The Immigration and Naturalization Service recently unveiled a new "interior enforcement strategy" that will involve a further crackdown on employers of undocumented workers.

The plan was unveiled at a strategy meeting in Denver, Colorado of the nation's top INS officials. The new plan involves placing more agents in remote regions, use of wiretaps and improvements in communications among INS agents in offices across the US and in overseas INS offices.

Though the INS has received substantial increases in its enforcement budget over the past several years, the number of fined employers has actually dropped significantly. At the beginning of the decade, the INS fined more than 2,000 employers each year. Last year, just 888 firms were fined. The amount of the fines has also dropped from $17 million to $7.7 million in the same time period.

Not on the list of new enforcement tools is an electronic verification system for employers to check the work authorization of a new employee. The INS has been conducting a number of pilot programs around the country that involve electronic verification, but Congress has been reluctant to approve the actual implementation of the system.

Many in Congress who support a tough border and deportation strategy are not as interested in going after businesses, particularly small businesses that may be struggling to survive.

One difficulty employers face is the lack of a workable visa program to bring in temporary workers when there is a severe shortage of US workers. INS officials often comment in the media that there is no excuse for hiring illegal workers since there are legal ways to bring the workers in. But the only realistic visa for temporary unskilled workers is the H-2B visa. This visa requires documentation that there are no US workers available and that the need for the employees is only temporary or seasonal. The difficulty comes when an employer tries to show a position is temporary in nature. The position must be one that has a defined end that is less than one year - e.g. a temporary project, a seasonal business needing workers for just a few months, etc. But many employers in areas with extremely low unemployment rates needs workers for all types of positions - a waiter, a janitor, a day laborer, etc. - that would not meet the test. A permanent residency category for unskilled workers is on the books, but there is an eight-year waiting period for employers to qualify workers.

In related news, across the country in Seaford, Delaware, the INS signed a novel contract with a poultry plant which calls on the INS and Allen Family Foods to work together to limit the number of illegal workers at the company's plants. Allen Family Foods will no longer have to worry about surprise work site raids. Instead, the INS will be able to make unannounced spot checks, review payroll records and randomly interview the firm's workers.

In the last five years, Allen Family Foods has lost nearly 200 workers in work site raids and the firm has paid $42,000 in fines for knowingly hiring illegal aliens.