Raid symptomatic of larger problem

Federal immigration authorities on Tuesday raided six Swift & Co. facilities, including one in Hyrum, as part of crackdown on an identity theft scheme. Some 1,282 people were arrested at Swift & Co. plants in Utah and five other states, with 65 suspects facing criminal charges, including identity theft and 1,217 others being held on immigration charges alone.

It is up to the government to prove its cases against the workers, who allegedly bought or stole other people's identities to secure U.S. jobs. Officials say there may be hundreds of victims. Knowing the grave consequences of identity theft, the federal government should crack down on these crimes. Congress should also devise some means for law-abiding Americans to ascertain whether their Social Security numbers have been stolen.

This raid is symptomatic of a far greater problem — Congress's failure to pass meaningful immigration reform.

Aside from erecting a border fence, immigration reform has been a non-starter in Washington. Meanwhile, illegal immigrants continue to labor in the United States in the agriculture, hospitality and construction industries, to name a few. Some have the proper documentation to do so. Others have resorted to criminal activity to obtain needed documents, for which they clearly should be held accountable. Still others accept cash under the table.

There's got to be a better way.

For starters, Congress needs to act on some form of a guest-worker pass. It would enable immigrants to enter the country legally for purposes of work. After a set amount of time, they would return to their home countries. Such a program would ensure that the United States' work-force needs are met and that immigrant workers have legal authority to work in the United States.

Somehow, Congress must also come to grips with the millions of illegal immigrants in our midst. Some of them are part of families whose immigration status is mixed — the parents may be foreign born but their children were born in the United States, which renders them American citizens. That drama played out Tuesday when spouses or parents arrested in the raids didn't come home from work. Children were reported to be crying at school, and some children stayed home from school altogether on Wednesday at the behest of parents or out of fear, Latino activists said. There is an inescapable human dimension to the immigration issue.

The United States has neither the capacity nor the political will to embark on mass roundups of illegal immigrants. For that matter, it does not have a sufficient number of workers to fill the jobs these people perform, let alone workers who would accept the relatively low wages they earn.

As Utah's unemployment hovers about 2.5 percent, the concept of a labor shortage is not a far-fetched notion. Congress must come to grips with a sensible immigration policy that provides a legal means for people to work and live in this country. That would go a long way toward reducing the crimes some illegal immigrants commit simply to stay in this country.