IMMIGRATION : The Illegal Worker Problem: Do Hiring Sanctions Work?

How effective are the sanctions the federal government now imposes against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants? Not as effective as they could be at curbing illegal entries, according to several private and government reports.

The latest study, by the Urban Institute and the RAND Corp., found wide variations in the way the sanctions--enacted in 1986 to help stem the flood of illegals--are being carried out, from the size of fines to the severity of the violations being prosecuted.

The findings also suggest that a dramatic decline in the number of undocumented workers here since the law was enacted was due more to the fact that the legislation legalized the presence of many immigrant workers than to the system of hiring sanctions.

Indeed, a review conducted by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that the sanctions often result in discrimination against legal residents who speak with foreign accents--something never intended.

So, Congress may reopen the debate over illegal immigration, perhaps sometime next year in connection with its consideration of the U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement now being negotiated.

Illegal immigration, particularly from Mexico, has been a serious problem for the United States since the mid-1960s, when workers began pouring across the border. Since then, the number of illegal aliens here has risen by between 6 million and 12 million people.

Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and Control Act to discourage this influx of undocumented workers. Under that law, employers were required to help spot and report illegal immigrants. Those caught employing such workers were subject to fines.

Initially, the law was regarded as a success. A year before it was enacted, the Immigration and Naturalization Service caught 1.6 million people illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States. By 1989, that number had dropped to 850,000.

In recent years, however, the number of illegals caught has risen steadily, reaching 1 million in 1990 and continuing upward this year, according to the INS.

“Migration pressure is exploding,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Stein blames inflation and poverty in Mexico and other Third World countries. “By 1995 to 2010, our borders will be under siege,” he warned.

At the same time, while illegal immigration is rising again, the sanctions program appears to have serious flaws, according to the studies.

The Urban Institute-RAND Corp. reported that the biggest problem is wide regional variation in enforcement of the sanctions.

In some cities, the study said, the INS is highly aggressive, raids workplaces and captures and expels illegal aliens.

In other places the INS seems to view its job as primarily an educational one of informing employers about the problem and trying to discourage the hiring of such workers.

The size of the fines the INS seeks also varies by region, according to the report. In the South and West, the government often seeks fines, but they usually are small ones. In the North and East fines are less common but tend to be far larger when they are imposed.

For example, the average fine assessed in San Antonio was $850, the study found, but in Chicago it was $45,000.

Critics say that concentrating enforcement efforts on technical violations trivializes the enforcement.

They call for stronger oversight by INS authorities, more money and manpower to counter new techniques of evading enforcement and coordination of regional enforcement actions to eliminate inconsistencies.

But, while the government continues to insist that the new law is working, many critics say employer sanctions are not likely to go far toward resolving the illegal immigration problem.

Most expect a revival of the debate early in 1992.