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Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Keywords

illegal aliens, economic immigration, migrant workers, fiscal burdens of immigration, cost of illegal immigration

Abstract

Businesses that employ illegal aliens hoard enormous profits even as illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers approximately $135 billion a year. The fraudulent employment practices of companies that either intentionally or negligently hire undocumented workers have been inadequately addressed by both the federal legislature and executive administrations in the past. Rather than punishing predatory employers who provide economic incentive for immigrants to violate the law, governments have chosen to focus their efforts on futile attempts to prevent illegal immigration itself. Even effective federal regulations, which may otherwise have succeeded in curtailing the widespread practice of hiring undocumented workers, have mostly been rendered ineffective by inadequate (and at times defiantly non-existent) state and local enforcement of federal mandates. To address these issues, we propose 1) harsher economic penalties for predatory employers, 2) the expansion of the number of immigration courts and a narrowing in what documents are acceptable in establishing legal residency, and 3) stricter enforcement of federal mandates to eliminate legal inconsistencies like sanctuary cities.

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