So arrest and imprison employers. Why is "zero tolerance" only visited on workers?
Proving intent on the part of employers is extremely difficult. Immigrant advocates assist illegals with bogus social security numbers, etc.. Employers rely on those documents -- as they must if they don't want to be sued for discrimination -- and it sometimes takes upwards of 6 months for information to be returned saying the numbers are bogus.
Now, your answer to this might be "changed the system so none of that happens -- eVerify, etc.. Add more immigration judges to process claims more quickly." And you're right -- there are solution that would prevent that. The problem is that Democrats oppose those solutions, because they don't want tighter border controls. They
deliberately create problems like this so they can pressure the Administration into accepting mass legalization, and a still-unsecured border. That's why we don't get those solutions -- the Democrats don't want them.
So we either cave in to what amounts to open borders, or we enforce the laws as written to try to force a compromise. I support that 100 times out of 100, and if it imposes some hardships on immigrants...well, it must still be better than where they came from, right? If not, they are perfectly free to go right back home whenever they want.