Burden shifts from workers to employers

By Alan Blinder - Hearst News Service Web Posted: 07/22/2010 5:32 CDT
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As a major shift in federal immigration policy kicks in for Texas business owners, three times as many face fines this year compared with 2009 for employing undocumented workers or failing to follow immigration regulations.
Under President Barack Obama's administration, immigration enforcement in the workplace has largely targeted employers rather than workers, a significant shift from the tenure of George W. Bush when fines were scarce and workplace arrests more common.

Nationally, Immigration and Customs Enforcement's practice of targeting undocumented workers directly has dropped proportionately to the increase in fines for the business owners who hire them.

An Express-News review of actions by ICE shows 23 Texas companies, including six in San Antonio, have been penalized in the first eight months of fiscal 2010, October 2009 to May 2010.

In all of fiscal 2009, ICE fined just nine Texas companies $187,082 for worksite violations. So far this year, the increasing number of investigations has left nearly two dozen companies facing approximately $600,000 in fines — more than three times as much as the year before.

Few of the ICE investigations resulted in criminal prosecutions, federal records show, and statistics show workplace arrests are declining in a shift from the enforcement strategies of the Bush era.

The number of workplace arrests dropped from 1,100 nationally in 2008 and 410 in 2009, to just 273 so far this fiscal year.

ICE Director John Morton told a Senate committee during his 2009 confirmation hearings that ending unauthorized labor was a key to stopping illegal immigration.

“We cannot make sustained reductions in illegal immigration without deterring employment of unauthorized labor,â€