We salute U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has finally begun to clamp down on Californians who employ illegal aliens. For far too long, these scofflaws have hired black market labor, thereby encouraging human trafficking and identity theft, eliminating employment opportunities for working Americans, contributing to blight and overcrowding and imposing upon taxpayers mounting costs for educating the children of illegal immigrants and compensating hospitals for the uninsured emergency medical services.

Predictably, advocates of open-borders and cheap labor are claiming that somehow their “rights” are being violated. Our response: It is high time that these violators are held accountable.

Two weeks ago, federal agents raided El Balazo, a popular Bay Area chain of 11 taqueria restaurants, arresting 63 illegal aliens working there. Several hundred demonstrators protested the raids last week in front of ICE’s San Francisco headquarters. They were joined by liberal state Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, who complained, “A lot of our municipalities are feeling these are improper invasions.” She claimed that the raids violated San Francisco’s “safe haven” status for illegal immigrants.

Migden’s protest followed that of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who called for ICE to suspend enforcement of immigration laws in Southern California.

Migden and Villaraigosa behave as though San Francisco and Los Angeles are not part of the United States. Do they really believe that the federal government has no obligation to enforce the law—everywhere? The only “improper invasion” taking place is the flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America into California.

Most of them come here to work but a significant number arrive to commit crimes.

The raid on El Balazo proves the point. Of the illegal aliens ICE arrested there, one is a suspected gang member and another was previously deported.

We sympathize with employers who unwittingly hire illegal immigrants. After all, illegal immigrants can obtain realistic-looking but phony identification at little cost. And the federal government still has not made available a reliable and easily accessed database to weed out job seekers who are illegal immigrants.

For Sacramento employers who deliberately flout U.S. immigration laws, the Bay Area and Los Angeles ICE operations should be a wake up call. The law is finally being enforced.