Posted on 08/03/2013 6:56:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Massive border security and E-Verify are central provisions of the Senate immigration bill, and they are supported by many in the House. Both provisions signal how wrong-headed much of the immigration-reform effort has become.
E-Verify is the real monster. If this part of the bill passes, all employers will be forced to use the government-run, Web-based system that checks potential employees' immigration status. That means, every American will have to obtain the federal government's prior approval in order to earn a living.
E-Verify might seem harmless now, but missions always creep and bureaucracies expand. Suppose that someone convicted of viewing child pornography is found teaching. There's a media hoopla. The government has this pre-employment check system. Surely we should link E-Verify to the criminal records of pedophiles? And why not all criminal records? We don't want alcoholic airline pilots, disbarred doctors, fraudster bankers and so on sneaking through.
Next, E-Verify will be attractive as a way to enforce hundreds of other employment laws and regulations. In the age of big data, the government can easily E-Verify age, union membership, education, employment history, and whether you've paid income taxes and signed up for health insurance.
The members of licensed occupations will love such low-cost enforcement of their cartels: We can't let unlicensed manicurists prey on unsuspecting customers, can we? E-Verify them! And while the government screens employee applications, they can also check on employers' compliance with all sorts of regulations by looking at the job applications they submit for verification.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Yep they are squawking because they know that mandatory E-Verify will instantly cut off their access to illegals.
This is why the establishment dems and reps keep shifting the argument back to border enforcement knowing full well that without E-Verify border enforcement has and will always fail.
E-Verify is the strongest border enforcement tool we have and the WSJ knows it.
I am all for wise and legitimate means of securing our borders and protecting against threats to our country. Wise and legitimate means you're wisely and constitutionally balancing protection against true threats from others with the very real threat from your own government (which history shows is a greater threat than any other).
We've all seen the questionable government actions in the name of security in creating yet another useless, expensive (OUR money) bureaucracy (Homeland Security) and the abuses and threats toward the American people in the name of security. "Security" is a common excuse totalitarian governments use to gain power. What has apparently not dawned on many is the unrestrained hue and cry against immigration and illegal immigration is yet another opportunity for an even MORE threatening government to take on even MORE power which by definition is LESS freedom for you and I.
The two main arguments I've heard here against immigration (not necessarily illegal immigration) are a socialist argument (essentially, in acquiescence to a socialist state, "We have to pay for them") and that they are Obama voters (a partisan argument against a traditional American value (we're all immigrants) basically unfettered until the 1920's; also a denial that these people may be persuaded, as they were with Reagan, by the stronger argument for freedom against the weaker argument for government dependency).
When a society, even with the best intentions, seeks to curb the non-interfering liberty of others (as I believe immigration to America is), it generally weakens that society. Here, the efforts to curb immigration, even illegal immigration, have opened the door for this Marxist (IMO) administration and sympathetic Congress to threaten the American people with even more power. E-verify is just the latest in a long line of government abuses just waiting to be unleashed upon the American people in the name of security against illegal immigration.
Our rogue government has been slow to reasonably secure our southern borders. This is a legitimate way to curb illegal immigration. Unsecured borders has allowed many illegals in (who BTW actually help us because they do jobs no one else will do in the CA fields below minimum wage so you and I get lower food prices). Reasonable and wise patriots who love our country must ask which is worse: the presence of illegal immigrants or more government intrusion into our lives. I know where I stand on that choice.
ps. One obvious area for immediate deportation is incarcerated illegals.
We were talking jobs and E-Verify not welfare. Of course you have to cut off everything and don’t forget they need to stop being allowed to enroll the kiddies in our free public school system.
Still E-Verify will go a long way toward keeping them out of the workplace. As long as that is what we use it for. Otherwise we will just keep the status quo which IMO is still better than legalizig them all and their trillion member extended families.
Its been great chatting about all this but the reality of the situation is that you have both parties salivating to legalize the illegals. Its quick, its easy and then they can all move on with their lives. So look for Boehner and his little axis of evil, Cantor, McCarthy and Ryan to push through an amnesty/immigration bill above the screams of all of us.
“Of course you have to cut off everything”
So why aren’t we cutting off welfare? All E-Verify does is require employers to report back to good ol’ Eric Holder just whom they are hiring and why.
It’s got nothing to do with ‘self-deportation’ and everything to do with expansion of federal government control over the hiring process.
How difficult is it as an employer to screen folks properly? It takes time, yes, but it’s just easy to punch in some buttons and have the machine tell you whether John Smith has a ‘green light’.
