Well, I don't know about that... but I do know this: it's the height of hypocrisy for Gordon Smith to say that "We need to support legal immigration and not incentivize illegal immigration" - all the while hiring illegal immigrants himself.

. . . it's the height of hypocrisy for Gordon Smith to say that "We need to support legal immigration and not incentivize illegal immigration" - all the while hiring illegal immigrants himself.

No, it's not. It would be the height of hypocrisy if Gordon Smith were a Lars Larson-style immigrant-basher and then was found to have hired illegal aliens. As a long-time supporter of establishing a means for legal immigrants or guest workers to meet the legitimate need for workers in the U.S., Gordon Smith has been consistent on this issue--and he has paid a heavy price with his Republican base because of it.

Kari, your discomfort in being joined by the immigrant-basher who posted ahead of you is understandable, but it is also exactly what you ask for when you jump on this sleazy issue.

Jack, he's breaking the law. Are you saying that's OK as long as you're not some firebreathing immigrant-basher?

It shows how much immigration is actually a wedge issue on the right far more than it is on the left. Pro-business Republicans like Smith need illegal immigrants to keep their costs down. They also recognize the economic implications of shutting it down--food prices would jump sharply up (currently we have the cheapest food in the world--just 10% of our income is spent on it). But the culture wars rage on the other side of the issue, and there is a strong streak of nativism within a party that wants to keep "them" out.

Smith is caught between the forces of his own party. True to form, he hasn't been a bold leader on the issue. While apparently using undocumented workers, WW quotes him from a pandering letter he sent out last year:

“[W]e cannot continue to absorb the flow of illegal immigrants, many of whom benefit from government services that American citizens and companies provide,” Smith wrote in a letter to constituents dated Jan. 31, 2007. “Reform is necessary, and our borders must be tightened. Anyone who wants to come to live or work in the United States must abide by our laws while paying taxes and learning the English language.”

Worse, if the allegations are true (and WW does a pretty decent job compiling circumstantial evidence), he's been lying about it for years, too.

In June 2007, Lars Larson asked Smith on his radio program if he ran his business without employing any illegal immigrants. “Yes,” Smith responded. “Well, as I’ve told you, we go the extra mile to make sure we do.”

Reading this fine story, my thoughts were not about whether using undocumented workers makes Smith unfit for office. Rather, it's that he's played both sides for his own benefit--using illegal workers while simultaneously pandering to the nativist wing of the party. Definitely not change we can believe in.

I don't know, Marshall, the Smith system seems pretty airtight to me. I mean, it's not like you can just get a fake birth certificate online, or anything.

MP -- Not sure if you know this, but the person you quoted -- Jack Roberts -- is a Republican. In fact, he was the state's labor commissioner for quite a while.

I think my favorite quote in all this is from Smith: "we go the extra mile to make sure we do [run the business without illegal immigrants]" --- when he can't even bothered to go the non-extra mile.

I'm a little worried that we are using the Smith issue of hiring "illegal" workers as a wedge issue. I am not focused on the right and wrong of it, but the overall use of migrants workers as fodder in politics. These humans want to work and want to feed their families and they are gambling with their lives to make that happen. Their own country, or countries, can't sustain their own people, yet our leaders aren't doing anything to aid in that problem either. I wonder also how Smith is paying his workers and if he is treating them fairly. I want our party to be concerned about that as well.

What Karol said. Thanks Karol.

As distasteful or hypocritical you may find this line of argumentation to be, it's entirely appropriate to bring up this kind of Dog Whistle stuff in this senate campaign.

It is Smith's base and not Kari Chisolm acolytes, that find Smith's behavior to be objectionable and as a political op. it would be suicidal to ignore a Very Big Stick like this one.

Empirically, does anyone here think that the workers in question would reap less benefits or tender regard from a Senator Merkley than from a Senator Smith?

Actually Pat, you're mistaken if you think this issue splits only Smith's base and not the Democratic base and swing voters as well. The Governor's race wasn't that long ago - and we saw what happened when Kulongoski, along with some here at BlueOregon, used a very similar issue to attack Ron Saxton, while also trying to portray K. as tougher on immigration than Saxton. Yeah, Kulongoski was re-elected, but he also then acted on the driver’s license issue in ways that caused real harm to undocumented workers.

