Shepard Fairey's new immigration reform posterMore fresh air.
The Obama administration is going to crackdown on employers who hire undocumented workers, the opposite tack of the Bush administration, that let employers keep hiring cheap labor, which is all the employers want, while holding raid stunts on workers to make it look like they were doing something. Here's a good look at the plan from the LA Times:
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles -- President Obama will ask Congress for $27 billion for border and transportation security in the next budget year, fulfilling a promise to the Mexican government to battle the southbound flow of illegal weapons and setting the stage for immigration reform by first addressing enforcement, administration officials said Tuesday.
The spending, an 8% increase over this year's, will enable the administration to hire more agents and enhance security at air- and seaports. Obama also will request more money to expand screening for illegal immigrants in jail and to improve a Web-based program for verifying workers' employment eligibility.
The funding requests are part of the 2010 budget Obama plans to present to Congress on Thursday. Legislators last week passed a $3.5-trillion budget blueprint that tracks Obama's major policy goals, including a healthcare overhaul and a push for renewable energy sources.
The border and immigration budget underscores differences with the Bush administration, which emphasized border fence construction, increased detention space and more teams to raid work sites. Obama has already changed the game on work-site enforcement, giving immigration agents new guidelines that shift the emphasis from illegal workers to employers who break the law by hiring them.
In devoting more money to security and enforcement, Obama may be creating some political space needed to revamp the immigration system. The president risks alienating many conservatives if he doesn't emphasize strong border and immigration enforcement before taking action on a reform package that would create a path to legalization for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
Read the rest at the LA Times
