Vital employer sanctions get short shrift in border debate.

Byline: Brady McCombs

Jun. 8--Federal lawmakers know that reducing the job magnet is critical to slowing illegal immigration, but that hasn't been the focus of immigration reform proposals considered so far.

Despite a consensus that stiffer employer sanctions are essential, the Senate and House immigration proposals this year have focused on what pleases the public and is palatable to politicians -- border security.

The "comprehensive" legislation proposed perpetuates the nation's decades-old fixation by adding 11,600 Border Patrol agents, fencing and technology but no new agents for employer investigations.

That means illegal entrants motivated by the promise of better-paying jobs will continue to navigate their way through and around the blanket of security, swelling the illegal-immigrant population already estimated at 12 million.

"Border enforcement is one of the few, possibly the only, element of immigration policy that most everybody across all political lines agrees on and supports," said Doris Meissner, commissioner of the now- defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 to 2000 and senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank that advocates for comprehensive immigration changes.

"That is not nearly the case in regard to employer enforcement."

Enforcement goals

The debate in Congress to date has centered on a possible path to citizenship and an expanded temporary-worker program that would both be triggered by meeting certain border enforcement goals. There has been little or no discussion of employer sanctions or work-site enforcement. …