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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   26975 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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Especially since the people now claiming "Oh, go after the cans of tuna" favor providing free tuna by the palletload.

I'm going to call out on this as strawman-ing. Hypocrisy is so delightful to call out but it's also very cynical and essentially provoke the other side to dig in and become defensive.

sudden received indisputable wisdom that going after the employers is the best and only reasonable way to do anything about illegal immigration

As for this, I personally think that Americans want enforcement of both, preferably kindly but firm. If your complaints is that undocumented illegal immigration is treated with kids gloves then the way employers are treated is a parent yelling from the living room "remember to eat your vegetables!" while the kid is in the kitchen sticking his hand in the cookie jar for seconds and thirds. Calls for harder enforcement of the existing laws on employers or updates to the incentives of employers with regards to the illegal immigration debate are plenty based on this brief search I have:

  1. 2025 - Video: "ICE Raids Are Only Half The Story" - Sarah Taber, Farm to Taber (I actually already knew this one, great video from a liberal farmer)
  2. 2022 - Supply and Demand in the Illegal Employment of Undocumented Workers - Brian Owsley, Catholic University Law Review
  3. 2019 Jun 08 - Employers must be prosecuted to end the flow of illegal immigrants - Jonathan Turley, The Hill
  4. 2016 Nov 30 - Forget the Wall. If You Want Less Illegal Immigration, Go After Employers. - Kevin Drum, MotherJones
  5. 2013 May 9 - It Takes Two: Immigration and the Rule of Law - Peter Skerry, Brookings Institute
  6. 2008 - Is the IRS the Solution to Illegal Immigration? - Katherine D. Black, Stephen T. Black, Ryan H. Pace, William Mitchell Law Review

I'm going to go back even further, let's go to the 1997 final report by the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform (Jordan Commission) under President Clinton where there is a section on "Immigration-Related Employment Standards (DOL)" and I'll quote it here and bolding some parts:

The Commission believes all worksite investigations to ascertain employers’ compliance with employment eligibility verification requirements should be conducted by the Department of Labor. Although DOL already conducts many of these investigations, under this recommendation, DOL also would assess penalties if employers fail to verify the employment eligibility of persons being hired. DOL would not be required to prove that an employer knowingly hired an illegal worker, just that the employer hired a worker without verification of his or her authorization to work. With implementation of the Commission’s proposal for a more effective verification process, this function will be critical to deterring the employment of unauthorized workers.

I would recommend reading the full report, there would be plenty of proposals in there that I think you like.

Illegal immigration sucks but if we are going to get anywhere, let's not just selectively pick the parts that makes you feel good but actually carry out a comprehensive strategy that would fix the problem.

edit1: Let me update my analogy, the state of immigration in the US so far up until Trump 2 is the employer being the bio kid going in for seconds and thirds with the cookie jar in the kitchen while the parent is yelling "eat your vegetables" in the living room, while the immigrant is the unwanted foster kid supposedly grounded but is climbing out of the window to get some cookies for the bio kids in exchange for favors.

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