"ICE also recently raided nearly 100 7-Eleven franchises across the country and arrested 21 people. If that happened in California, the store owners would be required under a separate law to request warrants and subpoenas.
That law, called the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, also went into effect Jan. 1. It requires that employers admit immigration officials to a worksite only if the agents have a warrant; keep workers’ confidential information private in the absence of a subpoena; and notify their workers before a federal audit of employee records takes place.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced on Jan. 18 that his office would go after employers who share information about workers in contradiction of the new law and they could face prosecution, including fines of up to $10,000.
“We want to protect people’s rights to privacy and protect their ability to go about their business, going to work and feeding their kids,” said Becerra, an appointee who is running for election to his post this year." VCSTAR
-----------
I don't know if Xavier Becerra (El Zorro) has actually taken legal action against businesses for cooperating with the US government. When he does I would think that would be actionable. pl
Hasty research reveals the following: T18USC1513 Retaliating against a witness, victim, or informant...
(e) Whoever knowingly, with the intent to retaliate, takes any action harmful to any person, including interference with the lawful employment or livelihood of any person, for providing to a law enforcement officer any truthful information relating to the commission or possible commission of any Federal offense, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
There are, I am sure, other applicable violations.
Failure to enforce immigration law consistently and uniformly over a full generation has resulted in one unholy mess - not the least of which is impenetrable political dynamics.
In my opinion, a good start out of the mess would be to break out what used to be the Immigration and Naturalization Service from ICE, beef it up with resources sufficient to the job, assess by Region, State and City where the violators are and where the biggest impact will be made and how to make it, and hold the new INS accountable for enforcing the laws on the books.
Call it the Federal Government doing its job. It is not like it wasn't ever done in the past.
Posted by: Flavius | 28 February 2018 at 11:56 AM
After any law is passed, those persons and organizations subject to the new law will have an opportunity to challenge that law in court. Most likely, California's new law protecting undocumented people from the federal government will be found to conflict with federal laws and be declared unconstitutional. This happens all the time with state laws.
We are a nation of laws and disputes over laws are decided in our courts. California isn't leaving the Union and starting a new Civil War over the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Posted by: TimmyB | 28 February 2018 at 12:12 PM
james
I suppose tis is another reflection of your general ignorance about government and history. I the US it is a basic principle of law that federal law is supreme over state law. Without that principle the Union will disintegrate again. My post is not about favoring sentimental features of state law that one might like. It is about preventing the dissolution of the Union a second time. If California wished =s to secede from the Union, let them be honest about it. I am sure you are quite happy about the imposition of federal law in the Civil rights era but that was something you like. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 28 February 2018 at 03:08 PM
Probably 6-7 million of the total illegals in the USA are in CA - working in the ag and hospitality industries. This is the practical reality - agriculture businesses routinely hire illegals, take photocopies of their required two pieces of ID, and work them hard, very hard. Just watch any harvest crew picking peppers or tomatoes - they run to the truck to maximise their income.
The stupidity and greed and duplicity of the current situation is this - illegals are a tolerated docile slave class - tolerated because they work for less than citizens and businesses profit from them. And they pay into SSI and medicare without ever benefiting from them, which benefits the larger society. Yes it creates all kinds of social ills - which businesses don't care about - the result of a large number of disenfranchised people with different social norms in our country- which most citizens don't like - as their kids can frequently be minorities in their own schools.
And the political class ignores this reality - every illegal in the country could be identified by auditing the social security numbers of every business payroll- there must be some SS numbers which generate hundreds if not thousands of W2's. That this doesn;t happen tells us that the government is not really serious about dealing with the problem. It's a show. Because the reality is if every illegal were deported the ag sector in California would come to a dead stop.
