The cheapest labor in America is illegal labor, and the corporations buying it have no intention of letting the tap shut off. President Trump told interviewers last weekend his immigration crackdown may have been "too tough" — but the problem was never the enforcement, it was who got enforced against. Raids on meatpacking plants and construction sites make for ugly television. Fines on the companies hiring those workers would actually solve the problem. Guess which one Washington chooses.

Both the Washington Examiner and HotAir are pushing the same argument this week: enforce immigration law in the boardroom, not the break room. The Examiner frames it as a political rescue mission — the sight of masked ICE agents confronting protestors cost Republicans non-white voters who had just crossed over to Trump. HotAir stresses that Trump's base won't tolerate going soft, noting exit polls still showed voters trusted the GOP more on immigration, 45 to 43 percent, and that 57 percent of voters who called immigration "crucial" were Republican.

Here's what neither outlet names: the industries that profit from the arrangement. Agriculture, construction, hospitality, meatpacking — these sectors run on illegal labor and spend heavily to keep it flowing. The Chamber of Commerce has lobbied for decades against mandatory E-Verify and real employer sanctions. Both parties collect the donations. Republicans talk tough on the border while their donor class staffs the loading dock. Democrats talk about humanitarian concern while the same donor class writes the checks. It is the classic bipartisan screw — the deal isn't between left and right, it's between K Street and the American worker.

Trump told Ross Douthat on "60 Minutes" that the enforcement hurt because "we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation — that was that they came into the country illegally." Notice the framing: the worker is the violator. The employer who hired him isn't even in the sentence. That is not an accident. Trump followed up by naming Stephen Miller to replace Susie Wiles as chief of staff, a signal HotAir reads as reassurance to immigration hawks. Miller is a genuine restrictionist. Whether he's allowed to go after employers — the only enforcement that actually works — is the whole question.

Current federal law already penalizes employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. The penalties are a joke — slaps on the wrist negotiated down by corporate counsel. ICE audits of I-9 forms are rare. E-Verify, the electronic verification system, remains voluntary in most states because business lobbies have killed mandatory bills in Congress and statehouses across the country. The system is designed to fail.

The Examiner is right that workplace raids generated backlash. HotAir is right that folding on enforcement alienates the base. Neither lands on the obvious synthesis: stop raiding the workers and start fining the bosses. Make the penalty for hiring illegal labor exceed the savings. Watch how fast the jobs dry up and the border traffic slows when there's nothing to come for.

The open question is whether Miller — or anyone in this White House — will be permitted to bite the hand that funds the party.