E-verify is stupid. We should be trying to get rid of burdensome regulations. Look, if a company is found to be employing illegals then it should be punished. But this is just another bureaucracy that affects all companies.
Is there any other accurate mechanism for determining whether illegals are using phony SS#'s? Do you have a system for determining if companies are employing illegals besides asking them nicely?
Some people would complain about the Second Coming.
AMERICAN JOBS FOR AMERICAN WORKERS
The majority of persons who enter the U.S. illegally or unlawfully overstay temporary visas do so for purposes of employment. According to government and respected think tanks’ estimates, there are over 8 million illegal aliens currently working in the U.S. out of a total illegal population of 11 million. These are considered very conservative estimates. The numbers could be considerably higher. Employment of such individuals has been illegal since 1986, although that law has never been seriously enforced. If access to employment were curtailed in accord with that law, many current illegal workers would leave the country voluntarily, along with their families, and the number of future illegal entrants would be greatly reduced.
Since employment is the magnet that draws illegal aliens into the U.S., it follows that the best way to reduce illegal immigration is to shrink the employment magnet. To accomplish this without resorting to the method of routinely rounding up and deporting thousands of illegal workers only to have them return and obtain another readily available job, policy should focus on the businesses that hire illegal immigrants and let general employment rules rather than individual arrests drive the reduction in illegal immigration.
The policy should be based on the principles of empowerment, deterrence, and information. It should empower honest employers by giving them the tools to determine quickly and accurately whether a new hire is an authorized worker. It should hold employers free from penalty if they inadvertently hire an illegal worker after following the prescribed procedures.
Further, the policy should empower honest employers by freeing them from the burden of competing with dishonest businesses that deliberately hire illegal workers. This means that it must deter dishonest employers who willfully employ unverified and unlawful workers. For deterrence to work, however, both the government and employers must have timely and accurate information regarding new hires.
The most promising solution to this problem is the E-Verify program—a real-time, Web-based, voluntary verification system run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). E-Verify can determine with great accuracy the authenticity of the personal information and credentials offered by new hires. In most cases, verification occurs almost instantly. The E-Verify program only validates the status of new hires. It does not provide a job applicant’s immigration status. Nor does it pre-screen applicants or re-verify the status of current employees. Federal contractors and subcontractors are required to use the E-Verify system to verify their employees’ eligibility to work in the United States if their contract includes the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) E-Verify Clause.
Roy Beck, NumbersUSA President, in recent testimony before Congress, has offered recommendations that could have hundreds of thousands of Americans working without any cost to the government. Specifically, there are six easy changes in immigration law, and one that would be a little more complex, that could result in one million additional Americans having a job a year from now:
1.Allow all employers to voluntarily run their entire workforce through E-Verify. Give companies that want to ensure they have a 100% legal workforce the ability to use E-Verify on the pre-existing workforce. This will open up thousands of jobs quickly for unemployed Americans.
2. Immediately begin the roll-out of mandatory E-Verify. Begin the mandate for employers of more than 25 in the top 10 industries with illegal-alien workforces (excluding agriculture).
3. Provide full funding so that DHS can quickly train as many local and state police forces as desired to enter into the 287(g) program.
4. Suspend issuing Green Cards to visa lottery winners. The lottery randomly selects workers from around the world to compete with U.S. workers without any regard to the immigrants’ education, skills or any other criteria, or how any of that matches the needs of our society.
5. Suspend the chain migration categories of adult siblings and adult children of anchor immigrants. They fill up U.S. occupations without any regard for their effect on the U.S. workers competing there. And we have no control over which occupations they affect the most as they are accepted without regard to their education, skills or job preferences. The net effect would be a significant reduction of the 1.2 million legal immigrants who enter this country annually.
6. Suspend issuing work permits to the parents of anchor immigrants. You can create renewable one-year Parent-Care Visitor Visas that allow anchor immigrants to care for their parents as long as they choose, if they provide proof of non-taxpayer supported health insurance coverage. Visitor Parents would not be given any kind of work permit and would not be allowed access to any taxpayer-supported social services. The cost of the care for foreign parents would be borne by the immigrants.
7. Dramatically reduce permanent work permits issued through employment-based categories to take jobs that Americans want. Last year, 166,000 of these Green Cards were issued.
American workers must not only compete against illegal aliens for jobs, but also legal foreign workers. Despite the economic downturn and more than 23 million Americans looking for full-time employment, the U.S. continues to bring in over 100,000 new, legal foreign workers a month. This includes new permanent residents (Green Cards) and long-term temporary visas and others who are authorized to take a job.
Legal immigration is a controllable variable that can and should be adjusted in the national interest. Our immigration policies should serve the long-term interests of all Americans, not the short-term interests of corporate and special (often political, religious and ethnic) interest groups. We need to move to a merit-based system that brings in the skills we need to be competitive in the global economy and in the numbers we can assimilate. And illegal immigration can be stopped and reversed if we as a nation make a resolute commitment to secure our borders and enforce our existing laws. Both major political parties and special interests have sacrificed the American worker on the altar of parochial self-interest. Enough is enough.
For Pete's sake, HOW ARE THEY GOING TO KNOW THEY'RE ILLEGAL?
Since 1986, employers have been required to obtain ID from prospective employees that proves citizenship. It either hasn't worked or wasn't followed. Using E-Verify is no more burdensome than the system that's already been in place for a quarter century.
If this article is accurate, then there are some tea-partiers in Michigan who've drunk deeply from the Libertarian, no-borders Kool-Aid pitcher.
I tend to agree with you and tedw. E-verify should be made easily “available” to all companies on a voluntary basis.
On the pro E-verify side, any company caught with an illegal who did not use E-verify should be double fined and any company who use E-verify and hired the illegal anyway should be double-double fined, lose any government contracts and be banded from government contracts for 5 years. I mean ANYONE hiring an illegal!
The ONLY way to get a handle on illegals is through employment. If they can not find a job, darn few will come here or stay here.
I agree that a company employing illegals should be punished. But how is a company to know?
What E-verify should be is simply a federal website where a prospective employer can find out if Juan Valdez is really Juan Valdez and whether he's third-generation American, green-card holder, or illegal. And whether his SSN is really his or belongs to some old lady in Dubuque. Only then is it just and practical to hold an employer responsible.
How would you propose to do it? Either you have a practical solution, or you are for open immigration.