Employers weak link in immigration battle

The Bush administration made loud promises about cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, but new data suggest the promises were empty rhetoric.

Fewer than 100 company owners or supervisors were arrested in fiscal 2007, according to a report in TheWashington Post, and the Department of Homeland Security continued to focus mainly on arresting illegal workers. As it has for decades, the government targeted those at the bottom of the underground network and arrested nearly 4,900 illegal immigrants. The administration defends itself by saying total workplace arrests are up four-fold over two years ago. Yet just 2 percent of them resulted in charges against employers.

One of the few points of wide consensus in the immigration debate is that enforcement of employers has to be part of the solution. There are an estimated 6 million companies that employ 7 million illegal workers, yet the government got around to penalizing just 17 firms this year. While conservative Republican lawmakers are obsessed with walling off the Mexico border, they neglect the gaping holes within the U.S. business community.


The government still hasn’t figured out how to begin dealing with Social Security fraud in the workplace. In September, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he was tightening enforcement of “no matchâ€