Texas's wacko lawsuit and my loopy labor department

Friends,

Texas has sued the Biden administration over its order to immigration agents to prioritize undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies rather than deport all undocumented immigrants.

Texas argues that federal immigration law requires the government to deport every undocumented immigrant. The Biden administration says it doesn’t have the resources to deport the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, so it must develop priorities.

The controversy reminds me of something that happened thirty years ago, soon after I became secretary of labor.

Child labor laws bar fourteen-year-olds from working past 7 pm on school nights. Weeks before I became secretary of labor, a vigilant Labor Department investigator discovered that the Savannah Cardinals, a Class A farm team of the Atlanta Braves, had hired 14-year-old Tommy McCoy to be their batboy. On balmy evenings extending beyond sunset, Tommy selected each player’s favorite bat and proudly delivered it to him in the batter’s box. Next morning, Tommy went to school.

The investigator threatened the team with a stiff fine. The team did what it had to do: It fired little Tommy.

Tommy liked being a batboy. His parents were proud of him. The team was fond of him. The fans loved him. As long as anyone could remember, every kid in Savannah had coveted the job. Tommy did well in school.

But now little Tommy was out of the best kid’s job in town.

Well, you can imagine the furor. It seemed as if the whole city of Savannah was up in arms. The Cardinals were about to stage a “Save Tommy’s Job Night” rally, featuring balloons, buttons, placards, and a petition signed by the fans demanding that Tommy be rehired.

ABC News was doing a story on the controversy — which was how I first heard about it. ABC wanted an on-camera interview with me that same evening, explaining why Tommy had been fired. They couldn’t wait to show America the stupidity of the government (and of its new secretary of labor).

What was I to do?

I tried to hold ABC off. They said they were running with the story with or without my interview.

I called an urgent meeting with the Labor Department’s top inspectors. I explained the situation to them, suggesting we let Tommy have his job back.

They wouldn’t hear of it. “It would look like you’re caving in to public opinion,” one of the chief inspectors said.

“But,” I asked, “isn’t it the public whom we’re here to serve?”

They said the law was clear: Children under 14 could not work past 7 pm on school nights. “The Savannah team broke the law and it was our responsibility to enforce the it.”

“But shouldn’t we have priorities?” I asked. “We have a limited number of inspectors. I can understand hitting a building contractor who’s hiring kids to lay roofing, but why go after batboys and girls?”

They said child labor was a serious problem. Children were getting injured working long hours.

“Exactly,” I said. “So let’s focus on the serious offenses and ignore the less serious.”

They warned that if I didn’t support the Department’s investigators, the staff would become demoralized.

“Good! If they become demoralized and stop enforcing the law nonsensically, so much the better,” I said.

They said that if I backed down, the Labor Department would lose credibility.

“We’ll lose even more credibility if we stick with this outrageous decision,” I said.

They said there was nothing we could do. The law was the law.

“Nonsense,” I said. “We can change the regulation to make an exception for kids at sporting events.”

But we’d invite all sorts of abuses, they argued. Vendors would exploit young kids on school nights to sell peanuts and popcorn. Stadiums would hire young children to clean the locker rooms. Parking lots would use children to collect money.

“So we draw the exception tighter and limit it to batboys and batgirls!” I said.

I was getting nowhere. World News Tonight would broadcast the story in minutes.

And then it hit me, like a fastball slamming into my think head: I was Secretary of Labor. I could decide this by myself.

“Thank you,” I said, standing. “I’ve heard enough.”

I turned to my assistant, “Tell the Savannah team they can keep Tommy. We’re changing the regulation to allow batboys and girls. Put out a press release right now. Call the producers for World News Tonight and tell them I’ve decided to let Tommy have his batboy job. Tell them our investigator was way off base!”

“But World News Tonight is already on the air!” my assistant said.

“Call them now!”

I turned on the TV in the corner of my office. ABC’s anchor, Peter Jennings, was already reading the news from his monitor. Within moments, he got to the story I was dreading:

The United States Department of Labor has decided that a fourteen-year-old named Tommy McCoy cannot serve as batboy for the Atlanta Braves farm team in Savannah, Georgia. The decision has provoked outrage from the fans. Here’s more from …

As Jennings turned it over to ABC’s Atlanta correspondent, he appeared to be smirking.

Shit.

I looked around the table at the inspectors. Did they understand that in seven million living rooms across America people were now saying to each other “How dumb can government get?” Did they care that the Department of Labor was about to be known as the Department of Laughable Decisions?

After two excruciating minutes during which ABC’s Atlanta correspondent detailed the story of little Tommy and the Labor Department, it was back to Jennings:

But this tale has a happy ending.

My heart skipped a beat.

The Labor Department reports that Tommy will get his job back. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has decided that the Department was — quote — off base in invoking child labor regulations under these circumstances.

Joy! Relief!

The inspectors sitting around my table were dismayed.

I tried to explain it to them exactly what the Biden administration is now trying to explain to the courts and to Republicans in Congress.

Laws cannot be enforced without setting priorities for enforcement. Inevitably — intentionally or unintentionally — people in charge of enforcing laws must determine which cases merit attention and resources and which don’t.

In doing this, they should use common sense. Target employers who are hiring young children and putting them in dangerous jobs over, say, a baseball farm team hiring a kid as a batboy.

Prioritize undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies over, say, a Dreamer who was brought to America as an infant and has been hardworking and law-abiding for her whole life.