Behold, the ICE man cometh!

While we are skeptical that enforcement efforts will continue, it is good to hear that there are crackdowns on persons who are in the U.S. illegally, and who are breaking the law by passing themselves off as citizens using stolen social security numbers. We hope the government will crack down, as well, on the businesses that enable this type of lawless behavior. To wit:

The president of, Swift & Co., a chain of meat-packing plants, claims his firm does not "knowingly" hire illegal aliens.

But he also protested - in advance - that a sweep of the firm's facilities nationwide would probably result in the loss of 40 percent of the company's 13,000 workers.

That's 5,200 illegals, most using stolen identity information, if you don't want to do the math.

Our question? How innocent is a company whose president already knows that they have thousands of unlawful non-citizens on the payroll?

Doesn't sound like the company was trying too hard to stay on the right side of the law, does it?

Sadder yet, the United Food and Commercial International Workers Union says it will go to court in six states to halt the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. What happened to the concept of a patriotic union defending American jobs?

The raids capped a 10-month investigation into an identity-theft scheme that may have hundreds of victims, both U.S. citizens and legal residents, officials said.
...

Advocates of stricter immigration control praised the raids, pointing out they targeted people suspected of committing other crimes in addition to entering the nation illegally.

"I'm glad that ICE is enforcing our immigration laws in light of the illegal immigration crisis we face across the country," Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said in a statement.

As usual there are protests that the raids threaten "the children" and could violate "human rights."

Others criticized the effect on families or called the raids heavy-handed.

"They are taking mothers and fathers and we're really concerned about the children," said the Rev. Clarence Sandoval of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church in Logan, Utah. "I'm getting calls from mothers saying they don't know where their husband was taken," he said.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department pledged to ensure that any Mexicans caught up in Tuesday's raid have "their human rights fully respected, and are given all the necessary assistance, orientation and consular protection."

We believe that it is a teaching of the Church that parents are supposed to be responsible for the protection of their children, which would include, we would think, staying on the right side of the laws in whichever country you happened to be residing. We also believe that it is a long-standing policy of most churches, especially Catholics, to take care of familiesin trouble. Like women with children whose husbands have been arrested for good cause.

Perhaps it would be good timing to emphasize in homilies the expectation of obeying the laws of the nation in which you reside - "render unto Caesar" - as part of what it means to be a good Christian. If the laws are unjust, work to change them. In the meantime, obey them.

To the Mexican officials, we would simply say: Take a good long look at the log in your own eye before you go talking about the splinter in the American system. Mexico's record of protecting the "human rights" of jailed visitors is not a good one.