Businesses who hire illegals should be shut down

On May 26, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a 2007 Arizona state law punishing businesses that hire illegal aliens.

States can now shut down businesses that hire immigrants without legal documentation to work.

I agree with this, and here’s why:

Although immigrants account for 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, they make up about 15 percent of the workforce. They are over represented among workers largely because the rest of the population in the United States is aging.

Immigrants and their children have accounted for 58 percent of U.S. population growth since 1980.
It’s difficult to measure how much of this immigrant workforce is undocumented, but probably a good many.

Unscrupulous employers hire these workers because they know they have a workforce that’s loyal and hard working. Employers pay minimum wage with no benefits and workers have no recourse for labor disputes. These undocumented workers are the least likely to cause problems, and employers like that.

Poor immigrants in general have historically been the source of cheap, exploitative labor, but immigrants who do not have legal documents to work present a far better target for abusive employers as they are in a far more vulnerable position to be victimized.

That's why many businesses prefer to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration, or at the minimum prefer to avoid any requirements that might be a financial burden to them.

This is why I welcome the U.S. Supreme Court decision to punish businesses that don’t comply with the law and hire workers who cannot work legally in this country.

Low U.S. fertility rates and the upcoming retirement of the baby boomers mean that immigration is likely to be the only source of growth in the prime age workforce — workers ages 25 to 55 — in the decades ahead.

Short of a major immigration overhaul, if businesses continue hiring undocumented workers, the illegal crossings at the border will certainly increase in the years ahead.