Employers risk little in hiring illegal labor

[deadparrot]

PHOENIX - It's a topic often lost in the heated battle over whether to add more border patrol agents, build a bigger fence, or deploy the US military along the border with Mexico. But in the end, most analysts agree, the United States can't stem the flow of illegal immigrants until it resolves to do one thing: punish employers who hire them.

Current law provides for sanctions against such employers, and legislation now under consideration in Congress would stiffen employer penalties.

The tougher provisions are not lost on companies here in Arizona, which now has more illegal immigrants crossing its border than any other state and which owes its decades-long growth spurt in part to a huge workforce - at least 12 percent - of undocumented laborers.

But federal enforcement has long been so weak, and employer fines so few and far between, that many here still laugh off the prospect of serious sanctions - though the laughs are a little more nervous now.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/aemployers

[Deja Q]

1. Then why the heat over legalizing illegals?

Surely not to stop the free social security tax being paid by the illegals that they can't ever collect on...

[PublicWrath]

2. Particularly helpful to employers of illegal immigrants was the bushco

fiat to SocSec not to contact employers with the news when the SocSec numbers are bogus or irregular. Not only does the Treasury get to keep the money, employers never have to face the embarassment of having been "officially" notified of a potentially illegal hire.

[DURHAM D]

3. However, the employer gets an immediate note from the

IRS if a bogus SS# is used/reported on a 1099.


Have never received a note from the IRS on a W-2.

You are right the government wants my money and my employees money that gets deposited each month and they know that the employee with a bogus SS# will never come looking for their money.