Ok, I am loving this forum because I have had tons of experience with legal and illegal immigration issues. The good and the bad.
First of all, I managed restaurants for 20 years before becoming an accountant/auditor.
Being a restaurant manager has opened my eyes to alot of issues with documentation and the loop holes for illegals.
I was in charge of updating the I-9s on a quarterly basis. The law dictates that once the manager documents the I-9s for the new employee with a couple of choices of documentation, the manager does not have the right to keep copies of the documentation (green cards, Ids, social security cards, etc..). I was often told to shred them to protect the restaurant chain that I worked for and the employee who more than likely has fake papers. It is a little loop hole that often protects both the corporation and the illegal immigrant (I mean employee, wink wink) and allows them both to continue to hire people with questionable documentation. I am no expert in documentation papers or even ids, but when I fired an employee at one restaurant just to have him show up and get hired at another restaurant with new papers stating that his name is for example; Ken Smith; I get pissed. True story. Because I am in charge of I-9 docs, I request that every single employee in my restaurant is redocumented (all emps so as not to discriminate) because it is on me. I learned pretty quickly that you can only change what you control. For me, that was one restaurant with a chain of hundreds of restaurants and thousands of employees. Corporate did not care about the employee with false papers so he stayed at the other restaurant. Out of my control and INS don’t care because it is only 1 employee (that we know of). Why, because of labor dollars based on experience as a cook and not because of the availability of Americans or legal immigrants that would take a $14.00hr job (yep, $14.00 to start as a line cook). It is hard work, but I am a woman and I managed the line and jump into any position on the line when the cooks get buried. Not a discriminatory comment about women’s capabitlity of working the line or cooking on 1, but you will almost never see it. There are many legal women citizens who would work it, but never be considered due to gender (sad to say). Illegals and Legally documented workers also work to their own advantage in the work place. If a position becomes open, they say that they have a cousin named Juan who can fill it. It gets filled by Juan whether Juan has legal papers or not. Legal immigrants don’t rat out illegals but just make them part of their own team. The only way that an American manager can control his own workplace environment is by becoming (to an extent) a mexican. For the most part thinking like a mexican.
For example; I learned Spanish on the streets of Mexico city and in the State of Guerrero. Because I speak slang and not proper Spanish, it is often inferred by my behavior/language that I am hispanic.
I know that this forum is going to get mad if I suggest that they learn a second language in order to get their country back. Come on look around you. The availability of jobs now are for people who speak more than 1 language. We, as an English speaking country, are losing and it a’int going to change. The government is hiring and promoting people who speak more than 1 language and guess who decides to push the paperwork through welfare. The low level green card Spanish speaking clerk who are only required to verify just like the I-9 docs. Guess who pushes paperwork through human resources and tells their illegal friends to come on across the border and get a job. That would be your low level human resources aid green card worker who speaks Spanish and who pushes the paperwork through the system documented or not.
If you don’t think it’s happening, think twice. I know it is and I have seen it. I have been to that same welfare office trying to get help as a American citizen only to be discriminated against if I don’t check that box that says that I am also hispanic. The mexican worker called the feds to investigate me because for food stamp fraud on the day that I put in for food stamps because he did not believe that an attrative American woman who just gave birth to a child did not have a relationship with the father and that the father was not contributing financially to assist with the care of my daughter. The deputy was waiting for me when I got home and requested that I stay in the living room so that he could go through my apt to look for signs of the father living with me. He then requested that I call the father to prove that he did not live with me and that he was residing elsewhere. I had a restraining order against the father at the time and that phone call put me and my daughter at risk. All because I checked white on the intake form. Now I check hispanic and no problem. All they request is that I prove that I am an American citizen with documents. Better than having a deputy at your door. Sad to say that my American Indian heritage gets me nowhere. I am 1/16 Cherokee and in order to get tribal benefits I have to prove that I am a member of the Cherokee tribe. All I am saying is that it is much easier to check Hispanic on the intake than be harassed for being white and poor.
Oh and a lot of people believe that illegals pay in social security, state and federal taxes even when they give false social security numbers. So NOT TRUE. Another one of my jobs in addition to I-9s was to also require that new employees fill out w-4s. Ever wonder why Juan who is only 18 is filing married with 10 kids. Because they don’t take a large amount of taxes out of your check when you do. What effect does that have, you ask?? Well, when someone does not get taxes taken out of their check, it usually means that they will owe at the time of filing taxes. Hence, those who have ss numbers that are stolen are victims and are billed for those taxes owed. Thanks Juan.
