Via FoxNation, behold the most tone-deaf public-service announcement — yet — from the Obama administration. The US government occasionally conducts raids on employers who hire illegal immigrants as workers, even during Barack Obama’s term of office. Now suddenly Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis has established a hotline number, not for people to tip the government to employers breaking the law, but to act as an agent for illegals to make sure they get paid “fairly”:

Does it occur to the White House at all that “undocumented” workers are breaking the law themselves? They shouldn’t be exploited, but then again, they shouldn’t be here to be exploited, either.  At the same time that the Obama administration contemplates a lawsuit against Arizona to stop them from enforcing immigration law, they’re working on a program that supports the people breaking that law, all while unemployment continues at a high rate long after their stimulus plans have run aground.  Instead of enforcing the law – which is, after all, the raison d’être of the executive branch — they’re conspiring to help people break it, and with our tax dollars, no less.

Of course, this could be an elaborate ruse to find new sites to raid.  The political fallout from that would be fun to watch, but alas, it seems that despite the cheesy graphics and extraordinarily bad concept, Obama and his team are serious about helping illegal immigrants get paid more for their work.

Update: Stephen Gutowski reports that this is a work-around for a Supreme Court decision that ruled that illegal immigrants don’t have standing to fight wage issues:

Basically they know that they’re violating the intention of the supreme court’s ruling in Hoffman Plastics but they don’t give a damn. They throw up the weak argument the ruling only applied to the specific law that was addressed in the case. However, I think the court is clearly saying that the government can’t force employers to pay wages that couldn’t have been legally earned in the first place.

This all makes me wonder if Obama’s DOL is going to make sure that drug dealers are paid a “fair” wage by the gangs that employ them? I mean is that not the same situation? An employer which knowingly illegally employs someone and exploits them?

Will Obama’s DOL make sure all people illegally employed are paid a “fair” wage or just the ones whose political cause they support? And even if they do try to help all people employed illegally does that make it any better? How can anybody justify any of this as a good idea?

The only interest that the government should have is enforcing the border and immigration laws.