workers and turned the case over to the U.S. attorney’s office. The workers were deported, and CCJ was prosecuted. However, the feds “settled” with CCJ by means of a deferred prosecution. Basically, CCJ was given a list of things it had to do by a certain time. If CCJ did those things, then they would not be prosecuted. CCJ successfully upheld their end of the deal, and it never faced penalties for their illegal actions — despite how brazen they had been about it.

The reason for the deferred prosecution agreement is not unreasonable. Hurst says he, then-U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton and the Department of Justice decided that since this was the first prosecution of a company in the state, they would use it as a warning to other companies. In subsequent prosecutions of businesses who knowingly employed undocumented workers, fines for the businesses and jail time for managers have been part of the punishment.

This same logic should be applied undocumented workers who are here today. If they meet a set of certain criteria (i.e. maintain employment, pay taxes, do not commit specific crimes, complete a naturalization course, etc.) over the course of a specific period of time, then they should be granted legal residence.

Undocumented workers are not coming to rural towns across America just hoping to find a job. They are coming to rural towns because they know the jobs are there. And they are not living in underground bunkers and traveling only under the cloak of night. They are members of these small communities — they live there, work there, shop there, go to church there, send their children to school there.

But the government turns a blind eye to them. Until they don’t. 

And they are rarely given a second chance. 

Even those fortunate enough to be released on humanitarian reasons still face deportation hearings and are monitored. There is no promise of a clean slate. In fact, there is no opportunity for one under current law. That needs to change.