George Putnam
Friday, April 15, 2005

Story Continues Below

  Question: Have the president, senators and Congress people - who took an oath to uphold the sovereignty of the U.S. - read the Federal Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 8, USC?

It states: "Any person who encourages or induces an alien to reside knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such resident is in violation of law, shall be punished as provided - for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs to be fined under Title 18 - imprisoned not more than five years or both. A person (including a group of persons, business organization or local government) commits a federal felony when he or she assists an alien, he or she should reasonably know is illegally in the U.S. or who lacks employment authorization, by transporting, sheltering, or assisting him or her to obtain employment. Or encourages that alien to remain in the U.S. by referring him or her to an employer or acting as employer or agent for an employer in any way."

The law states it's illegal to hire, recruit, or to refer an alien for a fee knowing that the alien is unauthorized to work in the U.S. Remember when Wal-Mart was fined $11 million for employing illegal aliens to perform housekeeping tasks. Wal-Mart pled innocent, claiming it had contracted with the Coyotes (people smugglers) who hired the illegals.

The law states that the penalty for felony harboring is a fine and imprisonment for up to five years. The penalty for felony alien smuggling is a fine and up to ten years imprisonment. It is also illegal for nonprofit or religious organizations to knowingly assist an employer to violate employment sanctions regardless of such organizations' claims that their convictions require them to assist aliens.

What we are witnessing on a day-to-day basis is the blatant violation of the Federal Immigration and Nationality Act. If our government employees and our employers fail to understand, perhaps we should put it more simply, as in the words of my friend, Lou Dobbs: "Anyone who hires an illegal alien should be fined $10,000 and sentenced to six months in jail." Perhaps that would catch their attention.

Our government, having failed us, has forced such organizations as the Minutemen, who the president refers to as "vigilantes," to resort to recruiting civilians to represent us at our porous borders. The Constitution, Article IV, Section IV, is explicit: "The U.S. shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against INVASION and against domestic violence."

How much simpler could it be? Maybe we should all sit down and read it again - it's the law of our land and it should be enforced.

Editor's note: