Yes, that's how I would describe using immigration to address labor shortages
Policy around this type of thing is important.
My post is more about the general dysfunction and solution schemes we see in some governments. I think having the ICE example might bring about some bots and trolls, though. I don't care for the ICE example, it's just a part of the quote.
The reason we have this loophole is because many industries, particularly in the South, rely directly on immigrant labor. The republicans cannot risk alienating their consistency or further hurting the already brittle economy of Red states. That's why we get a constant flow of completely ineffective and performative solutions, like ICE.
Just start locking up executives who have employees that are undocumented, and the problem would disappear before your very eyes. But, building a wall is easier, and you can see a wall.
The companies are doing this "unknowingly". Of course they're not stupid, they're fully aware they're hiring a lot of undocumented people. But nobody, on record, knows that. To them, all their employees have documents which appear valid. It is pretty easy to forge I-9 documents.
Part of this is because the US has incredibly poor identification infrastructure. Often, not even US citizens can be reliably identified, as seen in commercial banking. The other part is that companies cannot choose to not hire people because they think they are undocumented. You can't hire someone because they're too brown and not American sounding enough.
That's not to say that I think the solution is universal identification or legalization of racism in hiring practices.
But, what about this one?
18 U.S.C. § 1546
This says, "having reason to know." So, you actually don't have to really know, you just have to have reason to know, to be incarcerated. That really seems like I should check, if only to cover my own ass. Like if the picture wasn't clear but you accepted it anyway, you had reason to know? Seems pretty loose for anyone that wants to enforce it.
I'm clearly not an attorney, so if you are, please correct me.
One example of this playing out was when the Florida state senate (Republican supermajority) shot down a bill that would have required businesses to use E-Verify to validate the authenticity of their employees' documentation. https://www.cfpublic.org/politics/2025-05-05/bill-to-expand-...
> Bill Herrle, state executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small businesses, said the bill would have made the state’s labor shortage worse and dampened productivity and entrepreneurship in the state. He said his group was relieved that it didn’t pass.
> “When I talk to small business owners now, I’m finding them busy doing a job they’d like to hire someone to do’’ Herrle said. “They’re working the line. They’re working in the kitchen. They’re working the register. And when a small business owner is doing that, guess what they’re not doing? They’re not being an entrepreneur. They’re not spending time trying to find ways to build and grow their business.’’
I can see why they don't want to go above and beyond federal law on this, if I'm interpreting correctly. It looks like a person, not the company, can already serve 5 years if they even mistakenly hire without work authorization. What additional deterrents do you really need?
Whether that's enforced is another thing. Most probably it's not because federal attorneys are paid in peanuts so no one wants to be one unless they are doing it to be noticed by a big firm.
But, I'm not an attorney. So if you are, let us know what I've missed.
When I read that it looks like you're not only allowed to check, you're required to, and you can serve time in federal prison if you get it wrong.
Again, I'm not an attorney, so I might be wrong. But it doesn't seem like a loophole despite the many claims I'm seeing.
I'd like to look into it. Is the loophole idea coming from an article written by an attorney? Can you link to it if so?
While I don't disagree, and while I firmly believe in UBI (which is the natural conclusion to your logic), without a comprehensive plan in place, just "paying people more" will be a bit of a death spiral since that is a core contributor to inflation on a large scale.
Because it’s economically insignificant. Total CEO pay across the Russell 1000 excluding Musk is in the tens of billions. Paying a few people more isn’t inflationary. (It’s other kinds of problematic.)
There seem to be social consequenes to that sort of income inequality. There are solid arguments for enabling founders to become fabulously wealthy. The argument seems a bit more stretched for managers.