In a scathing expose released today, Portland's Willamette Week reveals a long history of illegal immigrant hiring at Republican Senator Gordon Smith's frozen foods factory.
Despite numerous cases of illegal workers being identified at the Smith Frozen Foods plant over the years, Smith refuses to use a federally-approved electronic program that lets employers spot fraudulent social security numbers.
Find out more below the fold...
Crossposted at Sandstorm.
An 11-year-old federal program called E-verify allows companies to check instantly whether Social Security numbers match prospective employees’ names and whether other immigration documents granting them the right to work are valid.
Smith Frozen Foods chooses not to use this program. "We tried it in the past, and we were not very happy with it," Brown says of E-verify, which is used by 80,000 companies in the United States. "It doesn’t work very well."
Smith's response to the allegations?
"Today’s Willamette Week article is false," Smith said. "It is wholly compromised of unsubstantiated and ridiculous allegations from a liberal tabloid whose purpose is to advance a left-wing agenda rather than the truth."
Advance a left-wing agenda? Like not hiring illegal immigrants? You would think that a Republican U.S. Senator up for re-election would treat these allegations with concern, rather than a flippant attack on "liberal" media.
Of course, Smith's response was in official statement form- perhaps the article would have been more balanced had Smith taken the time to actually speak to the reporter. Instead...
The senator’s Oregon political director, Kerry Tymchuk, referred questions to Smith’s spokesman in Washington, D.C., Luke Kintigh. Kintigh, in turn, referred questions to managers at Smith Frozen Foods.
Now that's responsive leadership. It will be interesting to see how this plays out among Oregon Republicans, who are rabidly anti-immigrant. Will they defend their endangered leader against that "liberal media," or will they hold Smith accountable for his countless promises to crack down on illegal immigration?