Unions defending illegal immigrants? Never thought we'd see that.

Under current law, the legal incentives of business and labor point in opposite directions: firms face fines and other sanctions for hiring undocumented workers, while the quickest path to union membership growth is by turning a blind eye to illegal immigration. Sanctioning unions that allow illegal immigrants to join their ranks would harmonize incentives, and give both Big Business and Big Labor the same interest in obeying the law.

“Perhaps we need to rethink all of our immigration laws,” Prof. Vedder told Pajamas Media, noting that he favors more libertarian immigration policy. “But the laws being what they are,” he said, “perhaps we should rethink this mismatch in incentives. If we apply these laws to employers, we should apply them to unions as well.”