Do you not see how susceptible this system is to fraud? What happens when dear King Obama issues SS numbers to his pals? Will you be subject to a discrimination lawsuit for refusing to hire one of his pals who got a ‘green light’?
“So look for Boehner and his little axis of evil, Cantor, McCarthy and Ryan to push through an amnesty/immigration bill above the screams of all of us.”
Mandatory E-verify to prevent illegal immigration is like mandatory condom use to prevent pregnancy. Arguing that employers should not hire illegals ignores the question as to how they were able to get here in the first place.
I think it’s in the same section that requires employers to collect taxes.
I have to laugh. The government couldn’t tie multiple systems together if you spotted them the interfaces and the code.
There are so many variables involved, from an act of congress all the way down to the engineer that needs a firewall opened to the coder that needs permissions to access a programming environment.
The problem isn’t the systems. The problem is who has access to the systems and who they are ultimately working for. All of this is compartmentalized enough that only people at the highest levels who work directly for the administration can access the information that will do the most damage to their political opponents. This is why the rogue agent lie at the IRS fell apart very quickly
I know this brings up Snowden. As for Snowden, when you think about it, everything he said we already knew. Heck, that is the NSA’s job to spy on communications. Just so happens that over the course of the years due to technology the role of the NSA expanded. Anything that bounces off a satellite, uses a hardline or communicates over wireless can be monitored.
I call Snowden a dogwhistle by the administration to take pressure off the other scandals.
In other words: (1) We need our slave laborers and will say anything to keep them - no lie to is too big; (2) if eVerify will cost any business a single penny, then it’s too expensive to prevent $113 billion in ANNUAL welfare, education, healthcare and incarceration costs to the taxpayers from millions of illegal aliens.
Oops.. This is about eVerify. The system works. Just cannot let it get into the wrong hands to be used for political destruction and not its true intention.
Which one? I've heard he has had several, under different names.
It is yet another BROKEN fix for a problem caused by....government.
Is not a job a contract between employer and employee? Then what business is it of the gov’t?
With all the ‘Laws’ on the books, is it any wonder we’re not ALL ‘flagged’ as felons?
Bad enough the tax and regs business has to worry about. Then, throw on top: min. wages (talk about NO gov’t authority), OSHA, EEOC, unions, O’Care, etc.
Businesses are risk takers. Just because someone isn’t flagged doesn’t mean the til won’t be empty at the end of the night. It’s up to the business OWNERS to ensure their own viability.
False choices, IMHO. Gov’t does not FIX problems that it itself CREATED. Employment is a contract between employer and employee. It is not up to the gov’t WHOM gets employed.
Remove the nanny-State: NO min. wage, No food stamps, no SS, no Medicare, etc. It is NOT authorized by the Constitution.
Reduce the HUGE gov’t burdens: corp. income tax (highest in the World), regulations, OSHA, EEOC, O’Care, etc.
Return healthcare to the People. It is not the employers responsibility, and they should NOT get the tax benefits for it that a Citizen does not. It should be no different than car insurance. Get gov’t OUT (Fed and State level). If the employer wishes to pick up that cost..so be it.
1) Bring it back to A1S8
2) Self-deportation, no bennies
3) Business comes BACK to the U.S.
If we could restore our Constitutional Republic, HOW would you ‘verify’ employment?? By what authority?? More importantly, why would you care???
LOL
Okay, you reject the idea and come up with absolutely nothing to fulfill that need.
...every American will have to obtain the federal government’s prior approval in order to earn a living.
Imagine:
...every American will have to obtain the federal government’s prior approval in order to exercise their second amendment rights.
You might be thinking of the The Social Security Number Verification Service which is different from E-Verify.
http://www.ssa.gov/employer/ssnv.htm
I have been using this service for many years. But it is used solely to verify that the SSN and employee’s name match the Social Security records for payroll and tax reporting purposes. It does not verify the employee’s identity or their eligibility to work in the US. You cannot require a job applicant to provide their SSN but if a legitimate job offer is extended you can request it along with other information for purposes of running a pre-employment background check under applicable law.
Once hired however, the employee has to provide their SSN for payroll and tax reporting purposes (or proof they are in an “applied for status”) but they are not required to provide their actual SS card to the new employer to view. But the employer can face penalties if they file W-2’s under a SSN where the name does not exactly match the number – a mismatch. A mismatch can also cause the employee to not receive proper credit of their earnings, which is important information in determining their Social Security benefits in the future.
