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$3.7 Billion for E-Verify
President Obama is in desperate need of congressional action on the border crisis. Specifically, he is seeking $3.7 billion in emergency funding to accelerate the care for, and processing of, unaccompanied minors and single mothers with children crossing our southern border illegally from Central America via Mexico. The question that we, as conservatives, as taxpayers, and as Americans should be asking ourselves is this: what should we try to buy with our $3.7 billion? The answer, I think, is breathtakingly clear: we should demand E-Verify.
It is frequently said among our politicians and pundits that our immigration system is “broken.” The claim is especially heard from the left, but even conservatives – who think that the problem is simply that the law is not being enforced – are likely to admit that something is not working correctly. It is a curious fact that little attention seems to be paid to how exactly the immigration system is broken.
By this I don’t even necessarily mean, “how did the immigration system come to be broken?” (though an account of the relevant history could be helpful as well). I merely mean what precisely is not working.
It is in the nature of broken things – like the car in my driveway, for instance – that they are very difficult to fix if you don’t know which part is not functioning properly. By contrast, if you have a clear knowledge of the symptoms, at the very least you tend to waste less time on things that are not entirely germane. Since I know, in the case of my car, that all of the lights except the headlights refuse to turn on, I have not tried to remedy the situation by changing the oil or by looking behind the wheels.
In the immigration problem, as we will see, we are often trying to fix the wrong thing.
The root problem with our immigration system is quite easy to state in detail. The fact that it is not stated more often is clear evidence of the “will to obfuscation” among those with vested interests in keeping the system broken. This is what’s wrong:
The number of illegal aliens in America has been growing since the Reagan amnesty of 1986. At first, these aliens were limited both geographically and, more to the point, by the jobs that they could hold. They necessarily took employment where cash changed hands or where, for other reasons, the authorities were not involved. Over time, certain employers – especially those who could get away with resorting to the black market – found a competitive advantage in hiring illegal aliens.
The “career choice” of illegal aliens (and, at the same time, the geographic range) increased as consequences for failing to obey the law became weaker and weaker. That choice expanded dramatically as illegal aliens began providing fake Social Security cards to obtain employment – despite the fact that the employee’s name and Social Security number did not match.
The Social Security Administration sent out “no-match” letters in these cases and some employers did (and some still do) purge their employee bases of such individuals. These letters, which actually ceased altogether from 2008 until 2011, have been diluted in their legal import to employers by virtue of immigration-related litigation. An interesting discussion on no-match letters can be found here.
At the same time as the legal ramifications for hiring illegal aliens evaporated, the moral consequences of doing so dissolved as well.
First of all, every Man Jack and Woman Jill employer in America who employees illegal aliens knows damn well that they are doing so. Meg Whitman lost her race for governor of California because no one believed that a former eBay CEO who employed a maid in her house for nine years (whom she described as like a member of her family) was so stupid as to not actually know that that employee was here illegally.
So it is with the savvy businessmen across America. The Social Security card that they take does not prove, to them or anyone else, that their employee is legally allowed to work in America. Rather, it merely gives them plausible deniability that they were aware that their employee was illegal.
It is on this sea of plausible deniability that we have floated the illegal alien ark. And the employers, and their dishonest defenders in the Chamber of Commerce, are frankly terrified that the ark might someday sink…that they themselves might yet end up in jail — because they know full well that they are breaking the law and that they are foisting the social and economic costs of their “business practices” onto their neighbors.
Believe me, if you give the average employer a way out — especially one that allows a gradual ratcheting down of his illegal alien worker base — he will grasp at it in a heartbeat.
So the point is this: The 12-20 million illegal aliens in the U.S.; the swamping of our emergency rooms and the invasion of our state parks; the weight on our welfare services and the heart-wrenching unemployment in American ghettos; the countless cases of hit-and-run accidents; the lawlessness that accompanies any criminal underground whose members fear the police more than the drug dealers, rapists and murderers in their midst; the enormously expensive and utterly useless fence; the mad rush of children and pregnant mothers across 1,000 miles of badlands and deserts; and the babies floating in the Rio Grande: they all exist because employers do not have sufficient incentive or morality to proactively determine if the person handing them that Social Security card is legally allowed to work in the United States.
