Entine offers that analysis in the context of his commentary about the misguided prosecution of Fischer Homes after a well-publicized raid by ICE:

Three years ago, with TV crews rolling, police helicopters swooped down on construction sites in northern Kentucky overseen by Fischer Homes, one of the 100 largest U.S. home builders. SWAT teams arrested 76 Hispanic-looking workers. Armed agents handcuffed and shackled four Fischer superintendents at dawn at their homes.

Criminal charges against Fischer employees of harboring illegal immigrants, and a threatened charge of money laundering against the corporation, were in Entine's opinion unfounded:

Fischer had no undocumented workers on its payroll and the documents confiscated in the raid showed that the company's adherence to immigration and civil rights statutes, which limit what an employer can do even if it suspects its subcontractors have hired illegal immigrants, was exemplary.

The charges were all dropped, and the company was never indicted, although some of Fisher's subcontractors were convicted of harboring illegal aliens.

To be fair, Entine's view of the case might be tainted by this:

In 2006 he worked as a consultant, researching immigration politics, for a media relations company hired by Fischer Homes.

The prosecutor handling the case claims that the charges against Fischer's employees were dropped "because a key witness fled the country unexpectedly, leaving prosecutors without time to rebuild the case." One might expect a case of that magnitude to be based on substantial documentary evidence and the testimony of several witnesses, including some of the convicted subcontractors, not just on the word of a "key witness" who proved to be so unreliable that he didn't stick around for the trial.

According to the public record, as reported by NPR, the government's investigation included "secretly recorded and videotaped conversations with Fischer supervisors." Those conversations apparently didn't give the prosecution enough evidence to sustain the charges. NPR also reports that the government alleged a conspiracy between Fischer and a subcontractor to hire undocumented workers, an allegation supported only by the fact that "a supervisor had the subcontractor's number on speed dial in his cell phone."

The skinny evidence in the record, the government's reliance on a single witness to make its case, and the eventual dismissals of the charges lend support to Entine's view of the prosecution, which (despite his connection to Fischer Homes) seems to be based on copious research. Moreover, Entine's description of the government's tactics rings true. This is the deal he says was offered to Fischer Homes' founder:

Plead guilty to a felony, pay a $1 million fine and your employees will be off the hook.

The government gets its money and favorable headlines, the corporation goes about its business, and everybody's happy. It happens every day.

According to Entine, when the government discovered that ICE couldn't produce the evidence to justify its case,

prosecutors increased pressure on indicted employees to agree to a plea deal -- to perjure themselves -- in return for the charges being dropped. Remarkably, they refused.

Again, to be fair, the prosecutors probably didn't ask the indicted employees in express terms to perjure themselves. But assisted by ICE agents, they may well have said something like, "Based on our investigation, this is what we think the true facts are, and if you agree those facts are true and testify to them, we'll drop the charges against you." Conversations along those lines are commonplace, and they commonly lead to perjury. Playing on a witness' self-interest is an easy way for prosecutors to get the testimony they want.

Why did this case get off the ground if, as Entine writes, Fischer was complying with the law? The TV cameras, helicopters, and SWAT teams give credence to Entine's explanation:

The raid came as the immigration debate was once again playing out in Congress. Media reports, stoked by government news releases, portrayed Fischer Homes as a greedy corporation cheating Americans out of jobs.

With Lou Dobbs and his ilk fueling anger about the supposed "crisis" of undocumented workers stealing jobs from Americans, did ICE want to put on a show, as it did in Iowa when it raided Agriprocessors and in Mississippi when it raided Howard Industries? If so, did the prosecutors assume that the threat of prison sentences, and the dangled offer of a corporate fine with a dismissal of charges against the corporate employees, would assure that they would never need to prove their case? As Entine writes, it's a tactic the government has perfected -- and it's a serious abuse of the government's awesome power to prosecute.