Posted by: divadab | 28 February 2018 at 03:23 PM
james
I think USCons VI/2 is pretty definitive "every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Posted by: scott s. | 28 February 2018 at 03:47 PM
james
9/11 has nothing to do with it. The 18th Century US Constitution created the supremacy of federal law. That was always true. This constitution was specifically adopted to strengthen the powers of the federal government and that supremacy was confirmed by Northern victory in the Civil War. The Patriot Act has nothing to do with that principle and the resistance of California government is not a matter of "privacy rights" such rights do not exist in the US Constitution. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 28 February 2018 at 04:18 PM
If the Dems ever end up controlling the federal govt again, I can imagine Bacerra having a meltdown and singing a very different tune when states start up sanctuary districts for so called "assault rifles". Ditto if some state wanted to return to segregation. Why just a few months ago they were apoplectic about the Confederacy; not only b/ of slavery, but b/c the South defied the federal government and the precious union.
These people have no foundation in belief or principle. It's all BS all the time. They're mere opportunists. They just spew whatever rhetoric suits them at the time and count the people having no memory, short-term or long-term.
I still say that, in the case of Bacerra and others, they are colluding with the Mexican govt and with narco cartels in an act of treason ( i.e. illegals voting/election fraud/foreign meddling in elections/invasion of the USA by a foreign power/taking drug cartel money). I am very disappointed in the Trump admin, for not exposing the Mexican connections and arresting these people on the same law(s) - whatever they imagine it/them to be - with which they think Mueller will get nail Trump.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | 28 February 2018 at 07:31 PM
divadab,
What makes you think that businesses knowingly employees would remit to the Treasury any SSI and Medicare payments they deducted from the pay of those they knew were here illegally and whom they were illegally hiring?
Posted by: Fred | 28 February 2018 at 09:05 PM
divadab,
You hit a central point in this argument. Agribusiness, along with the hospitality and construction industries rely on undocumented workers in their business models. These workers do contribute a substantial sum to the federal coffers. According to the Social Security Chief Actuary's records, undocumented workers, paid at least $12 billion into Social Security in 2010 alone. These workers also contributed $10.6 billion in sales, property and local taxes that year. Those workers have no power in this relationship. If the activists and government in California are seeking to normalize the position of the illegals in order to give them the same power in the labor-management equation as legal US citizens in the state, I salute their efforts. If that's not their goal, they're just as exploitative as those who hire the illegals in the first place. It would be better for ICE to go after those who hire the illegals. If the illegals couldn't find work here, they'd leave. That's exactly what happened here in Virginia during the last economic downturn.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 28 February 2018 at 11:33 PM
"And they pay into SSI and medicare without ever benefiting from them ..."
That's true if they have fake SS numbers and are paid by check. But if they're paid in cash--like the people at the day-labor assembly points--then it's highly unlikely that they're paying into anything. Of course, they're still getting screwed by their own employers; and some them, no doubt, won't get paid at all.
Posted by: Seamus Padraig | 01 March 2018 at 08:29 AM
"And they pay into SSI and medicare without ever benefiting from them ..."
Those who have fake SS cards may be (or maybe not) paying into SSI. However, they are also receiving all kinds of other benefits. For example, I see them getting fully subsidized Obamacare (ACA) insurance.
Also, when they have children, they begin to receive large amounts of welfare.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | 01 March 2018 at 09:03 AM
Would I be correct inferring that you believe the Federal Government to be the supreme arbiter of Law in America?
Posted by: Covergirl | 01 March 2018 at 09:39 AM
covergirl
The US Constitution is quite clear in establishing the supremacy of federal law. "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." Article Six, Clause 2. If California does not accept that, it can attempt secession. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 01 March 2018 at 09:41 AM
TTG,
What you say makes no sense from the liberal policy platform. Democrats are perpetually agitating for a higher minimum wage. To the extent that hospitality and construction jobs are going to illegals, that drives down wages for low skilled workers. get rid of the illegals and wages associated wit that type of employment go up. Suddenly those jobs are attractive to low skilled Americans.
This issue boils down to Democrats (and some Rs) preferring illegal aliens and business interests over regular American citizens. It is indefensible, IMO.
