In the United States of 2006 we have somewhere between 10 million and 20 million illegal aliens. This is a deep concern to most citizens, as well it should be. So what should the U.S. Government do about it?One of the most popular ideas is that those who employ illegal aliens should be severely punished. The idea is that, without the lure of relatively high U.S. wage rates, as compared to the wages available in Mexico and other such hell holes, these illegal aliens would go home and cope as well as they could with the economic conditions there. Is it true? No. Even if it was true, would it be a Good Idea? No, for three reasons. I'll present them for your consideration in reverse order of their importance, i.e., the least important first.
First off, it is too simplistic. The U.S. economy is not made up solely of companies employing people for wages and salaries. There are also many self-employed entrepreneurs doing work that is indistinguishable from the work done by employees, as well as the self-employed who are in small scale retail sales, distribution, and production, both legal and otherwise. To be effective as a deterrent to illegal immigration, such a penalty would have to apply to everyone who employs an illegal alien in any way. If a company hires a person to do night janitorial maintenance, that company can easily check to make sure the employee has the government's permission to work. But what if the company hires another company to do that maintenance? Is it to be responsible for the employment practices of other companies? Is it to be required to ascertain whether all the employees of its suppliers of goods and services are "legal"? If so we would, for all practical purposes, be outlawing the outsourcing of virtually all services such as cleaning, landscape maintenance, painting, and other building maintenance. Do we really want to do that? Do we really want every business, regardless of its size, to be required to take on new employees every time it needs to have a roof repaired or a window replaced? To be really effective, this requirement that all employers, and users of labor in any way, ascertain the legal employability of everyone who comes on its premises to do work would have to apply to everyone, including very small businesses and even homeowners. Do you really want to do a government-required check on the fellow you pay to mow your lawn?
Next, it concentrates entirely on only one group of "enablers." If you rent a house to an illegal alien, you are just as guilty of enabling him to be here as any (other) business person is. If you pay an illegal alien to mow your lawn, or trim your trees, or paint your house, or serve you food in your favorite restaurant, you are just as guilty of enabling him as anyone else is. If you buy a bag of oranges, or a bunch of roses, or an ice cream bar from one, you are just as guilty of enabling him as anyone else is. If we somehow manage to prevent businesses from hiring illegal aliens, but fail to prevent everyone else from interacting economically with illegal aliens, they will find ways to survive in our economy without regular employment. They tend to be very entrepreneurial, and our economy has so many more opportunities than their home economies, that they will adapt to the new conditions. They will not just go home to the starvation conditions they left there.
Finally, and most importantly, the only way we can prevent the employment of illegal aliens by punishing companies who employ them is to institute an economic police state in which everyone who seeks to do work in the economy, whether as an employee or an independent entrepreneur, has to provide government-supplied proof that he is legally allowed to accept compensation. And even that wouldn't be sufficient, as some people would undoubtedly resort to cash payments rather than jump through the hoops such a system would entail. To prevent that in turn would require either the complete elimination of cash itself, or the introduction of some way to track every single cash transaction. I can only hope that even the most adamant anti-illegal would understand why the attempt to rid us of illegal immigrants by punishing their employment would both fail and, in the process, severely compromise our rights.
The matter of having millions of illegal aliens in the United States is a serious concern. So what should we do about it? We should try to get the U.S. Government to gain control over our borders and sea coasts. We should try to get the U.S. Government to find the illegal immigrants already here and deport them. We should NOT try to get the U.S. Government to diminish the rights we now take for granted, nor to enlist any of us as unpaid, conscripted Federal Police.
Back to my home place.