So - playing into the Lou Dobbs style of fear mongering by using immigrant workers in very tactically driven campaign attacks is, in the longer term, counterproductive to the important goal of enacting humane and comprehensive immigration reform.

Jack, he's breaking the law. Are you saying that's OK as long as you're not some firebreathing immigrant-basher?

Actually, there is no allegation in the article that Smith is breaking the law. In fact, it states that he's never even been cited for hiring illegal immigrants.

It is not a violation of the law to unknowlingly hire an illegal immigrant. It is against the law to fail to acquire the required documentation from an employee supporting that person's legal residency. So far as I can tell, no one has accused Smith of failing to follow the law.

Jack Roberts confuses a simple issue. People who make laws, like US senators, should adhere to laws. To not do so is hypocritical. It's no less hypocritical for Senator Smith to hire undocumented workers while he supports change to immigration law than it would be for Senator Smith to snort cocaine while he supports decriminalization of the drug.

Gordon Smith has adhered to the law. He also understands that the law needs to be changed, and he has approached this issue in a responsible manner, i.e., he has not engaged in the kind of knee-jerk anti-immigrant reaction that some people posting on this thread seem to support.

At the risk of returning to one of my favorite themes on Blue Oregon, if you want to prove that Democrats are out of touch with rural Oregon, and particularly with folks in agricultural, just start blasting anyone who has ever hired an illegal immigrant.

Keep it up and you just might help us start making inroads with Latino/Hispanic voters again, too (although our Republican anti-immigrant zealots have done a terrific job of driving them out of our party so far).

I third what Karol said.

At the risk of returning to one of my favorite themes on Blue Oregon, if you want to prove that Democrats are out of touch with rural Oregon, and particularly with folks in agricultural, just start blasting anyone who has ever hired an illegal immigrant.

Well, Jack, it's patently obvious that it has been the Republican strategists who have elevatated this debate to wedge issue status. If Kari Chisolm decides to take a turn on the Dog Whistle to the benefit of a progressive candidate, them's the breaks.

If we can agree that Smith's got an IQ higher than....say arrugula.......then he knows damned well that he has a bunch of employees who are not in compliance with extant immigration laws. Regardless of his pro business solicitude toward his workers, the tool was forged by his own party.

The fact is that publicizing this sort of scofflaw behavior, works against him and may be instrumental in electing a person whos entire resume points toward better times for Smith's empolyees, is just poetic justice.

The folks who vote on this issue (other than the designated drivers of The Wedge) will be unlikely to internalize the idea that Dems are "anti-immigrant" while the Republicans are their defenders.

Just ain't gonna happen.

Jack Roberts,

One of the major reasons we are in the crappy position we are as a country when it comes to the immigration issue is that many businesses like Smiths wink at the highering of illegals but support politicians like Smith who use it as a whipping tool for the right wing. The managers at Smiths know they hire illegals. Yes they cover their tracks with documentation to show that they "follow the law", but they also know this is a charade. It is the same approach as gays in the military; "don't ask, don't tell". It wouldn't take anyone more than a day working on the line to start finding out who wasn't legal.

My question now that WW has gone public with this is, will the immigration cops actually pursue the lead that was given to them or is their one law for the Senator and another law for eveyone else?

What Karol noted is relevant--and all the more reason to find SMith's behavior contemptible. If you read the full article, you heard stories about how workers at the Smith plant are treated. This isn't an issue of immigration, it's a civil rights and labor issue.

This is an issue which excites liberals way less than conservatives--when I wrote about immigration earlier this year, I got about half as many comments as there are on this thread already.

I am personally VERY interested in the issue, and to me there are three elements that are particularly potent: - Our current system uses undocumented workers to keep prices cheap, but in doing so, it puts those workers and their families at great risk--they have no legal protections, what to speak of labor rights. - The current system devalues work, driving down wages for other workers, particularly in certain sectors (ask Chuck Butcher) - The US hasn't come to terms with the economic benefit we derive from this abusive system, which keeps food prices low and abets industrial agriculture.

