Also, businesses caught employing illegal immigrants seemingly don't face any punishment either. Migrants wouldn't enter the US illegally if they couldn't find employment, and they wouldn't find employment if businesses were harshly punished. As it is, everyone is incentivized to keep this cat and mouse game going.
The problem is one of documentation. Our system does not provide an adequate means of identifying those of legal status--and I think that's actually a good thing because the illegals would work under stolen identities rather than fake identities. Worse for those whose identity gets stolen (my mother had a long battle with the IRS over this--the IRS insisted that it was her responsibility to get her "employer" to fix her W2. The employer that she had never even heard of and couldn't locate. With the hindsight of the internet I suspect she should have filed the form to amend a W2, but this was before the internet.)
And our work permit documentation is remarkably easy to fake and tricky for an employer to even verify. Consider: foreign passport. Social security card marked "not valid for employment". Letter from the Immigration department giving temporary work permission. Legal? Yes, that was my wife while we were going through the green card process.
THe FBI/ICE sure cam after a judge that helped an illegal immigrant. I'm sure the FBI/ICE is using the same zeal to go after employers who helped them.
