It seems as though many companies that unlawfully employ illegal immigrants are being let off the hook by the Obama administration, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted just a fraction of workplace audits compared to previous years.
In the first five months of fiscal year 2015, ICE only conducted 181 workplace audits and brought charges against just 27 employers, according to Jessica Vaughan, policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies.
Whereas in 2013, ICE audited 3,127 companies and arrested 179 employers for employing illegal immigrants, Vaughan said, adding that the "number of employer fines collected by ICE also has dropped by more than half."
"The administration's near discontinuation of worksite enforcement means that employers now face very little risk in hiring illegal workers and have little incentive to abide by the law," Vaughan wrote.
The number of ICE audits has fallen from a high of more than 3,000 in 2013 to 1,320 in 2014, and this year, Vaughan said she expects ICE to complete only about 435 audits.
From 2010 to 2014, an average of about 200 employers were arrested for employing illegal aliens, but that number is expected to fall to about 65 by the end of 2015, Vaughan said.
Fewer audits also means fewer fines collected from offending employers. "In each year from 2011 to 2014, ICE collected more than $8 million in fines from offending employers. This year, ICE is on track to collect less than $5 million in fines," according to Vaughan.
The declining enforcement numbers can be at least partially explained by a 2009 Obama administration decision to shift away from conducting worksite raids in the field, which often resulted in the arrest and removal of illegal aliens, Vaughan explained. ICE was instructed to begin conducting "virtual raids," in which forensic accountants perform hiring paperwork audits, focusing on employer compliance.
"When done strategically (and they weren't always) these audits, together with employer compliance programs and complementary enforcement activity, did help at first to create an improved climate of employer compliance, although they rarely resulted in consequences for the illegal alien workers, who remained free to seek work elsewhere as ICE agents were generally prohibited even from interviewing the workers, much less arresting them," Vaughan said.
She pointed to "real enforcement" previously carried out in 2014 by then-U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, who is now the attorney general. One case Lynch prosecuted resulted in 10-20 year prison terms for the five defendants. That kind of enforcement "shows that those kind of sanctions are taken seriously by employers and have a chilling effect on illegal hiring," she wrote. "Ironically, the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the ... case was Loretta Lynch, now the Attorney General, and who stated at her confirmation hearing that she now believes that illegal aliens have a right to work here."
Vaughan concluded: "Robust worksite enforcement programs produce numerous public benefits, including deterring illegal hiring, exposing exploitative workplace conditions and tax violations, punishing unscrupulous employers, uncovering document fraud rings and other criminal activity, and, most importantly, restoring job opportunities for legal workers. When considering the allocation of funding for ICE programs, Congress should take care that this critical form of enforcement, which addresses both land crossers and overstayers, is restored to a higher priority."