It’s that simple.
But there is an equally simple, technological solution to this problem. It is called E-Verify. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services webpage:
E-Verify is an Internet-based system that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States. E-Verify is fast, free and easy to use – and it’s the best way employers can ensure a legal workforce.
If E-Verify became the law of the land, McDonald’s, Hyatt, Dunkin’ Donuts and dozens of other large companies would simply call in their lawyers and say: “Ok, how do we implement this?” Half of the illegal aliens in America would instantly find themselves unemployable. Gradually, even restaurants, liquor stores, and cleaning services would be purged as well. No other single law would be as devastating to the illegal alien cancer in America.
Of course, it would be ideal if the law were retroactive, but it does not need to be. Over time, the natural turnover of employees will result in illegal aliens going home. And yes, this is nothing more than Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation.” It may take time, but it will work.
Additionally, it will help to stop the flow across the border. Of course, children and mothers who already have a working family member to support them in America will still come. But they will be coming specifically and solely as burdens.
I can prove mathematically that if we do not find a way to send illegal aliens who are here already back to their home countries, then it makes no difference how big a fence we build. Interrupting the illegal work chain is the key to getting illegal aliens to go home.
The whole partisan debate over immigration in Washington has been presented in terms of a “comprehensive” solution to our immigration problem versus the pejoratively-termed “piecemeal” approach, which principally seeks to obtain border security first and foremost. Border security can only be achieved by sending illegal aliens who are already in the country back to their homes. We are at our Rahm Emanuel moment in the immigration fight: the president is now demanding a piecemeal piece of legislation!
I say, let’s give it to him. Give him the money. And attach a clause making E-Verify mandatory for all employers in America.
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What say you, Ricochetti?
Published in General
Immigration is “broken” solely because the Democratic party (and some delusional Republicans) have concluded that more poor Hispanic immigrants are in their interest.
Therefore, they have no desire to keep them out, or catch and deport them once they’re here. This is inextricably linked to the Democrats’ refusal to clamp down on voter fraud. Voter fraud is in their interest, they’re the major perpetrators of it, and it keeps them in power.
E-Verify won’t fix this problem then, as the problem is not the lack of a way to confirm immigration status.
The problem is a controlling portion of our politicians want more immigration, because they think they will vote for Progressive policies and the politicians that promote those policies. And they’re probably right.
So the only fix is to vote out those politicians, and vote in politicians who will enforce the law.
I live in upstate New York. If I got a new job, as part of the paperwork, I have to prove that I’m a US citizen. That’s to make sure that I, a man living in upstate New York, two thousand miles from Mexico, am not an illegal alien from Mexico.
Does that make sense to you?
That requirement came about as part of the 1986 reforms. Before that, it wasn’t even illegal for a business to employ an illegal immigrant. But now, again, to prove that I’m not an illegal immigrant from Mexico, a place that is two thousand miles away from where I’m sitting, I have to show my papers.
Uncle Sam sticks his snout into a transaction between two people. Me and that employer.
But that’s not good enough? Now we need to build a multi billion dollar computer system so that anytime anybody gets a job in our nation of 315,000,000 people with a 16,000,000,000,000 dollar economy, they need to check with Uncle Sam and make sure its okay?
And that assumes the system works right.
E-verify is like a No-Fly list for employment. Considering how mismanaged, considering what an utter failure its been, considering how many people have been caught up wrongly, incorrectly, unfairly, in that particular government mommy-may-I scheme,
Why the hell would you want to do it with employment?
E-Verify might work if magic existed. If we could magically make the cost go away. If we could magically make it work perfectly. But magic doesn’t exist. There is no magical government fairy dust that could be sprinkled on this to make it not horribly problematic.
The government can hardly deliver the damn mail. And you want them to issue permission certificates every time somebody gets a job?
