Adrian Kelly Research Memo Sociology 419 T-Th (9:00-10:15) September 13, 2012 Present factual information on various

sociological issues of relevance to the topic: Immigration Policy 1. Question: Would tougher punishments for businesses that employ illegal workers be a viable solution to the hiring and employment of illegal workers? 2. Relevance to Sociology of Law: The Sociology of Law looks at how individuals behavior in society is determined by the law and also the inverse of this; how the law is determined by our behavior. For this special topic assignment on Immigration Policy, I will be looking at the illegal employment aspect of the Immigration issue, specifically the role of employment as possible encouragement to illegal immigrants and the effect that tougher sanctions on these businesses may have in helping to curtail the employment of illegal immigrants. This type of research may provide possible insights into the issue as well as policy implications for possible new procedures and laws. 3. Evidence: A) At a time in this countrys history where economic instability and unemployment run rampant, finding a job can be a challenging endeavor for the average American. Add to this the increasing influx of illegal workers and this challenge becomes an almost impossibility. At least this is the argument for those in favor of restrictions on immigration, specifically restrictions on illegal immigration. They argue that the main incentive for illegal workers entry into the U.S. is to find work and if employers wouldnt hire them then they would not come. According to The Immigration and Reform Act of 1986, it is illegal and a federal crime to hire illegal workers. It further

goes on to state that it is unlawful for a person or other entity, after hiring an alien for employment, to continue to employ the alien in the United States knowing the alien is (or has become) an unauthorized alien with respect to such employment. B) Typically, when we hear about an illegal employment bust, we often tend to focus more on the fate of the illegal workers, sometimes forgetting the role of the company in this violation and what the sanctions are for the businesses that employ these workers in the first place. From this, what we find generally in a raid is that more employees get arrested and prosecuted than employers. According to an April 2009 article in The New York Times, the previous year nearly 6000 people were arrested in workplace immigration raids across the nation, but only 135 were employees or managers. What this shows is that maybe raids are ineffective as a means of stopping employer violations. Since raids are the typical method of cracking down on illegal labor, it would seem that maybe officials need to start building effective cases against employers before conducting a raid, thus ensuring that all offending parties are equally punished. Many employers have argued however that they are easily fooled by workers with fake documents and that the government has not yet established a reliable system for verifying immigrant status. Though hiring illegal labor is a federal offense some states have taken it upon themselves to fill in the gaps where the federal government is failing. Arizona, a state with a large immigrant population is an example of one such state. They have enacted a law which would force all businesses to verify the documents of workers using the federal E-verify system. It also states that any business that is found guilty of violations can have their business license suspended on the first offense and even completely

revoked on the second offense. This is in stark contrast to federal laws which are mostly fines and possible criminal prosecutions. C) We have established that the employment of illegal aliens is a felony punishable by the law, and have also looked at possible punishments facing this violation. It would follow that the next question of interest is the motivation of the employer who still chooses to engage in this practice. One theory is that there is an interest on the part of the employer to hire illegal immigrants. On one side of the issue is the argument from the perspective of the employer, especially one with an immigrant background, that what they are doing is helping people out. People who otherwise couldnt find jobs to take care of their families. However the other side claims that employers are taking advantage of illegal immigrants by paying them less, making them work longer hours and providing them with not so suitable working conditions. According to a fairly recent court case Pili Chen, 56, of Norcross Georgia, an employment agency owner and driver, was prosecuted and sentenced to one year four months in prison followed by three years supervised release for recruiting and employing illegal aliens and also providing them housing and transportation. United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said of the case, These defendants not only broke the law by employing workers who were illegally in the United States, they exploited the workers by subjecting them to long shifts, substandard pay, and poor working conditions. As this case shows, we will hold employers responsibleincluding business owners and managerswho attempt to gain an unlawful economic advantage by hiring employees who are not permitted to be in the United States.

