The Obama administration says it has been cracking down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants -- bragging that they've levied far more fines on such companies than their predecessors, just as they've deported a larger number of undocumented immigrants than ever before.
Our immigration-enforcement policy is very "supply side" focused. That is, the government spends a lot more time and money trying to police the border and prevent people from getting in, as well as deporting people who make it here, than it does trying to punish the people who create the demand -- that is, the companies that hire workers in the U.S. illegally. There's a reason for that -- the people who advocate for companies that hire undocumented immigrants have a lot more money and influence than the people who advocate for the undocumented workers themselves.
Usually when immigration restrictionists say that "the federal government has failed" on immigration, that's code for Obama being lax on immigration enforcement. That's inaccurate. But immigration restrictionists have a point in the sense that there isn't a legal regime that allows the government to harshly punish employers who hire people illegally, because employers have to have knowingly hired an undocumented immigrant. That loophole is pretty large, but it's unlikely to be closed for the same reason it's there in the first place.
Despite the increase in audits and civil fines, our immigration policy is still more focused on the workers themselves than anyone else. The Obama administration prefers its "silent raids," or audits that force companies to fire workers the administration believes are here illegally, to the showy workplace raids of the prior administration, but ultimately, the workers themselves still bear the brunt of the sanction. They lose their jobs and find it difficult to return home in part because of our strict border enforcement, but the companies themselves get little more than a slap on the wrist.
What the Obama administration hopes is that those slaps will nudge them and other employers into compliance, but I'm skeptical this will ultimately reduce the number of people coming here illegally, as opposed to simply justifying more enforcement.
