Raiding jobs

With Congress about to revisit the issue of illegal immigration, it's time to put in a good word for a controversial enforcement tool — and correct a misconception.

Workplace raids may not always be pleasing to the eye but they are an appropriate, necessary and defensible way to combat illegal immigration. However, they're not a silver bullet for the ailments of the U.S. workforce.

When immigration officials storm a meatpacking plant or a chicken-processing company or a peach orchard and haul off illegal immigrant workers, it can temporarily change the workforce. If employers have to pay higher wages to replace those workers, it might attract U.S. workers for a time.

That was the point of a recent article in USA Today, which suggested that U.S. workers are the beneficiaries of immigration raids.

Yet, before long, we can expect many replacement workers to recall why they didn't take those jobs before — because they're hard, dirty, difficult or dangerous. Before long, they'll quit. And the employer will be back at square one, trying to entice workers who don't really want to work there.

That's what happened a few years ago in Stillmore, Ga., according to the Wall Street Journal.

In 2006, after a raid by immigration agents, a chicken-processing company called Crider Inc. lost three-fourths of its workers. To recruit replacements, Crider raised pay at the plant to $9 an hour and offered free rooms in a company-owned dormitory. American employees lined up for the jobs. But the story didn't end there. According to the Journal, the plant was soon struggling with retention, lower productivity and disputes over working conditions. Many workers left.

Georgia Southern University professor Debra Sabia said it best, telling the newspaper: "If you gave a survey to Americans and asked them where they'd want to work, a slaughterhouse would not be on the list. These are not jobs we aspire for our children to take."

She's right. These are not choice jobs. Yet someone has to do them, and "someone" often turns out to be illegal immigrants. We don't condone that, and that's why we believe the immigration raids should continue. But it would be nice to have a little honesty in this debate. Let's start with accepting the fact that there are just some jobs that many Americans won't do — at any wage.

Part of immigration reform is to find ways for employers to fill those jobs and remain productive, without breaking the law or hurting U.S. workers. That's where Congress should put its efforts.

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