We learned just before the broadcast tonight that Linda Chavez has been interviewed again by the FBI about a Guatemalan woman who was or was not an employee of Ms. Chavez while she was still an illegal alien. And yes, it does sound like an episode early in the Clinton administration when two women he wanted for the Cabinet got into difficulty for employing undocumented workers. Chavez s confirmation may be in trouble because in the early 1990s, Guatemalan immigrant Marta Mercado lived in Chavez s home in suburban Washington. At the time, Mercado was in the country illegally. Chavez says Mercado s chores were irregular.
Immigration rules allow undocumented residents to do household work if it is irregular.
Chavez says she occasionally gave her money, a few hundred dollars at a time, and did not consider it pay for a job. At that time, Chavez was critical. That was what upset them more than the fact that she did not pay Social Security taxes. This, they say, was an act of compassion on Chavez s part, taking in a woman in need as she has done in the past. Afer Dan Rather s introduction quoted above, John Roberts went through the basics of the story, stressing how Mercado says she informed Chavez within months that she was illegal.