I disagree I think Sabertooth should be commended for putting together a pretty good list of proposals. Best of all, I like his proposal number 8:
8: Seize the assets of businesses knowingly hiring Illegals under the RICO Act, as they are ongoing criminal enterprises. Prosecute executives who knowingly hire Illegals.
Don't you think that something like that might be worth a shot?
But that was not your question. Your question was about using RICO statutes to bankrupt those businesses which knowingly hire productive workers who they know to be carrying fraudulent ID cards.
No, I don't agree with that, either. Again, the problem is when ideologues mistake a relative good with an absolute one. There is no justice in throwing thousands of citizens into unemployment because the corporate gardener or janitor was hired who shouldn't have been hired. That would constitute a grave injustice.
The whole point of "knowingly hire" really becomes moot unless all employers are required by some prohibitively-costly mandate to then hire detectives, and forgery experts, etc. It's not their job to vet people's legal status. They are there to provide goods and services which benefit people and society, not to do the work of the government. They have no authority or expertise to vet the status of anyone to a 100% degree of certainty. But if someone is knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants and flouting the law, and if it can be proven, then yes, prosecute them, but don't bankrupt their business. To advocate such is only demagoguery.
Anyone can formulate a doomed or impossible plan, but seriously, I will stick with time-tested and elected leaders on formulating a workable plan on this problem.
When I worked in industry, environmental laws beginning to be written so that executives (company presidents, CEOs, etc.) could be prosecuted for violations, even if they had no actual personal knowledge of the crimes committed - I think in legal terms it would mean there was no "plausible deniability". The EPA assumed that if someone was in charge of a company, he "knew or should have known" about everything that happened there.
It created a bit more incentive for CEOs to take an interest in making sure things were done the correct way, especially after a couple of bigshots were prosecuted and convicted.
I see no reason that immigration laws couldn't be written and enforced in the same manner. I must say, when I was listening to the summary of the President's suggestions on the radio this afternoon I was a bit confused...if employers have to follow existing labor laws to hire illegals, is there still an incentive to do so under the proposed program? If minimum wage laws, etc, were followed, would Americans be willing to do the jobs?