Tuck:
@Tuck, the only reason illegal aliens come to the United States is to work. If they can’t do that, they will go home. We have to acknowledge that not just (a few) “delusional” Republicans are culpable. LOTS of them who look the other way are at fault.
Not for nothing, but if they’re working, what’s the problem?
Because some citizen,therefore, is on the dole?
I would like to see this mathematical proof.
Since you have a PhD in physics, you must be aware that the standards of mathematical proof are high, and that a plausible argument backed up by numbers is not enough to be a proof.
$3.7 Billion will buy a lot of ammo. Fences are big, expensive, and useless if they are not manned. Nobody has any business coming across the fence outside of a checkpoint. Either this is a nation or it is not, and nations have borders that they defend. Otherwise (Fred Cole), there is no difference between a citizen who works on this side of the fence, or that, and an illegal who works here or there.
We cannot regulate a system of laws through magic. At some point it comes down to findings of fact and actions. A fence with guards is both a signal and an obstacle; it makes the act of crossing a clear act of intent, and it gives a point beyond which a border guard is in his duties to press an attack.
Well, either we will defend our borders or not. For those who say “But it’s not *that* sort of ‘invasion’, you kook!”, the fact is this is going to wipe out this country.
To be, or not to be?
Cancer? People contributing to the economy is a cancer?! You have a funny idea of a cancer, sir. Legal blessings make people think and speak in strange ways, but lets keep collectively pretending this isn’t contrived hogwash because people in Washington cast the proper incantation.
Walk into any emergency room at nine in the evening. You will see the problem.
Despite my cheery assessment from the previous comment, I am not so optimistic. The miserable McClellan / Quisling Republicans will not hold the administration to any such deal; if they begin to, they certainly will not finish that way. There will be no E-Verify, there will be no enforcement, and there will be no dislodging the new crop of disease-ridden invaders. But there will be $3.7 Billion worth of services delivered to people who hate us, do not speak our language, will not adapt our culture, and will destroy the country. And if they don’t start out in that condition, public education and the welfare state will certainly get them there with a rapidity that will shock all but the most jaded post-Republican Tea Partiers.
Now look back at all the times somebody like Senator McCain said “Well (heh heh heh) we can’t deport them all now can we? That’s ridiculous!”, and imagine what the effect would be now, if we had made a stand then, instead of entertaining harmful and bad debate on how to “bring them out of the shadows”.
Stop adding overhead to employers!!
Our sovereignty is the Fed’s job. The administration sues AZ for enforcing existing law and then they blame lack of new laws for all the illegals reacting to Obama and crossing the border. Enforce a manual Verify for all non english speakers for gov welfare, schools, foodstamps if no habla english then force applicants to PROVE identity. If they lose the job but keep getting welfare then only the worker may self deport.
Obama selectively enforces other laws, force “children” to prove they’re NOT mexican. If they prove who they are it should be easier to send back. If they can’t – send them back over the border and call them Mexicans.
40% of illegal aliens in America came here by airplane. They don’t build fences 37,000 feet high.
You seriously believe this?
Of all the problems that face ghetto dwellers – chaotic family lives and generational dependency that make it hard for ghetto children to learn productive habits, minimum wage laws that price them out of legal entry-level jobs where they could actually learn those habits when they’re adults, the disincentives to work provided by our current welfare system – competition from illegal aliens seems pretty low down on the list, actually.
Saying the employment crisis in our ghettos is happening because of illegals seems… um… dishonest.
Disregarding the actual standards of proof, I’m willing to take him at his assumptions, which are likely to be demographic “on a long enough timeline”. Still, I think he asks for too little, in that he’s not parroting my stance on a well-guarded fence and its salutary effect on would-be fence hoppers.
Well, we can’t all be right, I guess.
Consider an illegal alien couple with two children in school. They make $60K and their children’s schooling costs $26K. This is before the welfare and the emergency rooms and the crime. That is not contributing to the economy. That is soaking up our wealth.
