If you audit an employer about the immigration status of his employees you can pretend that you are going after the employer but in fact you will cause untold harm to the employees who don't have good documents. 

There is no way that an audit can be enforced against an employer without hurting thousands of employees.  This is a devastating move.   I hope that it is an unintentional mistake by the Obama administration.  Perhaps Janet Napolitano doesn't understand that employer audits are a weapon invented by ICE to force working people out of the country.  This idea if allowed to be continue could cause 60,000 people to lose their jobs in the LA area.  These are people who already live on the margin now they will be forced to starve or leave the country.

STOP THE AUDITS NOW!

It is time to go to the streets against ICE.  They have fooled the Obama Administration.  These audits are an escalation of the horrible enforcement actions of the Bush Administration.

LA Times Story July 1, 2009

The American Friends Service Committee has recently published a report titled  A New Path, Toward a Humane Immigration Policy.   You can download a copy by going to their web site .

The Friends (sometimes called the Quakers) were one of the earliest groups to be active in the fight against slavery that began in the late 1700's.  The movie Amazing Grace tells the compelling story of the Quaker MP William Wilberforce and his 30 year struggle to end the British slave trade.  Would the Friends in the USA in 1845 have published a report titled "A New Path: Toward a Humane Slavery Policy?

In a book published in October 2006: Deporting Our Souls.... Values, Morality and Immigration Policy, Bill Ong Hing makes a very strong case for a much more humane immigration policy in the United States.

Hing who is on the faculty at UC Davis Law School argues that we need a new approach to immigration: "My solution is simple." He writes. "Calm down. Welcome undocumented workers...." His is a refreshing voice in a storm of fear. He uses lots of examples showing how the US's past immigration policy has mistreated people. He also shows how applications of the same policies are effecting people today. One example he uses is how Operation Gatekeeper, which sealed the border near El Paso drove the migrants into the Arizona desert where thousands have died.