After a seventeen-month long investigation, US immigration officials have uncovered that one of the countries leading clothing manufacturers had over 1800 illegal workers employed in their downtown Los Angeles factory.

This has resulted in all of those employees being fired in the coming weeks. These workers had obtained work by using false documents, US immigration officers have said, however, all paid taxes on their salaries and therefore contributed to the economy. This raises the question of if it was fair or right that because they were illegal immigrants working here without the necessary US visa arrangements, that they should lose their jobs?

These workers were good at their jobs, they arrived as and when they should, and carried out their duties without complaint. American Apparel, as you would expect of a company not seeking bad publicity, has under-played the immigration investigation. This is, after all, a company that trades on it’s wholesome all American image, as far removed from the shady sweatshops a US visa scandal like this would usually be associated.

The company’s chief executive, Dov Charney, has in the past campaigned on this issue of immigration in the US, and it is perhaps a little suspicious of why his company has been made a target. For if a company like American Apparel, as the investigation found, has over a quarter of it’s employees working illegally and not in line with US immigration laws, what would officials find if they investigated more obtuse businesses? Is this not an example of what is happening across the country, across every low-skilled sector and within every state?

Imagine that figure of 25% multiplied across the country. This country’s output relies on workers such as these; they are the unsung backbone of the US economy and without them commerce would undoubtedly suffer.

The issue of immigration in this country is not a new one, but is it not time that we understood that illegal immigrants are hard-working, tax paying workers, as the aforementioned Dov Charney campaigns for, is it not time we “Legalized L.A.”