Illegals in Kansas may soon think they’re not in trouble anymore. At least that’s the wish of the Kansas Agricultural Secretary, Dale Rodman. Rodman is consulting with DHS officials about getting a waiver for Kansas employers to legally hire immigrants. A coalition of agricultural business groups along with the Kansas Chamber of Commerce say they need to hire illegals for hard to fill jobs.
Republican Governor Brownback and Secretary of State Kobach oppose the plan. Kobach even worked with Arizona and Alabama in drafting their restrictive immigration laws. The federal government is suing those states based on preemption, the ace the federal government plays whenever any lesser government entity tries to pass laws concerning illegals. Only the federal government has authority in the matter of immigration as expressed in the Constitution, the document largely ignored by the feds otherwise.
Kansas agriculture secretary seeks waiver for illegal immigrants
Facing pressure from large dairies and feedlots desperate for workers, Kansas Agriculture Secretary Dale Rodman is seeking a federal waiver that would allow companies to hire illegal immigrants. Rodman has met several times with officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about launching a pilot program that would place employers and illegal immigrants in a special state-organized network.
…a coalition of business interests is preparing to push the idea in Topeka. Details are expected to emerge this week about a bill establishing the outline of a state-managed worker program. Operating in cooperation with the federal government, it would link sponsor companies with illegal immigrants who have been in Kansas a minimum of five years and have no criminal background. One potential candidate would be a person who entered Kansas on a visa that expired years ago.
Mike Beam, senior vice president of the Kansas Livestock Association, said the objective was to secure a reliable, regulated labor pool to the state’s businesses. Despite the recession, there are counties in rural Kansas with unemployment rates half the state average. “This will be very limited,” Beam said. “It would be an agreement between the state of Kansas and Homeland Security.”
The employees and employers would pay fees that would support the program, ensuring the state incurred no oversight cost.
What sort of oversight? The people interested in this type of program are not concerned about where the illegals go next. Surely the federal government will impose regulations concerning this group of workers such as mandatory health care, etc. (“If I only had a heart”) The employers will go right back to hiring illegals outside the program and everyone will pretend to see nothing. (“If I only had a brain”)
Last year in court filings opposing the Alabama law, the Justice Department said there is no room under federal law for a state to enact a separate immigration law enforcement system. We shall see.
Backdoor amnesty via the yellow brick road. There’s a storm blowin’ up.
As a Kansas resident. I personally think no exceptions should be made. Maybe these feed lots, etc. could pay for temporary short term Work Visa’s that are seasonal. I’ll keep up with this topic. If I get any hot off the press updates I’ll put it on twitter at #tbrs.
What else do we expect when we have a POS POTUS that voted ‘Present’ most his career and we have a POS US Attorney General who has voted ‘I don’t know’ in all past and present testimony.