The revelations about Smith's practices are relevant precisely because they touch on the human element--he has pandered to the wing of his party that wants to criminalize behavorior our system is designed to encourage while simultaneously taking advantage of that system. The losers are the workers, and progressives can be outraged at that alone. I think this is exactly the reason we should be concerned about this issue.

At the risk of returning to one of my favorite themes on Blue Oregon, if you want to prove that Democrats are out of touch with rural Oregon, and particularly with folks in agricultural, just start blasting anyone who has ever hired an illegal immigrant.

Jack, this comment perfectly captures the confused and contractory motivations of the GOP on immigration. Half the party wants to exploit (double entendre intended) that resource because it keeps prices low. Farmers, particularly small farmers, are in a bind because they can't compete with big companies if they don't have cheap labor. But that's exactly what the other half of your party wants--to cut off that cheap labor.

As I mentioned in my comment above, there are a number of serious issues for progressives related to immigration, but we neither want to demonize those employers who have to exist in a system they've inherited nor punish a labor force that has been playing by de facto rules for decades. The Democratic party is willing to look at serious immigration reform--it's the GOP that balked killed it last year.

So who exactly is out of touch with rural Oregon?

Greg D., thank you.

As for most of the rest of you, this is really scary. I've been ignoring many of the conservative blogs for years because of hateful, ignorant nonsense like this, but when the so-called progressive community embraces these views as well, I shudder for the future of our country.

The Democratic Party is willing to look at serious immigration reform--it's the GOP that balked killed it last year.

I'm sorry, Jeff, but that's just too simplistic a formulation - and you yourself point to different factions and splits within the Republican Party. In fact, there were roughly as many Democrats who voted no on the cloture votes that killed the bill as there were Republicans who voted yes.

The fact is that the cynical use of this issue to mobilize voters has thankfully been held to a minimum in the Presidential campaign this year because neither party or candidate saw it as in their interest to whip things up to a frenzy. And in fact, as a new report from Progressive States Network shows, most of the state-level anti-immigrant bills went down to defeat in the last sessions, contrary to public perception.

Unfortunately, Oregon has been an exception, both in the legislature and now in pending ballot measures at the state level and in Columbia County. So - especially with ICE raids already having wreaked havoc right here in Portland and elsewhere, let's stop using the lives of "the least of our brothers and sisters" as political pawns and focus instead on working to make their lives and working conditions better.

Greg D wrote... I am surprised to see Blue Oregon take a position against hard working folks who are filling a need in Oregon agriculture.

Greg, BlueOregon hasn't taken a position on this or any other issue. BlueOregon doesn't take positions. As we've said from the beginning, BlueOregon doesn't go out for donuts, much less take positions on issues. Now, our contributors take positions on all kinds of issues. I daresay that, based on the above comments, we could have a VERY lively debate between two of our contributors - Karol Collymore and Pat Ryan.

When Willamette Week has a cover story that details potentially illegal activities undertaken by our U.S. Senator, well, it's gonna get covered here. Rather that discussing what BlueOregon "thinks" (as if a bunch of bytes on a server could think), let's talk about the issue.

So far, it's been a good and interesting discussion. Let's keep it up.

Actually, there is no allegation in the article that Smith is breaking the law. In fact, it states that he's never even been cited for hiring illegal immigrants.

Yeah..and OJ Simpson is "not-guilty". Whatever.

If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck...then....well, you get the idea.

I've been ignoring many of the conservative blogs for years because of hateful, ignorant nonsense like this, but when the so-called progressive community embraces these views as well, I shudder for the future of our country.

So in your view Jack, we're not supposed to call out a U.S. Senator when he's very likely broken the law...on an issue that his own party has stirred up to use as an election wedge?

This is another in a long line of Republican "do as I say, not as I do" politics and its bullshit. Is there no shame whatsoever in the Republican Party anymore?

Jack calls our concerns "hateful, ignorant nonsense". Here's the thing -- if Gordon Smith believes that these workers are critical to our economy, then he should support reasonable reforms to allow them to work here legally. If he doesn't, then he shouldn't hire them to work at his plant.