Yeah, they’re full of poor people. I get that.
If ER visits are the problem, then there are other solutions. We could repeal the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.
The problem is that these people aren’t integrated into our society because they’re not allowed to. If they were, they’d probably get health insurance.
So immigration restriction causes the problem and the solution is more immigration restriction?
Back about 18 months ago, the Cato Institute held an event called E-Verify’s Many Perils.
The video and a link to a podcast version can be found here:
http://www.cato.org/events/e-verifys-many-perils
I’d suggest it for anyone who is interested in a skeptical view of the magic pixie dust of E-Verify.
Fair enough. Unemployment in the ghettos is exacerbated by illegal aliens.
If they’re working and making 60k, why are they on welfare? Also, at that point, if they were allowed to, they could probably afford health insurance or at least pay for their own ER visits.
As far as their children in school, first 26k, is that a number you plucked out of the air? Second, you could make that exact same argument about anybody with children.
Also, what your numbers don’t include are the wealth created by the contribution of their labor.
Cancer is actually very good analogy, as these people are not subject to the laws that we are, and are allowed to bring in ever more with flimsier justifications. It is malignant, spreading, and accelerating.
Now this is not (you may be shocked to hear me speak in such PC terms) a value judgement about individual persons, who are after all in a bad spot and getting ridiculously conflicted signals from this failing country. But the impact of the pre-existing situation was bad (If you think tolerating a geo-racial separatist movement is not a threat, you don’t get it, I submit), and the new avenue of attack is worse. Finally, this problem has recruited the “defenses” of the host.
Well, it’s not exact, but ‘cancer’ is pretty darned close.
If they’re working and making 60k, why are they on welfare? Also, at that point, if they were allowed to, they could probably afford health insurance or at least pay for their own ER visits.
As far as their children in school, first 26k, is that a number you plucked out of the air? Second, you could make that exact same argument about anybody with children.
Also, what your numbers don’t include are the wealth created by their labor.
Here is Massachusetts: http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/ppx.aspx (where I live).
The *wealth* created by their labor? As opposed to the labor of some of the 6.2% (at minimum) unemployed Americans? Or, are illegal aliens only doing the jobs that Americans won’t do?
And then their children each make money, pay taxes, and their kids become indistinguishable from the rest of America. How is your scenario any different than many citizens? Everyone seems to believe it’s wrong to eject a true citizen cancer, but is permissible to eject a non-cancer from improper origins because… collective delusion+anti-foreign bias.
If enough people agree we’re allowed to, then we’re allowed to, so immoral acts become rights… but it’s just not how anyone acts in real life.
Well, our existing “investment” in the booger-eating junk-thumpers of the TSA should have that sewn up. At least as well as another governmnet-run list. Gee, if only there were some opportunity at an airport to ask people for their passports… Gosh this is hard.
Oh, I know! Eliminate the visa waiver for Mexico. The whole reason airport immigration checkpoints work is because traffic is channeled to the checkpoint by distance and red ropes. The reason they do not work for filtering illegal immigrants is because we choose not to, which is the real proble, and which no amount of cash in this administration’s hands is ever going to change.
I don’t mean to be rude, and I wish that I thought your plan would work. Ten or twenty years ago, sure. But if you think that laws, rules, regulations, riders, clauses or the Constitution itself will stop this administration, I submit that you are, uh, mistaken.
Okay, so lets call that two children? You could make the charge about anybody whose children are in a government funded school.
Frankly, they come here to work (and do) because there are jobs available for them. That means that some of those unemployed people passed on those jobs for whatever reason.
You have a willing employee and a willing employer. What’s the problem?
Yeah, I always hear people complaining how much they wish they could work for McDonalds if they just had enough jobs available.
You don’t have “a willing employee.” In fact, you have several *billion* willing employees. The problem is something called “the rule of law” … or “sovereignty.” It’s okay to just decide which laws you want to follow and ignore the others? Hmmm. Liberal notion, that.
…Or the laws are the cancer.