Yes, this administration is really really serious about immigration

Don't make me laugh...

Washington Post, via Greg Saunders at This Modern World:

"The Bush administration, which is vowing to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal workers, virtually abandoned such employer sanctions before it began pushing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws last year, government statistics show.

Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.

In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three.
. . .
Statistics show that the numbers of fines and convictions dropped sharply after 1999, with fines all but phased out except for occasional small cases. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a 2003 memorandum issued by ICE required field offices to request approval before opening work-site cases not related to protecting “critical infrastructure,” such as nuclear plants. Agents focused on removing unauthorized workers, not punishing employers.

ICE also faced a $500 million budget shortfall, and resources were shifted from traditional enforcement to investigations related to national security. Farms, restaurants and the nation’s food supply chain “did not make the cut,” Reed said. “We were pushed away from doing enforcement.”"