You are exactly corrrect. If these companies got fined, or the folks doing the hiring were charged, then the problem would be severely lessoned. That is something, including myself, that folks often forget about. Both need to be done, but yeah, no one appears to have the guts. I thought Ashcroft would, but it starts at the top.
That was the plan in 1996. But like al government plans; they fail to address important issues.
After the 1996 laws were passed, the INS went after employers, but lost almost every case. Why? Because any law school drop out can prove that an employer is not fraudulent document expert and is not expected to know a real green card from a fake one. After spending millions of dollars and losing hundreds of cases, the INS stopped going after employers.
Until the government implements a nation wide program that employers must use to check the status of workers, employer sanctions will never work. As long as employer sanctions don’t work, no guest worker program will ever work and as long as no guest worker program will ever work, we will continue to have thousands of illegal aliens pour over our borders everyday.