WASHINGTON, DC-Today the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees and International Law held a hearing on the government's handling of immigration raids and criminalization of immigrant workers.  Below is a statement from SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina.

SEIU applauds Chairman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and the members of the House Immigration Subcommittee for meeting today to expose the failures of the Bush Administration's costly raid and workplace enforcement strategy.

"Rounding up and criminalizing hard-working immigrants-denying them basic due process and locking them up far away from family and friends-destroys local communities, but does nothing to fix our broken system. 

"We cannot solve our immigration problems by enforcing broken laws. We cannot stop big business' high profit, low wage model by letting unscrupulous employers off the hook while we round up and prosecute the little guy. And we cannot solve our immigration problems by ignoring the root causes.

"We all want to end illegal immigration, but workforce raids waste billions of taxpayer dollars on a piecemeal approach that has failed again and again. The only way to solve the immigration problem is to get undocumented immigrants out of the underground economy, into the system and on a path to citizenship. The alternative-punitive attacks, family destruction, and harassment without hope-is a losing strategy that's shameful and fundamentally un-American.

"Americans are fair, Americans believe in order, and Americans are pragmatic. We hope that today's House Immigration Subcommittee Hearing sets the stage for a renewed effort to bring these American values to the table as we propose real solutions to fix our broken immigration system once and for all."

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