Hiring Illegals Is a Crime
DOJ is guilty of a pattern and practice of failing to seek criminal penalties for employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens
By George Fishman on March 6, 2023
Summary
In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act established “employer sanctions”, making it unlawful for employers to knowingly hire and employ illegal aliens. Congress incorporated civil penalties, generally in the form of fines, and a misdemeanor criminal offense for engaging in a “pattern or practice” of violations. In the same legislation, Congress made employers potentially liable for the preexisting crime of “harboring” illegal aliens. In 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act established a separate criminal offense for the knowing hiring of at least 10 illegal aliens known by the employer to have been smuggled into the U.S., and made harboring illegal aliens a predicate offense for the purpose of prosecutions under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
While different administrations have devoted various degrees of effort to enforcing employer sanctions and levying civil fines, employers have generally adapted to these fines as a “cost of doing business”. In over three decades, no administration has aggressively utilized the criminal penalties provided for by Congress. This became shockingly apparent in 2019 when the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University reported that “since criminal penalties for employers were first enacted by Congress in 1986, few employers have ever been prosecuted. ... [and] fewer who are convicted receive sentences that amount to more than token punishment.”
A principal cause of the neglect of criminal enforcement is the difficulty of proving that an employer “knowingly” hired or employed illegal aliens, in large part the result of the easy availability of fraudulent documents used by illegal aliens.
I recommend that Congress seriously consider two statutory changes to fulfill the failed promise of employer sanctions to turn off the jobs magnet for illegal immigration. The first would be to provide temporary legal status (and potentially lawful permanent residence) to illegal aliens who can provide critical information that can lead to the successful prosecution of their employers for employer sanctions violations. The second would be to provide the victims of employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens (such as American workers who are fired or not hired as a result of such unlawful employment) a private right of action to sue the employers for damages.
https://cis.org/Report/Hiring-Illegals-Crime
