Feinstein/Craig Agriculture "Guest-Worker" Plan Dies

Here is an article about the agriculture amnesty legislation, proposed by Senators Diane Feinstein and Larry Craig, dying in the Senate. The war funding bill is still moving forward, just without that gem added by America's most respected Senators.




Feinstein ag worker plan dies

The Associated Press
Article Launched: 05/22/2008 09:09:25 AM PDT

WASHINGTON—An attempt by California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein to attach an agriculture guest worker program to a must-pass Iraq war spending bill has failed.

The Senate Appropriations Committee that Feinstein sits on agreed to the plan last week, but it was scuttled this week amid Senate negotiations on the multibillion-dollar bill to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been various disputes about attempts to add domestic programs to the bill.

Feinstein long has sought to create a guest-worker program to meet shortages of farm workers in California and elsewhere. Her latest plan would not have guaranteed permanent residency to the workers, but still met resistance from opponents who viewed it as amnesty.

Illegal Alien Worker's Compensation

Here is an article that highlights my point in the last post about Worker's Compensation for illegal aliens.

Can a work injured illegal immigrant obtain benefits? In Indiana, it depends

Thanks to www.workcompcentral.com (subscription required) I have a case study of the snarl-ups often experienced today when an illegal immigrants suffers a work injury, about which there is no dispute it happened. Her or his payments can still be cut off. A guest worker program will eliminate all of these trap doors, which I have found the large majority of work injury experts are unaware of.

The matter at hand in this Indiana case is whether the injured worker is entitled to benefits after having reached “maximum medical improvement” and is still disabled – that is, simply is not going to get any better. The worker, Benjamin Marrufo, says through his lawyer that he is still not at “MMI.” The problem for him in reaching MMI is that the court may decide (as it appears to in other jurisdictions) that an illegal worker is not eligible for ongoing permanent benefits.

The article says….

Mindel [his lawyer] disputes that his client is at MMI, and said that under Indiana workers' compensation law his client cannot request an independent medical examination because of his illegal status. To be eligible for an independent medical evaluation, an injured worker must have received total temporary disability -- which an undocumented cannot collect under the law, Mindel said, adding that he doesn't expect his client's claim to be a test for the state high court.

Marrufo is a 47-year-old Mexican national who admittedly came to the United States eight years ago. He filed a workers' compensation claim for a May 2006 back injury and received medical benefits.

He did not receive any temporary disability for loss of wages during his recuperation, his attorney said.

Indiana courts have not decided whether undocumented workers are entitled to workers' compensation benefits. State courts in California, New York, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota and Alabama [and other states – PFR]have all ruled that illegal aliens are entitled to medical benefits. Most of the courts, however, have said no to wage-replacement benefits or vocational rehabilitation because the worker is in the country illegally.

A South Carolina lawmaker this year will push to exclude undocumented workers from his state's workers' comp system.

"My bill is a very simple bill," Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia, was quoted as saying last month. "It says that if a person applies for workman's compensation, they must show that they are a legal citizen."

Jobs Americans won't do...

I'm sure that we have all heard the excuse that without cheap immigrant labor (especially ILLEGAL immigrant labor) that there would be hundreds, nay, thousands of jobs left vacant, which no self respecting American would take. Isn't the argument in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens that they simply do the jobs that Americans are not willing to do? I caught a few moments of Bill O'Reilly's show where he had as his guest Mike Rowe, host of the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs. The show consists of Mr. Rowe traveling around the country in search of (and then participating in) the dirtiest jobs. While O'Reilly's segment with Rowe was light-hearted and comical, the point was obvious. In every episode Rowe interacts with all kinds of hard working American citizens who do some of the most nauseating work. For example: septic tank cleaner, church steeple bird poop cleaner, clam farmers, pest control (in this episode the house was crawling with cockroaches), horse semen collector, and so on. If Americans can be found working these kinds of jobs, isn't it a little bit offensive to claim that Americans won't clean hotel rooms or work on farms?

I think the reality of the situation is that the industries dominated by cheap, unskilled labor WANT illegal alien workers because they are easily exploitable. If an employee is desperate for a job and in the country illegally how likely are they to file a sexual harassment claim (especially if they don't speak English, have no resources to pull from, and aren't familiar with the system)? How likely are they to seek disability if they are injured? How likely are they to complain if they are being treated unfairly or being paid below minimum wage? All an employer would have to do is threaten to report them to ICE.

The fact of the matter is that employers* lobbying for amnesty for illegal alien workers do so because it saves them money. Employees being paid under the table don't require health coverage, social security payments, disability payments, or even often times minimum wage. If hotels and farmers (and numerous other employers) would only offer a fair wage and decent benefits, Americans WOULD work those jobs.