My response to those who are a victim of ss fraud is this. When you find out and the IRS or Social Security refuses to assist with the financial damage done, put in for unemployment or disability. When they say that the income earned was due to fraud, just say really?? It is on my records it must be my earnings. I would go as far as to get the information and list it as work performed prior to disability of unemployment.
Here is a little of my history/experience.
Well I happen to be originally from Mississippi.
My parents picked cotton alongside African Americans. My mom started picking cotton when she was 7 or 8. My first job was running a press and changing the plates on my dads printing machine when I was 5. I worked in my family’s business since I was 5. It wasn’t really a business as much as it was survival. We made regular trips to the dump to find stuff to sell. We did anything to be able to eat and often got our clothes from the dump. We lived in a bus. We moved every 6 months. We adapted and survived. My father often sold refurbished presses to Mexico. I cannot remember a time after I was 14 that I did not spend at least 2 to 3 months in Mexico per year. I moved to Mexico when I turned 18. I called my parents and said I wasn’t coming home. I was there for about 6 months working illegally. Mexico does not provide benefits to undocumented workers. I was threatened, a knife was pulled on me. I was turned in. I was lucky. I got a flight out and probably saved myself from further mistreatment by boys with machine guns aka the federales. They make the INS look like choir boys.
I now perform audits for insurance companies. Funny thing is that you would think that I would see as much if not more undocumented and cash employees from Hispanic or immigrant owned companies, but the truth is that the majority of undocumented workers are employed by good ole American owned companies.
If you want to know who really controls the hiring of illegals in corporations, look into your low level human resource paper pusher that happens to be a green card holder. They are really the ones that handle all of the little details that we don’t want to deal with.
Personally I agree with the person who states that we are raising a generation of lazy kids that feel entitled. I blame my self for my 2 children who are spoiled and lazy. Because I didn’t have anything when I was a kid, I feel the need to give my kids everything. Big mistake. Now when I ask my 13 year old son if he wants to earn some money, he says no thanks. He knows that between my and his father’s house, he has it made. I am looking to trade my 2 kids in for a couple of mexicans at this point. Those that work or are good workers do work hard.
And those who state that illegals do contribute via sales taxes at the register needs to check your information. When was the last time that you have seen an illegal make a big ticket purchase? A lot of illegals receive food stamps (via anchors)and use those for purchase of their main ticket items (groceries).
The biggest issue that I had (my personal experience) at restaurants that I managed is theft. The only problem I have had was inventory sneaking out the back door. When I caught the workers (different workers, different times) stealing at different locations, their response almost always has been that they feel that they are owed because they don’t make much. My response has always been, you made your own bed now lay in it.
[quote]strong>Hmmmm…… with 20 million illegals potentially being given amnesty and citizenship and the fact that the majority of them will likely vote democrat what are the chances that this administration will do anything to rock the illegal boat?[/quote]
I can tell you that the unions are salivating over that number and when it happens big business is going to have a hard time keeping their wages where they are now.
[quote]strong>Hmmmm…… with 20 million illegals potentially being given amnesty and citizenship and the fact that the majority of them will likely vote democrat what are the chances that this administration will do anything to rock the illegal boat?[/quote]
I can tell you that the unions are salivating over that number and when it happens big business is going to have a hard time keeping their wages where they are now.
[quote]strong>Hmmmm…… with 20 million illegals potentially being given amnesty and citizenship and the fact that the majority of them will likely vote democrat what are the chances that this administration will do anything to rock the illegal boat?[/quote]
I can tell you that the unions are salivating over that number and when it happens big business is going to have a hard time keeping their wages where they are now.
[quote]strong>Hmmmm…… with 20 million illegals potentially being given amnesty and citizenship and the fact that the majority of them will likely vote democrat what are the chances that this administration will do anything to rock the illegal boat?[/quote]
I can tell you that the unions are salivating over that number and when it happens big business is going to have a hard time keeping their wages where they are now.
[quote]strong>Hmmmm…… with 20 million illegals potentially being given amnesty and citizenship and the fact that the majority of them will likely vote democrat what are the chances that this administration will do anything to rock the illegal boat?[/quote]
I can tell you that the unions are salivating over that number and when it happens big business is going to have a hard time keeping their wages where they are now.
