The Nation - Worker rules will be painful, Chertoff says - The Homeland Security chief says he has little sympathy for employers who hire illegally.

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff predicted painful economic fallout from the array of immigration enforcement measures the administration unveiled Friday in an attempt to choke off the jobs "magnet" that draws illegal immigrants.

The changes, which would stiffen work-site enforcement, add border agents and increase penalties for rogue employers, could cause havoc in immigrant-dependent industries like agriculture, hospitality and healthcare, Chertoff acknowledged. "There will be some unhappy consequences for the economy out of doing this," he said in an interview with The Times.

Chertoff said he had little sympathy for businesses that hire illegal workers, saying they should have seen the crackdown coming after the Senate failed to pass immigration reform. "We have been crystal clear about what the consequences would be," he said.

The announcement of the multi-agency initiative -- made by Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez -- was the Bush administration's first extensive explanation of how it plans to ramp up the fight against illegal immigration. In a statement, President Bush called the measures "important" and promised "to take every possible step" to strengthen the nation's "broken immigration system."

The enforcement approach is aimed partly at placating conservative Republicans who are angry about the administration's failure to enforce existing immigration laws and the president's support for a plan that would have allowed illegal immigrants to become citizens.

But it also could create a political climate that might lead to the comprehensive changes the administration has sought, including a guest worker program and some accommodation for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Chertoff said the provisions, some of which take effect in 30 days, could push corporate America to apply more pressure on Congress to reconsider broad reforms.

"I'm not a lawmaker, but I presume, at some point, somebody's going to take a look and say, 'We've got to find a way to address this problem,' and that's probably going to require some legal changes," he said. But he stressed that "this is not an effort to punish Congress."

Gutierrez framed the issue more starkly: "We do not have the workers our economy needs to keep growing each year. The demographics simply are not on our side. Ultimately, Congress will have to pass comprehensive immigration reform."