On April 14, Matthew Dolan reported this for the Baltimore Sun:
The owners of Kawasaki restaurants pleaded guilty in federal court in Baltimore Friday, admitting they hired illegal immigrants as low-wage employees at their well-known Japanese eateries, forced them to hand over their tips and funneled the profits from their labor into expensive real estate and luxury cars.
Ah, sweet music to my ears. Laying blame where it belongs (the employers) and kicking them where it hurts (their wallets). More below.
Immigration officials are holding up the successful prosecution as an example of a new strategy that targets employers who hire undocumented workers and seizes the assets associated with their crimes.
"Targeting the profits of illegal alien employment schemes is a tactic ICE is adopting nationwide" Julie L. Myers, head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said in a statement Friday.
On March 14, dozens of federal agents descended on all three Kawasaki restaurants, as well as the owners' high-priced homes in Howard County.
As part of their plea, they have agreed to forfeit more than $386,000 from bank accounts, two properties in Timonium and Baltimore, and five cars, including two Lexuses and one Mercedes.
"In this case, the operators of Baltimore's best-known sushi restaurants exploited cheap, illegal labor to maximize profits so they could purchase luxury vehicles and other assets for themselves," Myers said.
Federal authorities said some workers were housed above the Charles Street restaurant. One agent described the conditions as poor. "There were very small rooms, mattresses on the floor and little or no plumbing," said Bastan, the ICE agent.
But the owners led an upscale life, court papers show. According to their plea agreement, they admitted using multiple bank accounts as part of a money laundering operation that involved hiding funds earned by the workers at the restaurant.
You can read the full story here. Beautiful, simply beautiful. And the employers were particularly greedy bastards to boot. I think this is exactly what we need more of. Not making things even worse for those who felt economically pressured to come into our country illegally and depress our wages. No, the people who should be getting the lion's share of our legal wrath should be the employers that exploit them.
We have a big problem, we Democrats. This whole immigration issue is not just splitting Republican Party between those that want more opportunities to hire cheap labor and those who don't want to become a racial minority in their lifetime. It is splitting the Democratic Party too, between those who want to completely open our borders to the world's poor and those who are more concerned about the economic struggle of the working class we already have. And with both sides arguing until we are blue in the face, we are in danger of being distracted from much more important issues, which will in the end allow Republicans to advance their agenda.
Now in this story, it wasn't the employees who blew the whistle. And although they are being described as victims, they will not be receiving any portion of the seized assets, not even any portion of that earmarked for a special crime victims' fund. They broke the law when they entered the country illegally, and they will all be deported. But what if there was another way?
We Democrats need to find unifying ideas on immigration that can unite the Democratic Party, whether they favor open borders or not, and mend this fracture. We need new ideas. And in that spirit, I am putting forward the following suggestion: some form of limited amnesty for those "undocumented" workers who blow the whistle on their black market bosses. Not citizenship, which should always require passing the citizenship exam for non-natural citizens, but the opportunity to become a citizen, so long as they have an otherwise clean record. So what does that mean, a temporary work visa? Permanent resident status? The details can be debated later. In either case, I think that would be a small price to pay for the service done for our country in shutting down the organized crime that is causing our illegal immigration problem in the first place.
Also, how come this story is not as of this moment on CNN or MSNBC? I would have missed it entirely, had I not heard it on NPR. This is the sort of story that can promote unity in our country and in our party, even as it raises more questions.