Obama amnesty includes businesses who hire illegal aliens

Obama amnesty includes businesses who hire illegal aliens

Rick Moran

This is a logical extension of the president's policies toward illegal aliens; go easy on businesses that hire illegals and make it possible for them to stay in the United States.

The president entered office vowing to crack down on businesses that hire illegals. Every election, we get promises from Republicans to expand the E-verify program so that businesses can easily find out if a potential employee is a citizen or not.

Those promises have fallen short and now, the federal government is easing off on enforcing the law.

Washington Times:

President Obama took office vowing to go after unscrupulous employers who hire illegal immigrants, but worksite audits have plunged over the last year and a half, according to a report released Tuesday by the Center for Immigration Studies, tumbling along with the rest of immigration enforcement.

Fewer owners are being arrested, and fewer fines are being collected as well, according to the report, which suggests that even as he offers amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, Mr. Obama is giving a similar free pass to ever more businesses who provide the jobs magnet that draws them.

Through the first five months of this fiscal year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted just 181 workplace audits and brought charges against only 27 employers, putting it on pace for fewer than 500 audits and just 65 arrests this year. That's less than 15 percent of the total audits conducted in 2013.

"Employers now face very little risk in hiring illegal workers and have little incentive to abide by the law," wrote the report author, Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the center.

Mr. Obama's administration early on stopped the Bush administration practice of workplace raids, which rounded up illegal immigrants - and which advocacy groups deemed too traumatic for the immigrants and their families.

Instead, the Obama administration began what became known as "virtual raids" - audits of paperwork, to figure out if a business was hiring illegal workers. Done right, it can be effective, Ms. Vaughan said, and it produced results at the beginning of Mr. Obama's tenure.

But over the last year and a half, even the virtual raids have slowed, and so have arrests and fines, Ms. Vaughan found.

ICE spokeswoman Danielle Bennett said the agency is still trying to do worksite enforcement.

"In addition to criminal prosecutions, we continue to fine employers who hire an illegal workforce," she said.

For years, the Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and small business associations have balked at increasing criminal penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegals, so the slowdown in prosections is only part of the problem. Have a few of the worst employer offenders perp walked to a federal building - that might help deter the practice. And then. actually send some of them to jail. Otherwise, it's basically just a slap on the wrist - the cost of doing business.

Stopping the flood of illegals has many different moving parts - enforcement, border security, and an effort by neighboring countries to keep their citizens home. We are failing in all three areas and the problem is only getting worse.