*It came to my attention that Senator Diane Feinstein attached a nifty little piece of legislation to the recent war funding bill in the Senate. It would have allowed illegal alien farm workers and their families a five year grace period in the U.S. When I called all four of Senator Feinstein's California offices to complain that this was nothing more than short term amnesty and political dishonesty , the girl in the San Francisco office was nice enough to explain to me that the good Senator had added it to the bill at the request of California farmers. They claimed, the girl explained, that they were going to face a labor shortage for the coming harvest and that this would only add to rising food costs. For this reason Senator Feinstein had added it to the war funding bill at the last moment when few people noticed (a bill that should have sailed through Congress). I am happy to report that it died in the Senate today (besides the fact that President Bush promised to veto it with that provision still attached). I called all four of the Senator's office today to tell them that I am happy that the bill died and that Ms. Feinstein should get the hint by now that Americans don't want amnesty (of any sort) for illegal aliens.

Here is a link to the Dirty Jobs homepage (so you can see what sort of

jobs Americans ARE willing to do).

Who cares what 61.4% of Californians voted for.

A Sad Day for California, America, and Democracy.

A nice summation of the court decision.

Article published May 22, 2008
Court reversal of reality?

May 22, 2008


By William Murchison - Marriage isn't just the chief underpinning of society or, for that matter, a raunchy comedy routine. In the minds of easily the great majority of Americans, marriage is an institution reflective of divine intent concerning human relationships and duties.

Well, never mind. The California Supreme Court doesn't seem to mind, having ruled by the margin of a single vote that California can't constitutionally ban same-sex marriage.

Um ... can't? Can't affirm, in a judicial finding, the large, historic, profoundly rooted beliefs of the human race? Seemingly not.

Only in California. Or Massachusetts. Or certain other cutting-edge American addresses not worth the trouble of naming. There's a tendency to laugh aloud at the sheer presumption of people with law school educations in lecturing fellow citizens on their outmoded modes of belief, and, correspondingly, on the need — Now! No back talk! — to get with the new program.

If no judicial decree can make marriage anything other than an institution reflective of the large realities in which humans participate, there's no cause for alarm. Two people of the same sex holding hands before a judge or clergyman is ... two people holding hands before a judge or clergyman, nothing more.

Marriage it ain't. That's between people of opposite but complementary attributes and physiologies. The merger, so to speak, of those attributes and physiologies is what we call marriage. Flap your arms and attempt to try an aerial passage across the Grand Canyon: You'll have as much luck at that as at same-sex marriage. Can't do it. Period.

The problem, in California, isn't that you can't do it. The problem is that the state's highest court has attempted this metaphysical heavy lifting in defiance both of logic and popular sentiment.

As one dissenting justice, Marvin R. Baxter, wrote in the gay marriage case, "[A] bare majority of this court, not satisfied with the pace of democratic change, now abruptly forestalls that process and substitutes, by judicial fiat, its own social policy views for those expressed by the people themselves."

It's what they do in North Korea and Iran, in case we've forgotten: Decide in the People's name what the People need — then give it to them, to choke on, as often as not.

I can't forbear from noting that John McCain promised, if elected president, to appoint federal judges unwilling to torture constitutional or statutory language to secure particular outcomes. California's high court, though not a federal venue, demonstrates what he means.

The California majority said prohibition of same-sex marriage constitutes unconstitutional discrimination. Shocking that no one had noticed before. All this time, the assumption that men and women had been created for each other, not least in order to procreate — and no one raised a finger. Not the old guys in the Bible. Not Plato. Not Aquinas. Not even Norman Mailer! Up pops the California, Supreme Court — I mean, its four-judge majority — to explain what forevermore had been said and thought and believed and practiced. Gosh — aren't judges something?

Well, they are. Which is why Californians are being asked in November to amend their constitution and so prohibit as a legal matter marriages between Californians of the same sex. California's highest court is causing Californians a lot of unnecessary bother and expense, while stirring up intramural ill will and setting an unwholesome example of judicial arrogance and intellectual disconnectedness.

Sad. Not prejudicial, ipso facto (in legalspeak) to the reality of marriage — which, as I say, is beyond reach — but sad. That's because the California Supreme Court's imprimatur will convince various folks that A is B and up is down. Some of these folks, newly convinced or reinforced in what they believed already, will then operate on those assumptions, with possibly tragic consequences.

Why don't judges get it? Legislators write law. Judges interpret what others have written. Anyway, a national election coming up. The California Supreme Court, without knowing it, just put on a heck of a fund-raiser for John McCain.

William Murchison is a nationally syndicated columnist and senior fellow of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Link.