IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IS GOVERNMENT’S JOB

INOT THE FREE MARKET’S RESPONSIBILITY

Employers are not immigration officers

http://townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/2013/06/16/employers-are-not-immigration-officers-n1621144?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Townhall – Jeff Jacoby – 6/16/2013

I don't dispute that Washington has the authority to establish rules for immigrating to the United States, and to proceed against anyone caught violating those rules. But by what logic does that entitle Congress to turn employers into involuntary immigration agents, and to compel them to enforce a federal policy that the government couldn't enforce? It would be one thing to call for "cracking down hard" on an employer who hires someone to do work that is in itself illegal, fraudulent, or a threat to public safety. But why should a job applicant's green-card or visa status — which is a matter between him and US immigration officials — impose obligations on an employer willing to pay him honest wages for honest labor?

Immigration enforcement is the government's job, not the private sector's. No employer should be punished because of an employee's immigration problems. "Workplace enforcement" wasn't an effective answer to illegal immigration in 1986; there is no reason to think harsher sanctions will prove more effective now. But whether or not such harshness is effective, any free society should find it offensive. Even if it is the one piece of immigration "reform" that everyone agrees on.

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