Illegal Employees Case Study1a. Case summary:Maria Elena works as a cleaner in your house. You find her quite nice but lately she seems to be restless so you decide to find out why and are shocked. Her story in short goes like this.Maria Elena is an illegal immigrant who lives in San Jose with her husband and 2 children in a dilapidated apartment with two other couples. Maria and her husband Luis hear from a cousin about how well everything is in the United States and decide to leave Mexico to give their children a better future. So Luis entered the United States illegally, earned enough money, and then called Elena. Using a fake green card, they both work. Elena's mother is now on her deathbed and Elena wants to visit her, but fears that if she goes to Mexico she won't. able to return. The moral question is: should you disclose the fact that you have an undocumented immigrant working in your home? The people involved are you, Elena and of course her family. The foremost thing on your mind is how to solve the problem of illegal immigrants. You are caught between two issues: humanitarian values and legal issues. You are also concerned that you did not check her Social Security before hiring her.2. You need to decide what course of action to take. You know there's no way you can help Elena. The source of the conflict itself is the residential status of your employee Elena. The conflicting moral duties here are the laws of the country which are very harsh towards immigrants and anyone found harboring them is also penalized very harshly. This problem does not have any resolutions or a workaround. You may want to consider taking the advice of an immigration attorney, but you will be putting yourself under the scrutiny of the INS. Your resolution may only be supportive for human reasons. You believe that Elena, being an honest worker and wanting to give a good life to her children, decided to enter the United States illegally and for humanitarian reasons it is okay. But humanitarian values are never considered in legal terms. Legally it is wrong and if Elena and her husband are caught they will languish in prison.
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