More Employers Fined for Hiring Aliens

U.S. immigration authorities, stepping up enforcement of a law designed to squeeze the job market for undocumented workers, have fined nine more San Diego-area employers a total of almost $30,000 in the past week for hiring illegal aliens, officials said Tuesday. The San Diego area leads the nation in such fines.

The most recent penalty assessments are part of a regionwide effort to intensify enforcement of the so-called “employer-sanction” statute, a centerpiece provision of the sweeping immigration law revisions of 1986. The statute seeks to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States by reducing the number of jobs available to them.

“The message has to come out loud and clear that you don’t hire illegal aliens, period,” said Harold Ezell, Western regional commissioner for the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, who spoke at a news conference in San Diego. The INS’ Western region covers California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam.

Grace Period Is Over

June 1 marked the end of a one-year grace period during which authorities issued only warnings to first-time violators of the law. However, most agricultural concerns, key employers of the undocumented work force, are exempt from the law’s requirements until Dec. 1, a fact that officials say may partly explain the many would-be immigrants still crossing the border illegally.

Critics have questioned the practicality of the immigration service’s approach, contending that employers are likely to make use of legal loopholes and deception rather than relinquish a dependable and cheap source of labor. A recent inquiry by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego concluded that the new law had not discouraged illegal immigration.

But immigration officials vow to continue pressing the statute. In the past week, authorities said, they fined 30 employers a total of about $90,000 throughout the Western region.

The firms fined: City Delicatessen, San Diego, $7,500; Benihana restaurant, Camino del Rio South, San Diego, $7,000; Tony’s Hydraulics & Marine Service, San Diego, $4,500; W. L. Canning Roofing, Ramona, $4,000; El Norteno Taco Shop, Chula Vista, $1,800; Clothing Clearance Center, San Diego, $1,500; Barron Maintenance & Landscaping Co., $1,250; Los Panchos Taco Shop, La Mesa, $1,000; and Olmos Auto Detail and Service, Chula Vista, $1,000.