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San Francisco Trains Undocumented Felons in a Tough Job Market

Okay, so as everybody knows, this is a very tough economy.   The job market is lousy.   Millions have been laid off work, and for every open position you have hundreds if not thousands clamoring for employment.

I suppose it surpasses even the more esoteric irony then that in San Francisco’s District Attorney started a training program that included illegal immigrants who were convicted drug felons.  The program trained them for jobs they couldn’t hold legally in the United States.   Of course when the convicted felons had completed their training, their criminal records were expunged.   Their criminal  slates were wiped clean.

Upon reading the related news article in the Los Angeles Times I thought at first that the city district attorney’s office was not conducting adequate background checks on its employment training candidates.   Apparently, this was not the case.  In fact, the convicted felons were deliberately selected for job training in order to keep the undocumented felons out of prison.

In some cases it backfired.   Some of the trainees, upon completing the course, went out and committed additional violent crimes.   Not good.   District Attorney, Kamala Harris, who prides herself, apparently, on training undocumented workers for jobs they can never hold,  is currently running for California’s State Attorney General.    She termed her allowing these felons to be trained for jobs, “a mistake.”    The program has since been modified so that illegal immigrants incapable of holding these jobs are no longer admitted to the program.

In fairness, Back on Track, has been praised, overall, even by some of Harris’ detractors.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.