Knowingly giving the illegal immigrant a job is a crime. The illegal likely committed several crimes as well in accepting the job, relating to falsifying tax forms and falsifying identification. As did the employer. IMO, the 1880 law aside, it's a simple criminal conspiracy.
Yes. As I said elsewhere in that post there were likely other crimes. I guess they don’t prosecute those other crimes anymore. Or, they wanted to test this theory on the “encouragemnt” crime - but it seems like a hail Mary, or a pile-on charge. I am not a fan of overzealous prosecutions. Someone robs a bank, lock him up for bank-robbery. But these days they will charge him with bank-robbery, resisting arrest, unlawful brandishment/possession, terrorist threats and who knows what else. Seems silly. If we had legitimate criminal justice we wouldn’t need all this buffoonery. Sorry for the rant.