Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, American employers are subject to fines if they hire illegal immigrants. A number of immigration restriction advocates have recently come forth complaining that the INS is doing an inadequate job enforcing the laws. One organization, the Center for Immigration Studies (http://www.cis.org) has gone a step further. The INS has fined thousands of companies, but that information is not easily accessible to the public. The CIS has now taken the information and done what the INS cannot or will not - it has established an Employer Sanctions Database to make it possible for any member of the public to look up the data on the CIS web site (http://www.cis.org/search.html).

The CIS Employer Sanctions Database includes all employers who have been cited for the knowing hire or continuing employment of unauthorized workers. Employers who were only guilty of paperwork violations such as faulty record keeping were not included. Also, the records only go back to 1989 leaving the first three years of the Employer Sanctions Program out (though enforcement before that time was spotty). The database also reports the number of violations, the total amount assessed in the original Notice of Intent to Fine (FIF) and the total amount collected.

The CIS is hoping reporters and others use the database to find out if firms or individuals have been fined for violations. For example, popular political commentator (and wife of a California US Senate candidate) Arianna Huffington and former Attorney General nominee Zoe Baird both show up in the database. The discovery by the media that each had hired illegal nannies had explosive repercussions in their election and confirmation efforts. The database on the CIS site should certainly make it easier for reporters to find such information.