Mayor Villaraigosa Wants ICE To Protect Illegal Immigrants

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa thinks Immigration and Customs Enforcement should spend its time protecting illegal immigrants rather than deporting them.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is asking federal officials to rethink their policy on workplace immigration crackdowns that involve established businesses and to focus on employers that mistreat workers instead. ...

He said ICE should spend its limited resources targeting employers who exploit wage and hour laws.

Unless I'm mistaken, labor law enforcement isn't under ICE's purview.

Chertoff has not responded to the mayor's letter, but Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said the department believes its priorities are correct.

She said work-site investigations focus on national security and public safety and that the agency also investigates companies it believes may have committed visa fraud, money laundering, and other violations.

It's obvious that you can't deport all of the tens of millions of illegal immigrants that are in America, but this sort of work-site enforcement is a critical component of the attrition strategy that is most likely to make a dent in the problem. When you punish one employer and deport a dozen of his employees, hundreds of other people are put on notice. Other employers will tighten their employment practices, and illegal immigrants will self-deport when the environment is no longer conducive to their presence.