Immigration focus on employers

By Nicole Lucht (contact), In Business reporter

Fri, May 15, 2009 (2 a.m.)

A change in administration means a change in the way Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators handle undocumented workers. Instead of rounding up the workers and slapping the employer on the wrist, employers are going to be the focus — and with that comes heftier fines and penalties.

Employers have become the target of a federal campaign to dismantle some businesses’ practice of hiring workers in the country illegally.

Instead of primarily coming after the undocumented workers, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division will start to dole out heftier fines and cut off those businesses from receiving federal contracts.

The immigration division will beef up its workplace enforcement program to target “unscrupulous employers who prey upon these aliens by subjecting them to poor or unsafe working conditions or paying them substandard wages,â€