General Discussion

It says the claim is "Half True".

We asked Vaughan if she thinks Wasserman Schultz was correct to state that Obama holds the record on enforcement of employers.

"It depends on which metric you choose," she said. "If your metric is the number of audits, yes. If your metric is bringing cases to prosecution that seriously punish employers, to the point where I would say there would be a deterrent effect, I would strongly disagree with her statement."

Additionally, I-9 audits are not a complete or perfect measurement of worksite enforcement against employers who hired illegal workers, said former U.S. Rep. Bruce Morrison, D-Conn., who chaired the immigration subcommittee from 1989 to 1991. Morrison now lobbies on immigration matters and has informally advised hospitals and other businesses that have faced I-9 audits.

He described some of the I-9 audits as paperwork snafus -- for example an employer who didn’t check the right box.

"If there are no illegals, you are more likely to be cut a break on penalties than if you hired a lot of illegals, but you get fined anyhow..." he said. "Trying to say who is being tougher on this aspect of enforcement I think is kind of a silly discussion, because what were people fined for? And did that help prevent unauthorized employment or not?"

Wasserman Schultz said that Obama has cracked down "on employers who are attracting undocumented immigrants and hiring them more than any previous president."

She used the word "employers" and not "employees" here for a reason: Obama shifted away from Bush’s strategy of workplace raids and turned the focus on employers. Between 2008 and 2009, immigration audits soared from 503 to more than 8,000. But other metric tell a more nuanced story. Final orders against employers, for example, were higher in the 1990s than they are now.

We rate this claim Half True.