A couple of weeks ago, I testified in the House Immigration Subcommittee on the difficulties with, and undesirability of, a national employment verification system. Beyond some costly and inconvenient, bleeding-edge tech solutions, there’s no way to confirm on a mass scale that people are legally entitled to work under our immigration law — not without putting a national ID in the hands of every American.
I observed that such a system, once built, wouldn’t be restricted to employment, but would naturally expand:
Were an electronic employment verification system in place, it could easily be extended to other uses. Failing to reduce the “magnet” of work, electronic employment verification could be converted to housing control. Why not require landlords and home-sellers to seek federal approval of leases and sales so as not to give shelter to illegal aliens? Electronic employment verification could create better federal control of financial services, and health care, to name two more.It need not be limited to immigration control, of course. Electronic verification could be used to find wanted murderers, and it would move quickly down the chain to enforcement of unpaid parking tickets and “use taxes.” Electronic employment verification charts a course for expanded federal surveillance and control of all Americans’ lives.
Now comes news that a suburb of Dallas has become the first in the nation to prohibit renting to illegal immigrants. It requires apartment managers to verify that renters are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants before leasing to them.
A policy like this doubles-down on the error of enlisting employers into immigration law enforcement, and it shows how immigration law creates pressure to expand domestic surveillance. “The policy that will dissipate the need for electronic verification by fostering legality is aligning immigration law with the economic interests of the American people. Legal immigration levels should be increased,” I testified.
But you knew that if you’ve been following this stuff.
