• shikitohno@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    Or, I don’t know, just go after the companies and individuals found employing people who don’t have a legal right to work in the country, with fines that can’t be dismissed as a cost of doing business and prison time for those responsible. If there were truly significant consequences for employing people who cannot legally work in the country, people would stop offering exploitative jobs to undocumented immigrants and I can’t help but imagine that people would stop coming, once the primary reason they currently come ceased to exist. Probably also much more cost-effective to track down and nail a single employer, operating out of a fixed location, rather than chasing down 500 individuals working illegally for that company.

    Of course, the flip side of this is that cost of living would suddenly see a huge spike once the restaurant, agriculture, construction and sanitation industries, amongst many others, no longer have ready access to a whole labor pool that can be easily exploited with minimal, if any, consequences. If people think groceries or eating out is expensive now, wait until they see the prices when those industries have to pay prevailing wages and benefits to US citizens in order to have staff.