Learn More about the Immigration Laws

Immigrants are classified as illegal once they do one of the three usual reasons. First, if they choose to enter the country without authorization or any proper inspection. Second, if they stay longer than the time the Government allowed them to stay after they legally entered the country. And, third, if they violate any of the terms set for legal entries.

The laws

The Government officials have come up with certain laws that are primarily addressed for handling cases of illegal immigration. These laws can be enacted by officials at the local, state or even the federal level. An example of such law is the Arizona SB1070, signed only in 2010. This law is the strictest and also widest anti-illegal immigration measure that has been submitted in the past decades in the entire country.

The costs

This much stricter enforcement in guarding borders has failed to prevent illegal immigration. Instead of prevention, the flow has now become much more rampant in the country’s more remote areas. Because of this, American taxpayers are asked to increase their pay to accommodate the fees of each and every arrest which accounts to one thousand and seven hundred dollars in 2002, from only three hundred dollars back in 1992.

Who is assigned to protect the borders?

The United States Customs and Border Protection is the part of the Government that is responsible for apprehending foreign nationals who are attempting to make an illegal entry into the United States. The US Border Patrol is the mobile law enforcement group that is responsible for deterring, detecting, and also apprehending those who intend to enter the country without the proper authorization coming from the US Government. They will either be deported or imprisoned.

It is a law in the United States that if immigrants, either legal or illegal, are apprehended doing an activity that would be considered as a crime on American grounds, then they will be charged with federal statutes. Once they have been convicted, they will be sent to federal prisons.

Illegal immigrants at the workplace

For years and years, immigration authorities have warned lots of employers regarding the mismatches of the reported social security cards of certain employees and their actual names. 

In Wal-Mart, back in 2005, their bosses complied with having to pay around eleven million dollars just to settle a particular federal investigation that discovered hundreds upon hundreds of illegal immigrants who were hired by the cleaning contractors of Wal-Mart.

Swift & Co., specifically in December of 2006, was raided by the US federal immigration. Their meat-processing factories and plants that are situated in six US states had around one thousand three hundred illegal immigrants for employees. This, to date, is the largest crackdown in America.

Another company, Tyson Foods, is one of those that are being continuously accused of being very active in importing illegal labor for its many chicken-packing plants and factories. However, the set jury ended up acquitting this certain company after the evidence was presented regarding Tyson Foods going beyond the mandated Government requirements with regards to documentation for its workers.
