Chamber Says ‘Jump’; Obama Asks, ‘How High?’

By Mark Krikorian, January 29, 2009

Center for Immigration Studies

Good news and bad news on the E-Verify front. The House version of the “stimulus,” monstrous though it is, at least retains the requirement that recipients of its funds be enrolled in E-Verify, so as to screen out illegals. On the other hand, at the request of the open-borders U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Obama Administration has postponed, for the second time, implementation of the rule that existing federal contractors be enrolled in E-Verify. The explicit goal is to kill the rule; in the words of the Chamber’s spokesman, “We are hopeful that the incoming administration will agree that E-Verify is the wrong solution at the wrong time.” The curious argument is that businesses shouldn’t be asked to check that illegals not be hired because they’re already under a lot of stress as it is; in other words, illegal aliens should be permitted to take jobs even though unemployment is at its highest level in a generation.

The Indianapolis paper parroted this line in opposing what might become the nation’s toughest state immigration bill, the centerpiece of which is an E-Verify mandate for Indiana firms: “The first major problem with Senate Bill 580 involves timing. Amid a deep national recession, with companies eliminating jobs by the thousands, [Sen. Mike] Delph’s bill would add another layer of regulation, and more expense, on every business in the state.” Regulation? It’s already illegal to hire illegal aliens; if you want to change that, say so openly. Expense? The editorial writer is clearly relying on Chamber talking points rather than experience; I’ve been using E-Verify for a while now and there’s no expenditure of money and very little of time. The real problem with it is that legitimate employers can tell who the illegals are, and crooked employers can no longer pretend not to know.

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