Chairman. this amendment eliminates criminal penalties from the employer sanctions provisions of the bill. H.R. 1510 provides that a person or entity previously subject to civil penalties in two or more instances shall be fined not more than $3.000. imprisonment not more than 1 year. or both. for each unauthorized alien with respect to which the violation occurred. I certainly recognize the necessity of removing the financial incentives for undocumented workers to seek employment. But it seems the imposition of criminal penalties creates an unjustifiable burden on business owners. Criminal penalties. as a culmination of repeated violations of the civil penalties. require business peoplelarge and smallacross the country to act as immigration enforcement agents. This is completely unnecessary because other deterrents exist. Existing laws contain various penalties which can deter employers from hiring undocumented workers. Criminal sanctions. for example. are provided under Internal Revenue Code enforcement provisions. Through the enforcement of existing wage and hour laws. stricter monitoring and enforcement of the withholding of Social Security and income taxes. and stricter control over the issuance of Social Security documents. we can discourage employers from hiring undocumented workers. Employers are also subject to Federal and State health and safety regulations. The maze of Federal regulations imposed upon Americas business community is well known to all. It is unreasonable for us to impose additional requirementsimmigration law enforcementupon employers. The shortcomings of our present immigration laws. due to the lack of a comprehensive immigration policy. can better be addressed by existing laws. If we cannot enforce them at the present time. we cannot honestly anticipate that employer sanctions will work or will be adequately enforced. Criminal sanctions imposed upon employers concern me for another important reason.
Keywords matched
undocumented immigration