He can't have it both ways -- and that's exactly what he's doing here.

Here's the thing -- if Gordon Smith believes that these workers are critical to our economy, then he should support reasonable reforms to allow them to work here legally.

He has. I sometimes get the feeling that the only thing you guys know about Gordon Smith is what you see in Jeff Merkley ads. Gordon has been supporting ways to allow immigrants to work here legally for years--and has alienated a significant portion of his Republican base doing so.

But just like the myth that Gordon is a Bush clone, the idea that he is a captive of the right-wing dies hard among true believers in the Democratic Party.

The ignorance about immigration laws and the whole immigration issue represented by many of the posts here is truly depressing. As some of the more insightful posters here have noted, however, your intended target here may be Gordon, but the people you're really attacking are the workers who are trying to support themselves and their families.

The new hiring law [that went into effect [in Arizona] in January, coupled with the current economic situation, has shown quite clearly that eliminating jobs will eliminate the illegals.

Yes, and is Arizona better off for it? Is their economy stronger, is the state's budget healthier, do "legal" Arizona residents enjoy a higher standard of living because of this?

The driving force behind illegal immigration has been the demand for labor in the United States. We have a shortage of workers in this country today and, demographically, we know it is only going to get worse.

It is estimated that we have about 12 million illegal immigrants working in the U.S. today and only about 9 million people unemployed--and many of those are functionally unemployable, unsuited for the work illegal immigrants are performing, or located in parts of the country where there are few immigrants in the first place.

We need to change the immigration system to meet the workforce needs here legally before any of this can be solved. Neither immigrant-bashing nor employer-bashing will serve any purpose beyond the obvious political one.

That's the point, Mr. Roberts: WE NEED TO CHANGE THE IMMIGRATION SYSTEM.... But until we do, Gordon Smith and other employers do not have the right to break the law just because it's convenient for their business to do so.

Actually, for me the worst part of the WW article were the stories about employeesL the lady who had worked at Smith Frozen Foods for years and then was fired because she didn't have proper documentation of an illness; the workers who must be available to work and can't take another job in case they are needed at Smith Frozen Foods - I am assuming they are not paid "stand by" wages for this availability; the $8 per hour wage for very hard work. As an employer, Smith Frozen Foods should be ashamed not only for hiring undocumented workers and not trying very hard to determine their immigration status, but also for the way it treats those employees. And then for Mr. Smith to be one of the twelfth wealthiest men in the Senate? He is an embarrassment to this state and needs to go!

Actually, the driving force has been CHEAP labor. I owned a restaurant in Chandler and had no trouble finding ample supplies of qualified workers who were able to pass E-verify. Of course, the fact that I paid above market wages might have had something to do with that.

The fact that most of the other restaurants probably weren't E-verifying their workers could also have had something to do with it. Since the more stringent laws have been put in place in Arizona, it is my understanding that employers are having a much harder time finding workers--and that's true even of people who were already scrupulous about not hiring illegals, since they are competing with businesses that use to hire illegals but no longer are willing to risk it.

Reducing the total supply of available workers, and reducing the total number of local customers and consumers, hardly sounds like a recipe for a strong economy to me.

For that matter, fewer children in schools and fewer taxpayers (people usually ignore the fact that most illegals are net tax payers, not tax recipients)is probably not a recipe for a better school system, either.

It will be very interesting to watch what happens in Arizona over the next couple of years, provided their current experiment with strong employer penalties continues.

"their tax funded day labor center is knowingly and deliberatley assiting the hiring of illegal aliens. "

Link??

(although I agree that requisite proof is lacking on this story as regards Smith Foods).

He has. I sometimes get the feeling that the only thing you guys know about Gordon Smith is what you see in Jeff Merkley ads. Gordon has been supporting ways to allow immigrants to work here legally for years--and has alienated a significant portion of his Republican base doing so.

Please cite them, specifically.

C'mon, Tom, you know that Jack R. isn't a hard right ideologue. I'd venture to guess that he'd probably agree that it's possible to believe in right & wrong and still need to engage in situational ethics from time to time.

