House Republicans worked over the weekend to revise the Ryan immigration “compromise” bill in an attempt to bring enough Republicans on board to pass it. Many restrictionist Republicans in Congress voted against the harsher Securing America’s Future (SAF) Act last week because it granted a path to legal status without citizenship for some Dreamers. Although SAF did not offer a path to citizenship for Dreamers, some House Republicans voted against it because they consider a grant of legal status of any kind for Dreamers to be amnesty. The political problem is that Ryan’s “compromise” bill enhances the charge of amnesty because it offers a path to citizenship for a small number of Dreamers. As a result, House Republicans are considering a national E‑Verify mandate to get the restrictionists on board with the Ryan “compromise” bill (they are also considering an agricultural guest worker visa program so Republicans from agricultural districts aren’t dissuaded by E‑Verify).
This political horse-trading won’t likely work but E‑Verify has some serious problems today that could grow into worse ones tomorrow. People must consider these problems before getting on the E‑Verify bandwagon.
E‑Verify is a federal electronic eligibility for employment verification system for employers to check the identities of new hires against government databases to guarantee that they are legally eligible to work. The system is intended to exclude illegal immigrants from the workforce to reduce the incentive to immigrate here in the first place. E‑Verify is mandated for all new hires in a few states and some other categories of employers but not nationwide. If Congress ever mandates E‑Verify nationwide then all native-born Americans would also have to be run through E‑Verify and get government permission to work in order for E‑Verify to have a chance of meeting its objective. Any interior immigration enforcement system that seeks to reduce the employment of illegal immigrants, including E‑Verify, will have to be used against legal immigrants and native-born Americans too.
E‑Verify has severe systematic problems and will not do much to turn off the wage magnet that attracts illegal immigrants. This is a problem for several reasons but what worries me the most is what would happen after Congress mandated E‑Verify and then they realize that it doesn’t work. What steps will Congress then take to make electronic verification for employment “work” as they intend?