When my father started Emerald Packaging in 1963 he did so with three partners. Over the years he bought them out, until in 1993 we became a family business. Through the years the second generation slowly jumped on board. My brother came first, about 30 years ago, and took a sales role. My sister followed and entered customer service. I arrived almost 18 years ago after a career in journalism helping in operations. My father ran a tight ship. The business prospered making iceberg lettuce bags back when such things were novelty. He had a good plant management team, which allowed him to focus on sales, strategy and finance. { read more }
Over the July 4 weekend the National Catholic Reporter, one of the most widely read newspapers among Catholics and other faiths, published my article about immigration on its front page. The piece is a little bit more political than the blog I wrote on immigration because I point to the Republican Party as the main reason we will not get comprehensive immigration reform this year. 
I remember exactly where I was when the insurer American International Group (AIG) collapsed in 2008–standing in Intercontinental Airport in Houston, waiting for a flight to Mexico. The news sent a shiver through me. I knew at that moment the long expansion of our economy had ended. I also concluded in an instant that we would not purchase the $4 million printing press that I had been on the verge of buying. Time to preserve cash, I figured. Get ready for reduced demand. Hunker down. 
Thirty years ago I never imagined being in formation, commemorating Memorial Day in formal ceremony, while dressed head-to-toe as a corporal in Union Army uniform. No, while marching in the streets of London protesting apartheid, the nuclear arms race and the bombing of Libya during graduate school I didn’t project myself standing here at requiem arms honoring the American dead of wars past and present, but specifically those who died between 1861 and 1865. 
About two years ago our company, Emerald Packaging, which manufactures plastic packaging for food, suffered a silent raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Like thousands of companies over the last few years, ICE came without notice and asked for copies of our I-9s, the forms employees must fill out detailing their right to work in the United States, including proof of legal status. ICE takes the forms and checks social security numbers (SSN) and work visa status, and anyone whose name does not match the declared SSN or whose work visa has lapsed must be terminated. Companies themselves face penalties for such technicalities as putting the necessary employee information in the wrong box on the form, a common error since the I-9 is a complicated document. Worse, they can be charged with criminal penalties if they have knowingly hired illegal aliens.