Question:
Even though there have been some high-visibility cases in recent years, the number of raids and fines on employers who hire undocumented workers is small, some would say symbolic. This is in spite of a federal law on the books for almost 25 years (the Immigration and Control Act of 1986) whereby employers can be fined $10,000 for every illegal alien they hire, and repeat offenders can be sent to jail. Some equate these immigration laws to the federal dry laws of the early 1930s, which prohibited alcohol use yet were widely disregarded and simply spurred more underground activity and a cottage of intermediaries who benefited from this illegal activity by satisfying an unmet demand. Do you agree? What proposals, if any, would you make to remedy this legal incongruence (that is, laws that are not applied or weakly applied in practice)? Explain.