This one has to just sum up life in 21st Century America: An elected official gets caught violating immigration labor law and decides to make a personal sacrifice to set things right. He fires the POOR worker.
Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said last week, “I am disappointed I made a mistake. It never occurred to me to ask” his housekeeper if she is here legally.
Uh huh. Sure. Who would think to ask in this day and age? Especially a public official charged with helping to solve one of the biggest issues facing Maryland and the nation, right?
Ulman said the woman worked about six hours one day a week for 19 months for about $18 an hour with no benefits. According to Ulman, who makes $71 an hour base pay plus benefits, she brought her own equipment and cleaned several other houses in the area. She had good references.
According to Ulman?s taxpayer-paid spokesman, he was not required by law to ask the woman?s immigration status. However, when he found out, he had to fire her. But then he also was supposed to file regular tax forms for contract work, something he “forgot” to do until four days after relieving her of her services.
Ulman and his maid could be the poster children for all that is wrong with our current immigration policies and proposed efforts to fix them.
Estimates of the number of illegal aliens in Maryland range from the official U.S. government?s 56,000 to the Federation for American Immigration Reform?s 90,000 to Pew Hispanic Center?s 275,000.
No matter, the impact is huge. Taking FAIR as the median, state taxpayers spend an estimated $281 million a year on illegal aliens and their children in public schools alone. Add emergency health care, social programs, law enforcement costs and the expense of a huge, ineffective bureaucracy, and we end up with a huge public subsidy for guys like Ulman to get his house cleaned cheap.
If we want to fix America?s immigration problem, federal, state and local governments can?t allow a de facto “don?t ask, don?t tell” employment policy ? which punishes illegal immigrants but not employers.
Without stopping the demand for cheap labor with heavy enforcement of existing rules, the supply of illegal labor will not dry up.
A visit to the corner surrounding the 7-Eleven on Lombard and Broadway in Baltimore City – where day laborers ? many with no English skills ? fill the sidewalks every morning proves the point.
A leader would have used the situation to illustrate why immigration rules must change. Instead, Ulman cowered behind the “I know nothing” defense ? allowing a broken system to perpetuate itself yet again.
