The New York Times reports that the current administration has replaced work-place raids with audits.

While the sweeps of the past commonly led to the deportation of such workers, the “silent raids,” as employers call the audits, usually result in the workers being fired, but in many cases they are not deported.

These silent raids come down to a review of company records to ascertain the legitimacy of the workers documentation.  Should a worker’s records come under suspicion, there is no investigation into the worker, the employer is asked to fire them.  That’s it.  No deportation, no criminal prosecution of the employer.. just fire the worker – they then pop-up at another employer with new false documents.  One day a California strawberry picker, next day a Nevada meat packer..

Without substantial penalties to both the employer and worker this amounts to nothing more than forced career changes for illegal aliens (that’s old-speak for undocumented worker).  The NYT article reports an underwhelming sum of $3 Million in fines against businesses that hire illegal aliens.

One sentiment is that at least this approach doesn’t break-up families where the children were born in the U.S. but the parents are here illegally.  Of course, parents following the legal path to entry into the country or ending the practice of bestowing citizenship on anyone born to an illegal alien would also address this issue.

Business owners are also complaining that Americans don’t seem to want the work at the wages they are offering.

Employers say the Obama administration is leaving them short of labor for some low-wage work, conducting silent raids but offering no new legal immigrant laborers in occupations, like farm work, that Americans continue to shun despite the recession. Federal labor officials estimate that more than 60 percent of farm workers in the United States are illegal immigrants.

Of course citizens don’t want those jobs, with minimum wage, overpaid unionized labor and unemployment benefits that last almost two years.. why would they?

Is the program working?  The Times article reports that a school administrator said, “There was no wave of deportations and few families left on their own for Mexico.”.  So what’s the point of all this?  Increasing the voter rolls for the progressives.  By hook or crook, take the election.  Illegal immigrants are a considerable current and future voting block for the lefties.  It’s one reason that the Democrats are doing everything they can to prevent the enforcement of the Motor Voter clean-up clauses.  That would force deceased voters to be removed from the rolls – registrations that tend to show up used by illegal aliens and vote fraudsters.