D'Amico workers protest firing

If these workers were here with the permission of the government (i.e. the were legally entitled to work), they would have legal SSNs and be entitled to Social Security benefits. — Unless an error prevented the Social Security System from matching their contributions to their account. (That is why Social Security began sending out the no match letters originally.

Maybe Donald Trump has enough money to think it’s not worth the effort to correct the error, but most people working in restaurants need Social Security. So if these people aren’t really eager to fix the problem — They are the problem. They are here illegally. There is no doubt about it. Only people with an IQ lower than day-old pot roast could believe their story.

As you all have pointed out, I did not discuss the issue of the workers’ status (that is, did they have valid SS#‘s). Some clarification seems to be in order. The question is certainly open, but it is not pertinent to the question of the workers’ firing. The SSA “no-match” letters explicitly state that an employer cannot use these letters as grounds to fire an employee, yet D’Amico did just that. Yes, a company cannot employ illegal immigrants, but no evidence presented so far can definitively say “yes” or “no.” There are only the “no match” letters (with their extremely high error rate), and the workers’ behavior, which can also be explained by a collective bargaining strategy and an insistence on plain dealing from the company.

The workers’ case before the EEOC contends that the decision to fire them on suspicion of being illegal immigrants was racially discriminatory. Because since there is no conclusive proof one way or the other, the workers allege, D’Amico assumed they were (i.e. did not give them the benefit of the doubt) because they were all Latino.

~James Sanna

I was unaware of this story and went to D’Amicos on Grand Avenue today. While I was eating, I saw the picketers in front of the restaurant. D’Amico staff passed out expensive glossy PR literature explaining their side of the story to all of their customers while they were eating. I heard a pro-D’Amico woman (who perhaps works for/owns the company for all I know) complaining that the picketers were “scaring” off customers. The picketers were most certainly NOT scary and were simply exercising their first amendment rights. I read the D’Amico literature and I also read the picketers’ literature. I am going to have to side with the picketers on this one. I find it rather pathetic that D’Amico would fire a large group of longterm and loyal employees who worked for the company for as many as fifteen years. It is true that D’Amico cannot fire people based on those letters or enforce immigration laws based on those letters. This appears to be a case of D’Amicos wanting to get rid of a bunch of employees simply to hire new people for cheap pay. I went to D’Amicos often and loved their food and ambiance. I will be boycotting this company from now on. I find it interesting that D’Amicos appears to feel quite threatened by picketers who are using their first amendment rights and have a permit to do so.

No Mr. Sanna,

You have misrepresented the facts and legal requirements. Your assertion that "The SSA 'no-match' letters explicitly state that an employer cannot use these letters as grounds to fire an employee, yet D’Amico did just that.." is a distortion of the facts.

Yes, the employer "cannot use these letters as grounds to fire an employee" BUT failure or unwillingness to resolve the discrepancy is another matter entirely.

As many people point out, the SS database is riddled with errors. The Social Security Administration has been sending out the "no match letters" since 1994, not as an immigration enforcement action, but simply to clean up the database and get legal workers the benefits they were due. This is a simple matter of good government. The reason that employers ignored the letters (thus hurting their legal workers who were deprived of the SS benefits) was to avoid knowing if their workers were illegal immigrants. The reason that the database contains so many errors and has still not been cleaned up is precisely BECAUSE workers and employers ignored the no match letters.

For legal workers, almost all of the typos, clerical errors, married name changes etc, can be quickly resolved. This will be especially true of legal immigrants who are extremely well-documented by the immigration process itself. For almost all remaining legal workers, the process will take more time, but can ultimately be resolved.

There is no rational reason that legal workers, of any ethnic identity, should resist the legal requirement that they participate in Social Security and receive the benefits to which they are entitled.

As for the claims that they workers are the victims of racial discrimination, that is itself an extraordinarily indiscriminate use of the term "racial discrimination." Were all Latinos fired, or just the ones who could not resolve the "no match" problem? If that was the case, the "discrimination" (act of making a distinction) was on the basis of documentation and legal requirements. The law discriminates between illegal discrimination (e.g. racial) and legally required discrimination on the basis of legal status. The burden of proof is on the workers who are required to submit an I-9 form and legitimate documentary proof of their eligibility for employment. The lack of valid SSNs is legitimate reason for the employer to refuse employment.

You, Mr Sanna, have wittingly or unwittingly, by guile or gullibility, misrepresented the facts and the issues here. You need to learn more about the law than the assertions of the workers and their lawyers. But if there is ANY plausible reason to believe that any of these workers are citizens or legal immigrants you have yet to bother to describe it. And yes, the existence of a plausible claim to legal immigrations status would be EXTREMELY germane to the story. It's absence is both obvious and damning.

If you disagree with U.S. immigration law -- fine! Say so! But do not pretend to render an objective description of the story to challenge the law under false pretenses. Defend you views openly and honestly.

Mr. Rica wonders about “ANY plausible reason to believe that any of these workers are citizens or legal immigrants”. The workers have not only filed a complaint with the EEOC, they have also been very public in their protests about their treatment. Given the public nature of the protests and the media attention they have received, I’d be extermely surprised if the INS is not aware of the situation. I’d also be surprised if the workers were not aware of potential INS scrutiny when they decided to make their plight public. I do not find it plausible that the workers would be so public in their protests if they risked deportation.

While I would have been just as willing to participate in the protests had they been about an immigration policy that I see as based on fear and greed rather than love, compassion, and sharing, I see no reason to believe that the protests are about anything other than discrimination.

Mr Momont,

The INS (actually ICE now) simply does not have have the manpower to pick up the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants. That, in fact, is one of the reasons that enforcement is moving towards tactics such as job site enforcement. Day laborers openly congregate in public and solicit work. It's an open secret that almost all of them are illegal. See the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/03/AR200805...

The fact that they are in the open or even willing to demonstrate in public just shows that we have an ongoing policy of virtual non-enforcement. Even convicted felons illegally in this country are often not deported at the end of their sentences (though this too is beginning to change.) What these workers are doing is resisting the first significant real effort to enforce the law in 20 years. So it is not surprising that these illegal immigrants appear in public. It's a little risky, but it is not nearly as risky as going down to ICE headquarters and asking them to validate the green cards that they probably displayed when the first applied for work. THAT would get them deported if the documents are fraudulent.

And what about your sympathy for the American workers whose jobs these individuals took? Obviously there were American workers who stepped in to take the jobs that these illegal immigrant workers lost. Do you care about them? There are nearly a third of working Americans who are working for poverty level wages or just above. Without the pressure put on U.S. labor markets by the overwhelming numbers of immigrants, wages would begin to rise again. That is why businesses are on your side. They want cheap labor. When they claim that they can't find willing American workers they never are willing to compete for workers by offering good pay and good benefits. Business HATES the free market when the laws of supply and demand dictate that wages must rise to eliminate a labor shortage. And the most amazing thing is that the Minnesota Chapter of the Junior Marxist League agrees with the Chamber of Commerce! And I am tired of those who defend the right of the rich to cheap labor by slandering everyone who wants to defend the rights of American workers by yelling "racist".

The greed here is about the employers who want cheap labor. In this case though, D'Amico did the right thing -- even though it probably didn't help their bottom line. And how could D'Amico gain by firing them (aside from avoiding fines for breaking the law)?