REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas
Posted on 05/23/2006 5:20:23 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to fine employers who hire illegal immigrants up to $20,000 for each unauthorized worker, providing teeth to a broad immigration bill before sending it to a final vote later this week.
Employers would have to check Social Security numbers and the immigration status of all new hires within 18 months after money is provided to the Homeland Security Department to expand the electronic system for screening workers.
"This is probably the single most important thing we can do in terms of reducing the inflow of undocumented workers, making sure we can enforce in a systematic way rules governing who gets hired," said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
The amendment passed 58-40. Opponents said the verification system would take years to implement and complained that workers deemed illegal could still hold onto jobs until their appeals are exhausted.
Employers who don't use the new computerized system could be fined $200 to $600. The system would include information from the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and Homeland Security Department.
The $20,000 fines for hiring illegal immigrants once the new screening system is in place would be double the present level. Repeated violators could be sentenced to prison terms of up to three years.
The House passed a bill in December that would impose fines on employees of undocumented workers ranging from $5,000 to $40,000. But, unlike the Senate bill, the House measure would require employers to screen all employees — an estimated 140 million people — instead of only new hires.
Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., scheduled a test vote for Wednesday that sets up the bill's final passage, likely Thursday. Its most controversial provision would put more than half of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants on a path toward citizenship without ever having to leave the U.S.
Critics call that amnesty and Republican leaders refused to even allow it to be considered in the bill the House passed in December.
Rep. Mike Pence (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., who heads a group of 100 conservatives in the House, said Tuesday he plans to offer a bill this week that would let employers rehire illegal workers now on their payrolls after they have returned home and applied for a new "W" visa to return.
"The solution is to set up a system that will encourage illegal workers to self-deport and come back legally as guest workers," said Pence, who earlier voted for the enforcement-only House bill.
The Senate defeated an effort Tuesday by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., that would have let all illegal immigrants remain, in contrast to the Senate compromise that would require more than one-third of them to leave.
They want to punish illegal dentists?
REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas
"The Senate voted Tuesday to fine employers who hire illegal immigrants up to $20,000 for each unauthorized worker, providing teeth to a broad immigration bill before sending it to a final vote later this week."
Like, will there be any illegal immigrants left? LOL.
Any employer who can't legalize his illegals or insource more from accross the border under the Senate plan shouldn't be in business in the first place!
The way DiFi had her defeated proposal wired, it was gonna bring in 20 Billion over 10 years as we absorbed "12 million" illegals already here.
now if they would just enforce this law half as well as they do parking meter violations, we just may save our country from taking on that "Third World Charm"
The Senate voted Tuesday to fine employers who hire illegal immigrants up to $20,000 for each unauthorized worker, providing teeth to a broad immigration bill before sending it to a final vote later this week.
How about fining the illegals $20,000.......per year.
Why should I believe that this new provision of the law will be enforced? They aren't enforcing the old law. This is a joke, the whole bill has become a joke.
They're on the right track but I'd make the fine even stiffer, maybe including jailtime for the employer.
I know of two professional landscaping contractors right now in my area who'd be in big time trouble should "someone" turn them in.
ROTFLMAO!....self-deport, indeed.
I hope the House drives a stake through the heart of this "bill." There's talk that the House may not even vote to conference with the Senate.
What a farce. The old fine of $10,000 was never enforced, this one would not be either. S.2611 would essentially legalize all illegals who are currently in the country and any Mexican citizens not currently here who want to come would just need to hurry up and sneak in before the wall gets built and buy their forged documents proving they have lived here the required time. All of them would then be legal and there would be no one to fine.
Word of warning...Pence is weakening. I'd advice firing off phone calls and E-Mails to him, and your own representative if he is not it.
Not to mention all of the illegal aliens working in the underground economy. Plus, a bunch of cities and towns here on the left coast designated as "sanctuaries" for illegals on the lam.
beat me to it. they can raise the fines as high as they want, they've already put in a provision not to prosecute
This is the biggest joke around. They might as well make it $50,000,000 per employee, because it will never be enforced.
CLUE!
It don't got teeth unless you enforce it....(duh!).
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