In some ways what's interesting about Smith's recent vote is that it is a departure from his previous record. As Jack R. correctly notes, Smith and Ron Wyden collaborated in proposals for a new bracero-type "guest worker" system going back to the 1990s I think. Immigration is not a wedge issue so much as an issue that divides both major parties, in their bases and among their elected officials. It is volatile and unpredictable and many politicians are scared, Gordon Smith apparently among them.

However, Jack is wrong that his former position separates Smith from George Bush or John McCain, since they both supported the reform proposal that got blocked.

Jeff, I am curious about your source for the idea that paying agricultural workers decent wages would dramatically raise food prices. More likely what it would do is increase pressures for further mechanization and further squeeze out the very few remaining family farmers (unless the recent rise in commodity prices persists).

In addition to the direct immigration law itself, there are two other elements in terms of agricultural labor that bear looking at. One is the structure of agricultural subsidies that favor corporate and large-scale farmers over small scale farmers. The same overproduction that drives down producer prices such that Mexican peasant farmers are driven off the land by U.S. dumping presses on U.S. farmers in their competition with one another such that it is a struggle to stay afloat. Cutting labor costs enters into that picture, because it is harder to cut the costs of the hugely expensive machinery and fertilizer and pesticide and herbicide inputs needed to produce the subsidized industrial agriculture economies of scale. In theory it might be interesting to look at the current subsidy system & think about changing it so it is less stacked in favor of large operations and maybe at shifting subsidies from producers to consumers (e.g. expanding food stamps) to deal with problems that might arise from unsubsidized pricing. Or maybe there would be a way to tinker with the subsidies system to make it disadvantageous to pay exploitation wages.

The other is the exclusion of agricultural workers from coverage under the NLRA (also excludes to domestic workers, another category of widespread employment of illegally resident immigrant workers).

However, that may not be relevant to operations like Smith's food processing business, and it seems that increasingly illegally resident immigrants are working in various kinds of non-agricultural work.

Brienne, a lot of illegally resident workers pay taxes; if they are "on the books" they're subject to withholding like other people. Those with false social security numbers end up paying into the SS system & will never get any benefits from those contribution. Of course, workers paid "off the books" or "under the table" often or usually don't pay taxes, regardless of their residency status. So that's going to vary a lot by type of employment. Many illegally resident people pay taxes in hopes that it may count someday toward a "path to citizenship" under some immigration reform.

Apparently the Portland day labor center isn't working very well at its primary aim, which was to physically relocate an activity going on anyway. It's not as if there wasn't an informal day labor center before.

Again, illegal immigration is NOT the issue here. The issue is a US senator flouting federal law. Jack Roberts wants to finesse the issue by suggesting that Smith didn't know he hired undocumented workers and is, therefore innocent. That is the moral relativism to which I referred. If Smith and his managers did not know, it is because they did not want to know.

Your statement, "If Smith and his managers did not know [he was hiring illegal immigrants], it is because they did not want to know" is without any substantiation on your part.

There is no moral relativism on my part here. I don't think people should break the law, but Willamette Week never claimed Gordon Smith broke the law. Even if his company had been cited for hiring illegal aliens (and it has NOT), I don't necessarily regard that as a moral outrage any more than I would if we learned that Jeff Merkley had received a speeding ticket in the past.

And, Chris, I agree that both Bush and McCain have been very reformist on immigration, as has Gordon. If anything, I might be to the left of all of them on this particular issue, even though I do not accept the characterization by anti-immigrant zealots of positions like mine as favoring "open borders."

I'd like to have secure borders with a reliable ID program, but believe it must be coupled with some way to provide the U.S. economy with an adequate workforce, while at the same time providing immigrants with economic opportunity along with dignity and respect.

My God! Jeff Merkley has 50 speeding tickets!!!!

Jeff, I am curious about your source for the idea that paying agricultural workers decent wages would dramatically raise food prices. More likely what it would do is increase pressures for further mechanization and further squeeze out the very few remaining family farmers (unless the recent rise in commodity prices persists).

I confess ignorance, Chris. It's not an issue I'm super well-versed on; I defer to your scenario, which is probably a studied one.

However, that the low wages offered to undocumented workers drives down salaries of all workers is, I believe, a defensible hypothesis.