D)

Another popular argument for the prevalence of the employment of illegal aliens is that companies who partake are not being punished. However, according to the Wall Street Journals article Fresh Raids Target Illegal Hiring, The Department of Homeland Security is cracking down even more on companies that participate in the hiring of illegal workers. The following excerpt is a passage from the article: Since January 2009, the Obama administration has audited at least 7,533 employers suspected of hiring illegal labor and imposed about $100 million in administrative and criminal finesmore audits and penalties than were imposed during the entire George W. Bush administration. The latest penalty hit HerbCo International Inc., a big Washington statebased supplier of organic herbs, which agreed Tuesday to pay $1 million in fines for employing illegal immigrants and then rehiring some of them after an ICE audit last year. The following chart helps to illustrate this:

We can see that there has been an increase from 2007-2011 on audits of these businesses, criminal arrests and fines. Though this is a good example of the sanctions in action, it raises questions about the number of companies that partake in the illegal

activity that were not caught or punished. Since most companies wont voluntarily release information about illegal employees we simply do not have the relevant information to look deeper into this aspect of the issue. E) At this point of the research an important question comes to mind. Do we need tougher laws or just better enforcement of the current laws? We know that people obey the law when it is in their best interest. We also know that according to deterrence theory, sanctions deter crime. Following this logic it would seem that tougher sanctions are necessary to help this problem. However, according to the characteristics of sanctions certainty is very important. The certainty of a sanction is much more of a deterrent than the severity of the sanction. This implies that maybe law enforcement doesnt necessarily need to enforce tougher sanctions, but should focus instead on ensuring that some form of punishment is certain to come. F) An interesting way to assess the effect of tougher sanctions on illegal immigration in the U.S. is to look at how other countries have dealt with this same particular issue. It is important to note however that the situation of the U.S. may be unique and quite unlike the situations of other countries. One country that strictly enforces an almost no immigrant is Japan. It has gotten to the point where they are known for having the strictest immigration policy in the world with a foreign population of less than 2%, the U.S. is about 13% However, this policy of keeping foreigners out is leading to a labor shortage in the country. With almost 1/4th of the population aging (65 or older) Japan could face some serious labor problems in the future.

Another country to examine is our neighbor to the north Canada, which has rather looser immigration laws (compared to the U.S. and Japan) Canada has more foreign born per capita than the U.S. but it is important to note that they prefer it this way due to the sparse population and low birth rate. They need immigrants for population and economic growth. The majority of their foreign workers are brought in to fill labor gaps. To determine who should live or work they go from a point system in which points are awarded for proficiency in education, languages and job experience. There is a lot to be taken from the situations of both countries. A complete lockdown on immigration could have an adverse effect on the working population (like Japan) since it is a well documented fact that immigrants often do the jobs that legal Americans stay away from such as labor intensive and agricultural type jobs. Allowing qualified immigrants could have a positive effect on the workforce in America since were allowing in more qualified and educated immigrants (like Canada) but it is important to note that qualified and educated immigrants usually dont take the route of illegal immigration since their skills are often an asset to get them through legally migrating to this country.

4) Open Issue: so many companies get away it is near impossible to catch them all so there is an accuracy bias to the data we do collect. How could we get this evidence?

In conducting the research into companies who have been caught and prosecuted an interesting question came to mind. I was interested in the geographical distribution of companies that hire illegal workers, specifically the correlation between geographic location and number of

illegal employees hired. Basically, are companies located in states by the borders more inclined to hire illegal workers? This is important because this information could possibly help with policy implications for states like Arizona, that have an illegal immigrant labor problem, that might want to craft their own custom policies aside from the federal policy. In order to carry out this research, one would need a list of companies that have violated the law and been prosecuted along with the geographic location of these companies in order to see if there is a correlation. It is important to note however that information on company violations might be unavailable except for those companies who have already been caught and prosecuted, so the data we get would be incomplete. There are undoubtedly a number of companies that partake in this illegal activity that were not caught or punished. Since most companies wont voluntarily release information about illegal employees we simply do not have the relevant information to look deeper into this aspect of the issue.

References

Macaulay, S., Friedman, L. M., & Stookey, J. (1995). Law and society: Readings on the social study of law. (First ed.). New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Timasheff, N. (1937). What is "Sociology of Law"?. American Journal of Sociology, 43(2). Retrieved September 10, 2012, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2769025 4 arrested for employing illegal aliens. (n.d.). U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Retrieved September 13, 2012, from http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1202/120224gulfport.htm FBI Business Owners Sentenced for Employing Illegal Aliens . (n.d.). FBI Homepage. Retrieved September 13, 2012, from http://www.fbi.gov/atlanta/pressreleases/2011/business-owners-sentenced-for-employing-illegal-aliens JORDAN, M. (n.d.). Obama Administration Targets Illegal Hiring Again - WSJ.com. Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - Wsj.com. Retrieved September 13, 2012, from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304868004577378042369495780.html