Targeting Employers Instead of Employees.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0907/090701washington.htm

The Obama administration has begun moving away from the well-publicized Bush administration criminal raids of undocumented workers. The enforcement emphasis is shifting instead to going after the employers who hire these workers--through civil sanctions, not criminal charges--in an acknowledgment that as long as employers are seeking out undocumented labor, the supply will be there.

This is long overdue for several reasons for the numbers reason alone. Catching illegal aliens one by one can not stem the flow of a cheap labor pool that circumvents minimum wage laws and generally screw up the supply and demand principle that promotes higher wages and benefits.
It’s substantially cheaper for the government to hire 10 auditors, and accountants to go over the books of 700 suspect employers than to hire 100 officers to raid 10 businesses which so far has not turned the trick. There are millions of illegal aliens working for thousands of employers, so it is easier to whittle down the thousands than the millions.

ICE audits get the employers attention, and if the employers a punished harshly for hiring illegal aliens this will send a clear message to hire citizens and comport to our labor, and employment laws.

If employer risk loosing there business by hiring illegally if all employers complied with the current immigration laws jobs in the service sector will necessarily rise lowering the unemployment rate.
Unionization of the restaurant industry,and other service industry's in it current form is a difficult task, when talk of unionizing happens it is not uncommon for restaurants to fire the current work force, or all of the sudden go through their I-9 and discover half the work force is illegal aliens then fire them to comply with the I-9’s.
JoeC (McGruff)