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Business groups vie to be 'part of the conversation' on immigration
The Ayuda Business Coalition announced Aug. 14 that it has raised $100,000 to campaign against policies aiming to curb illegal immigration, proposed by local governments in Northern Virginia.“[The immigrant community's] voice must be a part of the conversation, before these laws are enacted,” said Mauricio Vivero, executive director of Ayuda, the Washington, D.C.-based immigrant advocacy group that is spearheading the campaign.
In the wake of stalled federal reform of the nation's troubled immigration system, jurisdictions across Northern Virginia – including Loudoun, Prince William and Culpeper counties -- are searching for ways to curb illegal immigration.
In Loudoun, proposed measures include denying public services to undocumented residents and punishing businesses who hire unauthorized workers.
The Board of Supervisors asked the county staff, in a resolution passed in mid-July, to investigate whether Loudoun can “deny building permits, business licenses, or contracts to those companies that may not be in compliance with federal immigration laws.”
Leesburg resident Jose Luis Semidey is one of the founding members of the Ayuda Business Coalition.
“Do you really think denying someone a business license is going to solve the immigration problem? That doesn't compute,” said Semidey, who is is a real-estate broker who does business in Loudoun.
He said that if business licenses were actually denied to businesses that hire illegal workers, Loudoun's restaurants, cleaning companies and construction companies would have to close their doors.
Semidey said he understands the desire for law and order, but he added that the policies proposed by the Loudoun supervisors do not address the complexity of the immigration system's problems.
With the coalition's announcement came a call for more businesses – Latino-owned or not -- to donate their time and money to the lobbying and education effort. Vivero of Ayuda, a word that means “help” in Spanish, said that local governments are moving too fast on these policies and that the economic and social implications have not been adequately studied.
“They haven't heard from this community at all," Vivero said. "The Hispanic community has not been invited."
But Sterling resident Joseph Budzinski said these measures are needed to enforce laws that are already on the books. He leads Help Save Loudoun, a group that supports local enforcement of immigration laws.
“We don't know for sure what the county staff is going to find out,” he said. “Although we certainly are hoping that they do find something, because other counties, other jurisdictions throughout the U.S. have found ways ... to assert some pressure on local businesses."
Some of Loudoun's business leaders and immigrant advocates say that officials should not punish employers who are victims of a broken immigration system.
“Any type of sanction against employers without there being a consistent, credible system [of verifying immigration status] at the federal level would be the wrong decision,“ said Tony Howard, president and CEO of the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce.
Howard said that the Chamber wants its members to obey the law, but 85 percent are small businesses – employing 25 people or less – and have limited resources to verify immigration status under the current system.
“This is an issue for very small businesses, not a problem for AOL,” Howard said.
Howard noted that Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), who drafted the supervisors’ resolution, has never spoken with him or the Chamber’s board about the issue.
“I wish that he had reached out to [us] and said, ‘What do you think of this? How can it be better?’ " Howard said.
Delgaudio responded, “We do have a relationship with [the business community]. We’ve been letting them get away with murder.”
He shrugged off the suggestion that businesses have limited means to verify their employer’s status, saying that the business community has a vested interest in ignoring immigration law.
“The Chamber of Commerce fundamentally doesn't care. They will find a way to break the law,” Delgaudio said.
He said he believes increased enforcement measures will force businesses to be more vigilant in their hiring practices. At the very least, he said, he wants business owners to pledge, when they apply for a business license, that they are authorized to work in this country.
Herndon passed such a measure in October 2006.
No estimates are available of how many undocumented immigrants work in Loudoun County, but the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that, as of March 2006, 11.5 to 12 million unauthorized immigrants live in the United States – and 250,000 to 300,000 live in Virginia.
Some immigrants provide fraudulent Social Security cards, green cards or work visas to employers that are virtually identical to real documents, making it difficult for employers to spot them.
Only after many months does the employer and employee get a “no-match letter” from the Social Security Administration, which says that the Social Security number obtained from the worker does not match the person’s name.
In an effort to step up enforcement of immigration law in the workplace, President George Bush on Aug. 10 released a plan to force employers to fire workers who get a “no-match letter” and can’t resolve it within 90 days.
Laura Valle of La Voz of Loudoun, a local immigrant advocacy group, said the immigration system is broken on a national scale, and her experience has taught her that local employers are not actively seeking to break the law.
“I think there may be companies that would exploit undocumented workers, but I think the majority of Loudoun business pay a very fair wage,” Valle said. “And they don't have the capacity to know whether people are undocumented workers.”
Loudoun ranks 14th nationally with a 159.8 percent increase in its Hispanic population from 2000 to 2006, according to U.S. Census data.
Recent data also reveal that there are 1,040 Hispanic-owned businesses in Loudoun, with revenues totaling $125,693,000.
Contact the reporter at akeisman@timespapers.com
In this controversy about illegal immigrants causing a terrible drain on government resources, I am wondering if those concerned have evidence that illegal immigrant avoid state, county and local sales taxes? When they buy cars, do they avoid tax, title and registration fees? When they buy gas, do they avoid the tax portion of the bill? When they shop at Target, Kohls, Wal Mart, Sears, or Macy's, do they avoid their legal sales tax obligations?
If it it TRULY about the finances, let's "follow the money." How much tax money do illegal immigrants contribute to our economy? How much labor to they provide for a wide range of industries and services? In deed, what is their CONTRIBUTION to our county and country?
For those concerned citizens who claim this to be a legal and financial issue, perhaps they ought to engage in a careful examination of the real value of immigrants to this great country of ours.
Posted by LoudounPatriot
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Also, a lot of times illegal immigrants will use a fake social security number to get a job, like Ms. Keisman said in the article, but they still have that little box on the right-hand side of their paycheck that says: FD. WH - 65.48; SOC. SEC. - 47.26; MEDICARE - 14.76; and VA WH S-01 - 32.48. They aren't registered for social security or medicare and won't see any of this money again like legal citizens will, eventually.
Posted by Idler
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