Immigration

San Bernardino Proposal Fails to Force Restaurants to Check Employees’ Immigration Status

Epic measure fail!
Epic measure fail! Photo: Easy Locum via Flickr

San Bernardino apparently has its very own Jan Brewer, as last night county Supervisor Neil Derry pushed a proposal that would force restaurants to inform all passersby whether or not they have given immigration checks to their employees. As one would expect in Southern California, and one of the reasons we love living here, the measure failed to gather a single vote besides Derry’s. The L.A. Times reports that his plan would have changed the white letter-grade health inspection cards given to restaurants to suddenly become color-coded under the measure. No, the red and green scheme was probably not an intentional attempt to have neighborhoods flying the Mexican tri-color, but rather indicators as to whether a restaurant had used a federal database to verify its employees’ immigration status or not.

If this doesn’t make him sound like San Bernardino’s biggest fascist already, Derry explains that his obsession with the immigration issue at restaurants is really a health issue, telling the paper, “I am disappointed that my colleagues ignored the health of the public and endorsed the stealing of American jobs by illegal workers during this devastating recession.” Yeah, he’s one of those.

Sounding not the least bit super, the Supervisor continues, “Customers literally place their health in the hands of anonymous individuals and are vulnerable to numerous communicable diseases more commonly found in people born outside this country.”

Of course, you and I already know the country’s best kitchens, whether serving high-priced French or budget Guatemalan, are typically run by immigrants of differing status and run quite well for the majority of those who eat there. But let’s not tell Derry that. Instead, we’ll just allow him to continue eating at whatever bleached and bland restaurants he prefers as a fitting punishment for his bullying.

Immigration status rule for San Bernardino County eateries fails [LAT]

San Bernardino Proposal Fails to Force Restaurants to Check Employees’