The Department of Homeland Security has dramatically raised worksite enforcement to deter employers from hiring cheap illegal workers.

Since October, the agency’s Homeland Security Investigations unit has checked employment records at 6,093 worksites, up from 1,716 in the prior fiscal year from October 2016 to the end of September 2017. The current pace of checks in 2018 is almost a five-fold increase from the prior year and included 100 stores in the 7-Eleven chain and 77 companies in California.

The agency has made 675 criminal arrests of managers or supervisors, plus 984 administrative arrests of illegals in the last nine months, versus 139 criminal arrests and 172 administrative arrests during the prior 12 months, according to a DHS statement. That is a five-fold increase in criminal arrests and a sixfold increase in administrative arrests.

In 2018, the DHS agency has also conducted several large-scale raids, including a meatpacker in Tennessee, and a meatpacker and landscaping firm in Ohio.

Amid President Donald Trump’s high-pressure economy, the enforcement actions push employers to fire illegals on their staff and to raise wages for Americans.

For example, a Swiss-based firm was forced to lay off 800 illegals at a bakery in Chicago, costing the firm almost half of its profits when it was forced to pay higher wages to the newly hired Americans. Similarly, the JBS meatpacking company raised salaries by 25 percent to help persuade more people to work in a Texas slaughterhouse, according to a March 4 article in Washington Post.

Immigration reformers applauded the increased enforcement.

Great news — @ICEgov has been promising stepped-up worksite enforcement for a while, and is now starting to deliver. Next we need see some crooked employers making perp walks on TV. https://t.co/J1TufNI9hK — Mark Krikorian (@MarkSKrikorian) July 24, 2018

DHS officials explained the new emphasis on enforcement:

“This is not a victimless crime,” said Derek N. Benner, Acting Executive Associate Director for HSI. “Unauthorized workers often use stolen identities of legal U.S. workers, which can significantly impact the identity theft victim’s credit, medical records and other aspects of their everyday life.” “Employers need to understand that the integrity of their employment records is just as important to the federal government as the integrity of their tax files and banking records. All industries, regardless of size, location and type are expected to comply with the law,” Benner said. “Worksite enforcement protects jobs for U.S. citizens and others who are lawfully employed, eliminates unfair competitive advantages for companies that hire an illegal workforce, and strengthen public safety and national security.”

One leftwing, pro-migration group has identified what it says are 698 “raids” around the United States since 2008. Most of these events are simply the arrests of illegals living in the United States.

Very few enforcement actions were conducted by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, although both made high-profile raids when they were trying to show pass amnesty bills and wished to display opposition to illegal immigration that has combined with legal immigration to force down salaries nationwide.

Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market — but the government provides green cards to roughly 1 million legal immigrants and temporary work-permits to roughly 3 million foreign workers.

The Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via mass-immigration shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with foreign labor. That process spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. The policy also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.