University of Delaware Office of Public Relations The Messenger Vol. 6, No. 1/1996 Employers could help stop flow of illegals The U.S. can stem the flow of illegal immigrants if this country gets serious about enforcing laws against employers who knowingly hire them, Mark J. Miller, UD professor of political science and international relations, says. "In France, where fines are high and the employer must verify the worker's eligibility to work prior to employment, they've had a degree of success," he says. Miller, who teaches the politics of immigration- both legal and illegal, has made a 15-year study of the impact of employer sanctions on illegal immigration in France, Switzerland and Germany. A frequent witness before congressional committees studying ways to curtail illegal immigration to the U.S., he appeared in March 1995 before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, and he spent part of last December in Washington, D.C., testifying before House committees about the results of his research on European admission policies for temporary foreign workers, particularly in agriculture. Hiring workers who are in this country illegally can affect legally entitled workers, Miller says. "Employers can develop a preference for illegal workers. Due to a lack of legal status, they work hard, scared and cheap, existing at the margins of society. Lots of employers get rich on the backs of undocumented workers," he says. In recent years, Miller says, the French have had success with a verification system that employers use before they hire a new worker. Employers can call the French social security office and verify a worker's documentation. If the employers knowingly hire workers whose papers are not in order, they can receive stiff fines and/or jail terms. "The French government is reporting a high degree of employer cooperation, and it is collecting substantial fines from people who are violating the law," Miller says. In spite of tougher laws, high fines and increased enforcement in the 1980s, illegal immigration appeared to be on the upswing in France in the 1990s. One reason was that public prosecutors and judges were reluctant to go after employers. So, the French government embarked on an extensive education effort on the economic and social harm caused by the employment of undocumented workers. Despite these efforts, Miller wrote in an article in the journal, Western European Politics, "There is less optimism today than there was five years ago that employer sanctions can significantly curtail illegal immigration, although they do have a limited deterrent effect." The problem with evaluating the efficacy of employer sanctions, both in France and this country, is that the number of illegal aliens is unknown, so it's difficult to know whether illegal alien employment is expanding or contracting, Miller says. But, he adds, in any country, strong laws and serious enforcement would keep employers from hiring illegal workers. The U.S. initiated employer sanctions in late 1986, but fines are low and enforcement is lacking, says Miller. He advocates a verification system, similar to the one used in France, that would allow an employer to check employment eligibility before hiring a worker. He says firms in California are now participating in a pilot project in which the employer calls an Immigration and Naturalization Service data bank to verify employment authorization of non-citizens. "Since 1986, we've been trying to wean employers from employing illegal workers. If a firm cannot compete without offering wages that will attract legal workers, well, maybe that company should go out of business," Miller says. "Change comes slowly to democracies, and we're in a period of transition-from welcoming immigrants to telling them we can no longer accommodate those who enter the country illegally," he says. -Barbara Garrison