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A Swift Kick
by David Coulson Adams
The recent Swift raid has thrown the country into an uproar, not to mention our office. It was the primary, if not the exclusive, topic of conversation and thought in my office for all of Wednesday; of course, such an event is what we are paid to converse and think about. And think we have.
I am quoted in an upcoming magazine piece (I received the article draft on the day of the ICE raid) to the following effect:
"I am starting to recommend Basic Pilot more and more. Whatever the government might say, it is defacto a safe harbor. The government is not going to come audit one of the companies using Pilot unless they are a flat out law breaker. The federal government wants companies to use Basic Pilot."
Reading over the draft, I was struck by the ill-timing of my remark, though I had sat for the interview several weeks ago. Wednesday was one heck of a day to read me saying THAT! But as I thought about it - not too late to ask the reporter to yank it - I decided to let it ride. It remains as true today, post Swift, as it was when I said it. And the Secretary of The Department of Homeland Defense happily corroborated my view in his press conference Wednesday morning.
Michael Chernoff : "As we've said, if you enter into Basic Pilot and you do it in good faith, that will protect you against criminal and civil liability. Now, I emphasize 'good faith.' Obviously, if you enter into Basic Pilot and then you deliberately evade it, that's a different story."
Here, with Swift, we have a multi-state action, which resembles in several details the Tyson situation some years back, calling into play the disparate views on the value of Basic Pilot, an answer to the question of "Will ICE continue to enforce, once the midterm elections are over?", an answer to the question, "Is ICE deadly serious about its homeland enforcement mandate?", touching one of the major players on the "Give us workers" angle of immigration reform, an action which seemingly furthers the Pilot wish to plug its own holes, while seemingly hurting the Pilot wish to metastasize into THE universal tool for the verification of work eligibility, while simultaneously - and very publically - heightening the pitch of this formidable issue, forcing Vilasek to tread a wily course.
Enforcement, with the I-9 and Basic Pilot, accomplishes one purpose, but cannot solve the problem. If enforcement continues without a guest worker program that meets the needs of employers that must have workers, where are we going to get our meat from?
Stay tuned.