[Maarten88]

With all the anger over illegal immigrants taking US jobs, as a European it surprises me that nobody in the US seems to even mention the idea of punishing the employer for employing illegal workers.

If I want to hire someone (local or remote) as an employer here, I better make sure the worker has a valid working permit. Fines for non-compliance towards the employer are huge, even for a single day of work. All paperwork has to be complete before any work is done. Even when hiring through intermediary companies who guarantee it's all legal, liability and fines remain in place for the ultimate employer if it turns out to be not so.

[jandrewrogers]

In the US, there is no reliable way to verify employment eligibility. What systems do exist tend to produce many false positives and false negatives. Furthermore, you are required to accept documents the demonstrate employment eligibility at face value, even if they are likely to be fraudulent.

In industries that famously have many illegal employees, the companies have cover because the employees always have fraudulent documents. And since the company is required to accept those documents and not discriminate, the company can't be held liable for hiring them even though they are illegal.

Underlying this situation is that it is unconstitutional for the Federal government to issue mandatory ids to citizens that could be used to reliably determine employment eligibility.

[JumpCrisscross]

> you are required to accept documents the demonstrate employment eligibility at face value, even if they are likely to be fraudulent

Genuine question: source?

> mandatory ids to citizens that could be used to reliably determine employment eligibility

Yes, state-issued IDs, the infallible line keeping underage drinkers out of bars.

[Spooky23]

More like they can comply with their minimal legal obligation while accepting documentation that is readily identifiable as fraudulent.

People not motivated to seek shall not find.

[MetaWhirledPeas]

> In the US, there is no reliable way to verify employment eligibility.

Enact a law to punish the employers and that would change overnight.

[gwbas1c]

The people who complain about illegal immigrant labor in the US also like their cheap chicken and other fruits from illegal immigrant labor.

It's a weird case where one business undercuts another by hiring cheap labor, and then the other business has to do the same thing or else risk going out of business.

Better enforcement might help, but remember, people like cheap chicken; it doesn't matter which way you vote.

[frmersdog]

People say this, but I always wonder if some rejiggering of the revenue allocation calculus might make it possible to keep chicken cheap while paying the workers a living wage. All you'd have to do is make a handful of executives very disappointed when they open the letter containing their tax bill - or when a federal law enforcement agent knocks on their door.

[neuroelectron]

I don't like cheap chicken

[silisili]

There are legal means of hiring seasonal workers.

If it needs fixing in law, let's do that... not this weird system we have now of turning our head the other way and waving it off as necessary while ignoring any criticism of said crazy system.

[danans]

> it surprises me that nobody in the US seems to even mention the idea of punishing the employer for employing illegal workers.

The anti-immigrant politicians can't punish the employers because they would be punishing their own donors.

If that sounds like a contradiction, consider that undocumented/illegal immigrants are effectively pawns who have no political power in the system, and the contradiction disappears entirely.

[hollerith]

How does that make the contradiction disappear? It doesn't.

The resolution to the contradiction is that few candidates to Federal office are opposed to illegal immigration, and those that have opposed illegal immigration have mostly gotten away with merely saying they are opposed while not doing very much to stop illegal immigration.

[MetaWhirledPeas]

> it surprises me that nobody in the US seems to even mention the idea of punishing the employer for employing illegal workers

This has been my proposed solution to the immigration problem in the US. Stop attempting to corral the people coming over, and shift 100% of your resources toward punishing those who employ them. How many people will attempt to sneak into the US when no one is willing to hire them?

I also view this as a "put your money where your mouth is" stance. It changes it from a political issue into one with a practical solution, and the people benefiting from cheap labor would have to be very creative to find fault with it.

[alephnerd]

> punishing the employer for employing an illegal worker

It's already the law.

This is why employers mandate I-9 forms as part of employment.

This is part of the larger indictment against Christine Chapman by the DoJ, who found she was falsifying employment verification documents and giving access to North Koreans in return for a portion of the embezzled sums.

Stories like this are also why there has been a major push for RTO.

[JumpCrisscross]

> already the law

There is practically zero enforcement. Criminalise hiring illegal workers while stepping up enforcement and you dramatically reduce the value of illegal migration while shutting down large sections of the economy, thereby prompting supply-side inflation.

We don’t do it because this is a politically convenient middle ground that keeps illegal labor in the system while segregating it from competing with most of us. (Put another way: we have a regulated and an unregulated labor market. We like the fruits from the latter.)

[ceejayoz]

> Stories like this are also why there has been a major push for RTO.

Citation needed. I find this very unlikely as the root cause.

[DFHippie]

Legislation is frequently proposed to do just this: require all employers to use E-Verify to ensure they don't hire illegal workers. The same people who are constantly firing up voters about immigration are opposed to this. The political issue is valuable to them, as is cheap, cowed, disposable labor. And they know if they succeeded in shipping their workers back over the border there would be economic and political mayhem.

I expect endless demagoguery about immigration and performative cruelty, but nothing that will challenge the bottom line.

Here's a recent bit of commentary on E-Verify: https://jabberwocking.com/the-long-sad-story-of-e-verify/

[BadHumans]

The anger over illegal immigrants taking US jobs is mostly fearmongering from the people employing illegal immigrants.

[mkatx]

Wait, the ones who are getting a great deal on labor costs are the ones complaining about the source of that great deal?

I'm not so sure..

[pumanoir]

The scammers in question use stolen US citizens' identities. Same thing happens in Europe to a lesser degree.

[anon115]

too much work im gonna hire the immigrant sorry not sorry~

[Spooky23]

Most of the illegal immigrant hoopla has been performative bullshit to make to easier to control employees. If you’re in the chicken processing business or need casual labor, it’s a hell of alot cheaper to avoid paying for social security, worker’s compensation, etc by hiring people whom you can easily exploit by dangling the sword of ICE over their heads.

The US governance model segments immigration and work regulation - the former is a federal matter, the latter is almost exclusively regulated by the states (including enforced of federal rules).

In recent years as conservatives have veered into a more overtly racist and reactionary movement that’s shifted a bit.