By: Beth Geraci, Questex Media Group LLC
Landscaping and immigration took center stage during Tuesday’s Republican debate, surprising political pundits who expected candidates to rankle over economic issues instead.
The rancor started when Texas Gov. Rick Perry accused former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney of hiring undocumented landscapers to work on his yard in 2006 and 2007.
Romney came under fire for the same issue in the 2008 election after a Boston Globe article called him out in 2006 for hiring a company that employed illegal workers.
Romney reportedly demanded the company only hire legal workers, and when the Globe wrote a follow-up article in 2007 claiming the landscaper still employed undocumented workers, Romney fired the company.
“You lose all of your standing from my perspective, because you hired illegals in your home, and you knew about it for a year,” Perry said. Romney countered by saying he didn’t think he’d ever “hired an illegal.”
A politician may lose momentum for hiring illegal immigrants, but a landscaping company can lose a lot more than that — including clients, credibility and a business. Ricardo Saenz, the owner of Romney’s landscape company, Community Lawn Service with a Heart, never asked his foreign workers to provide documentation of their immigration status, the Globe reported in December 2006. One of the workers told the paper then that he had paid people roughly $5,000 to smuggle him across the Mexican-United States border.
This story underscores the importance of ensuring your workers are legal, not only to avoid embarrassment and being stigmatized but also to ensure the long-term viability of your company. Those who employ illegal workers may save a buck or two, but they leave themselves open to scrutiny and censure.
It takes effort to start a business, and even more effort to grow it. The next time a worker with no papers crosses your path, ask yourself whether hiring him or her is really worth the risk.