For these reasons, for payroll purposes we always use the name exactly as it appears on the employee’s Social Security Card or as verified by the SSN Verification Service. Occasionally I have an employee who goes by a nickname (one instance was a fellow who went by the first name Alex but his SS card said Alexey) or a female employee who gets married or divorced and wants us to change her name on her payroll records. I have to tell them that I can’t change their name or use a first name nickname for payroll unless and until they provide me with a new SS card with the name change.
When a new employee is hired however they must complete an I-9 (this BTW is nothing new, it has been required since 1986) and provide to the hiring employer, one document that establishes both identity and employment eligibility (on List A on the I-9) or one document that establishes identity (on List B), together with another document that establishes employment eligibility (on List C).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-9_(form)
The form I-9 requires the employee to provide their Social Security Number but does not require them to show their employer their Social Security card if they provide other documentation as to identity and employment eligibility as listed on the I-9. The employer is required to keep the I-9 on file (for three years after the date of hire, or one year after the date employment ends, whichever is later) but does not require the employer to submit the documentation to any government agency unless it is requested during an immigration audit.
The problem with the I-9 in my opinion has always been that it is required for the employer to view the identity and work eligibility documentation and attest to their validity but it has always been an “honor” system unless and until there is a problem (i.e. you’ve unwittingly hired an illegal because you thought their documentation looked good). I cannot possibly be an expert in forged documents but if I sign off on an I-9 form and the documentation is later found to be fraudulent, I could be held personally criminally responsible: “An employee who knowingly accepts fraudulent documentation can also be criminally prosecuted under other immigration laws”. So without verification system how am I to prove that I didn’t “knowingly” accept fraudulent documents?
Without a system like E-Verify (which is used (at least so far) only to verify I-9 documents) I have to use my best judgment that the documents I am required to view and verify at the start employment are legit. E-Verify, while not perfect, does provide me with some verification tools. E-Verify does more than just verify SSN’s. If an employee provides a Passport or a Green Card for instance, E-Verify will provide a photo that I can use to visually confirm that the new hire visually matches the pictures on file. If a new hire has forged a Green Card, the picture on file with INS will probably not match.
In all my years in PR/HR I’ve never questioned any I-9 documentation until recently. We recently hired a fellow, an older man who to the best of my knowledge was a US born citizen. But he couldn’t provide the documents as required by the I-9. He had a PA driver’s license but had lost his Social Security Card and couldn’t find his Birth Certificate, and his US passport was long expired and he had nothing else on the list of acceptable documents. He finally provided a faded copy of a BC but it looked as if it had been torn into several pieces, went through a washing machine several times and was taped back together rather haphazardly with huge chunks of it missing, most of it illegible and most importantly it lacked a raised seal. It was the only time I rejected an I-9 document.
We gave him directions to the closest Social Security office where he could obtain a replacement Social Security Card and information for obtaining a certified copy of his birth certificate and gave him three business days to get this done and provide the documentation, otherwise, legally we couldn’t continue his employment (we even gave him a few hours of paid time off in order to do so). He griped about this and I understood, but while he said he didn’t have to do this with his last employer, my response was, “just because your former employer wasn’t following the law, that doesn’t leave me off the hook”. He was actually able to obtain a new SS card without that much of a hassle.
Bottom line is that many people gripe about companies hiring illegal alien workers – some do this knowingly and some because they trust and hope that the I-9 documents are legit at face value. But put into place a system that allows employers to comply with the laws already on the books, now it’s an invasion of privacy? FWIW, that boat left the dock a long time ago.
Am I concerned about abuses and big government creep? Sure I am – absolutely! But do I think that giving a tool for an employer to verify the legal work status of new hires that they are already legally required to do is a bad thing? No. While it is preferable to me to have meaningful and effective boarder control and immigration laws, even at its best, it will not keep out all illegals and prevent them from working in the US illegally.
Furthermore, do I think that people should have to show proof of identity and citizenship when voting? Yes.
Thank you for the detailed post. I appreciate it. I agree with your take on things.
And, to make it more convenient, we could have these sort of work camps, that way you're living where you're working. Of course, for better security, we'll need guards…
Without employers are resorting to full background checks to try to comply with the law.
Which is more intrusive?
RE: E-verify tells you the SS number is valid and what name is attached to it.
Without employers are resorting to full background checks to try to comply with the law.
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OK, Let’s pass a law that SPECIFICALLY SAYS that eVerify will only be used to verify that a person applying for a job has a Social Security number and that his name is associated with that number. NOTHING ELSE.
It CANNOT BE USED for any other purpose.
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