The source of the following material is “Blame the Employers” from the Review and Outlook section of the July 16 issue of the Wall Street Journal which discusses E-Verify, a federal data base available for employers to verify the hirability of prospective and actual employees.
“A bigger [than rejecting qualified workers] problem with E-Verify is that it doesn’t catch identity fraud. An illegal alien using legitimate documents that don’t belong to him can go undetected…. Several government raids on businesses in recent years have resulted in the arrests of thousands of illegal workers whom E-Verify had approved.” Consequently, employers argue that it is unfair to punish them for unknowingly hiring unauthorized workers. To address these problems, some lawmakers are now calling for initiating a national system of biometrically based identity cards that would permit the government to identify the status of every worker, including Americans.
“New York Democrat Charles Schumer, who is leading immigration-overhaul efforts in the Senate, told an audience last month that biometric ID cards are ‘the only way’ to stop illegal border crossings. ‘I’m sure the civil libertarians will object to some kind of biometric card – although….there’ll be all kinds of protections – but we are going to have to do it,’ said Mr. Schumer. ‘The American people will never accept immigration reform unless they truly believe their government is committed to ending future illegal immigration.’”
Mr. Schumer’s comments are right on the mark in the opinion of this blogger, but it is hard to believe that any liberal democratic administration is really going to do what it takes to shut the door on illegal immigration, or ever do more than close the door a little. For the rest of President Obama's time in office, we will no doubt continue to allow existing and new poor and little skilled illegal immigrants to live and work in the U.S. while continuing to make it much more difficult for highly skilled and highly educated immigrants to join our country and use their talents for the benefit of all citizens. Even if they are eventually shut out of large employers by some biometric-related data base,the disadvantaged immigrants will continue to find work as independent contractors or off the books at small employers.
