WASHINGTON   –  “Columnist George Will recently reminded the his readers that Ronald Reagan rightly said, “A nation without borders is not a nation.”  We have plenty of federal laws on the books that will expand immigration enforcement along the border, impose more serious fines and penalties, and complete the border fence.

But none of these measures, important as they are, will remove the primary incentive for most of the illegal immigrants crossing the border under cover of night.  None will remove the reason for staying from the estimated 12 to 20 million illegal aliens already here.  Many come to America to work illegally, and it is extremely important to remove that incentive if we are going to stop the flood of illegal immigrants into the United States.

Central to the debate over workplace enforcement of immigration laws is whether government will create a robust database employers can use to check the identification of the employees they are about to hire.  But that solution to this problem assumes that employers who hire illegal aliens don’t know what they are doing when they hire a worker with false documents, or no documents at all.  And I believe that many of them, especially the worst offenders, skirt this law in order to gain access to a large (and very cheap) illegal workforce.

I’ve come up with an effective solution that will increase the penalties for ignoring the law and target the worst offenders in the market for illegal workers. 

The Legal Employment Check Off Act simply adds a line to employers’ tax returns.  When they sign the return, employers are promising that they have done everything within reason to assure that the individuals they’ve hired that year were legally able to work in the U.S.

A business that diligently checks the identification, Social Security numbers or work visas of its employees should have no problem complying with this legislation and “checking the box.”  But employers who are found to be hiring illegal workers who have indicated otherwise on their tax forms can now face felony charges for perjury.  Going to the cheap pool of illegal labor will care serious ramifications.

The increase in penalties is important, as we have seen in cases right here in the Eighth Congressional District where undocumented workers have been apprehended by local law enforcement, then ordered released by federal authorities.  Prosecutors don’t bother with the small charges against the employer who attracted those workers to our region, or to the United States in the first place.

This legislation would give them the opportunity to severely punish companies who ignore the law, up to felony charges for perjury offenses on federal tax returns. 

Too often, straightforward and commonsense ideas that will improve our country get bogged down in bigger debates over more controversial aspects of this issue.  Opponents of immigration reform are expert in these tactics.  Instead, my bill is three pages, it’s simple, and it follows the intent of the law to do what Reagan’s words advise us: to repair the broken borders of our nation and to punish those responsible for breaking them.”