There's a few places for debate in this list, not main points, just matters of degree.
Indeed. My reasoning below.
heavy penalties, yes, up to and including driving the owners bankrupt. But I'm generally against civil asset forfeiture. Besides, what does the government need a construction company, farm, or any other business for?
This isn't about the feds taking up some business. It's about putting "teeth" behind the requirement. With
every punitive fine, it eventually becomes a cost of doing business. So if X business can save $5000 per year using illegal labor, and the fine is $10,000 per illegal laborer, then it's still worth it to the business to chance it that the illegal in question will manage to work more than two years before getting caught, in which case the fine is less than the cost of doing business with legal labor instead. If we can fine X business $10 billion per illegal or whatever, then fine, but that's not likely to pass legal muster. Hence, better to make the "teeth" sharp enough that XYZ Megacorp risks a lot more than just a fine if they use illegals. I should clarify that I'm not saying that
every case should involve asset forfeiture, just that it should be
a tool in the bag as needed. The sentence would be better written "severe penalties up to and including serious jail time and complete asset forfeiture."
Continue voluntary use, but incentivize by granting exemption from penalties for hiring illegals, as long as e-verify records are maintained by the business.
Probably a distinction without a difference at the end of the day. If you have to maintain records that you complied with e-verify, then at some point you have to actually comply with e-verify. I don't really care how we come about it, so long as we utilize this simple tool to combat illegal labor and identity theft.
Just focus on the cities. Why hammer the people of upstate NY or central CA for what the idiots in NYC and LA/SF do? There's enough grants/business in those cities already to cut off funds to.
Because it's very quickly going to force Albany and Sacramento to slap NYC, SFO, and L.A. into line. I guarandamntee you that the legislature in Springfield is going to tell Rhambo in Chicago that he can try to call Chicago a sanctuary city, but they're going to shut him off from state and federal funds right away, and Chicago wouldn't last a week without that flow of cash coming from the other end of the state. Same goes for California: it would take about ten minutes for legislation to pass, veto-proof, in Sacramento that all of the state funding that
was going to San Francisco will suddenly be building new roads and sidewalks in Fresno and Modesto and Shasta Lake and Stockton.
Also, much federal funding flows through states to get to cities, so the only real way to punish cities is via states. Unfortunate, but reality.