Also, temporary work visas can fill labor demand for a lot of these jobs, particularly in the more seasonal construction trades. I laid a lot of block and concrete footers with guys who had come up from Mexico on temp visas. Great guys, hard workers and skilled too. They'd work for a few months and then return to Mexico. Then they'd come back again the following year. Nothing wrong with that.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | 01 March 2018 at 10:03 AM
Eric,
And of course they have zero children in the US who grow up to use schools, graduate from schools and recieve preferential placement in colleges and universities.
TTG,
"Those workers have no power in this relationship."
They can go home, to countries I am assured are not, well you know what they are not.
Posted by: Fred | 01 March 2018 at 10:05 AM
It already happened 20 years ago.
In Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 935 (1997), a Montana Sheriff Jay Printz challenged the constitutionality of a federal handgun control scheme that required him and other local law enforcement officers to conduct background checks on prospective handgun buyers, ensuring that no handguns were illegally purchased. In invalidating the law, the Supreme Court stated that Congress cannot require state officers to enforce federal laws.
Posted by: outthere | 01 March 2018 at 10:07 AM
outthere
Irrelevant. What California government is close to doing is actively opposing federal law. Their new "worker protection law" penalizes businesses for complying with federal law. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 01 March 2018 at 10:14 AM
Surely secession isn't the only option. Indeed, the entire Constitution is predicated on the ideals ennobled in the Declaration of Independence. The source of authority for the Constitution is derived directly from that philosophical expiation. As I'm sure you are aware, there's very clear justification within that document fro precisely acts of resistance against the inevitable corruption (in the classical sense of decay) of the Fed.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Posted by: Covergirl | 01 March 2018 at 01:22 PM
Having various discussions with people, it's apparent it's often a matter of confusion about the primacy of federal law. So while state or local officials can't be compelled to enforce federal laws (though they often are through fiscal coercion in the form of withholding federal funds states and localities are dependent on), it's also true they can't actively impede federal enforcement of those laws. And, taking that into account, a local or state official who seeks to punish locals for cooperating with federal agents could be guilty of obstruction or witness tampering. So, some locality, infected with virtue signalling virus can declare itself a sanctuary and have its own police not enforce immigration laws, but when did local cops actually try to do that with the exception of Joe Arpaio? But they'd better not get in the way..
On another note, one poster postulated about tracking employment of illegals through
social security numbers and tax withholdings. I can only say that I know a numebr of people in the contracting business who hire young male Central Americans (many are not actually Mexican, though folks generally lump them all together) and these people tell me their employees are legit, that they have "papers". Of course they do, but the papers are forgeries. How many unattached young men from there are actually allowed in? H1B visas..not a chance when they are uneducated peasants with no obvious skills other than the ability to run a leaf blower. So they can buy fake papers with real seeming SS numbers and those may be real numbers belonging to other people. Once in a blue moon one of them gets snared and charged with identity theft, but most aren't. I am about as sure as can be that of all my contractor friends who employ Latinos, probably not one is actually here legally.
Posted by: A.Pols | 01 March 2018 at 04:14 PM
covergirl
"Surely secession isn't the only option." I didn't say it is the only option. Yet another strawman. You, too, cannot recognize irony? Are you lefties circulating memos among you? As I said to your pal, PA, the California politicians can submit to the will of the Congress of the US or they can continue down the road to attempted nullification and interposition. If they go that way they will end in federal court. The Declaration of Independence is not law nor the basis for law. It never was. That is clear from comparison of the texts. Was the provision for the 3/5th rule present in the declaration? Was the Great Compromise present in the Declaration? The Declaration was revolutionary statement of intent ane nothing more. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 01 March 2018 at 05:04 PM
It would be good to hear from you more detail on how California's "new 'worker protection law' penalizes businesses for complying with federal law."
Are you talking about AB 1897? How is that "close to actively opposing federal law"?
Please explain.
Posted by: outthere | 01 March 2018 at 05:22 PM
outthere
You are being deliberately trollish and disruptive. Read the law and my post. You obviously did not read the linked article. I have better things to do than play games with you. Since you seem unable to find the new law. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB450
pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 01 March 2018 at 05:28 PM