Program Combats Root Cause of Illegal U.S. Immigration

By David W. Caulkett | June 1, 2012

David W. Caulkett is vice president of Floridians for Immigration Enforcement says E-Verify Combats the root cause of illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration is but one of the serious U.S. problems that seemingly defy resolution. Illegal immigration's broad reach negatively impacts many problem areas including debt, education and unemployment — all contributing to the frightening decline of our middle class.
Along with enforcing a slew of unenforced immigration laws, an effective method to combat illegal immigration is E-Verify. E-Verify is a popular, effective and highly accurate federal program to verify employment eligibility of new hires.

E-Verify has been effective at reducing illegal immigration because it addresses the job magnet — which is the root cause of illegal immigration. Because the federal government has failed so miserably at enforcing employment eligibility, many states have utilized E-Verify at the state level. Enhanced document security should supplement E-Verify.

Opposition comes mainly from extremely well-funded business groups such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Florida, and agricultural interests that have the resources to concoct and promote a large number of false claims.

Their false claims are easily refuted:

Opponents claim E-Verify is not accurate, but 98.3 percent of employees are automatically confirmed as authorized to work.

Opponents claim E-Verify is a massive new burden on employers, but E-Verify is but an incremental enhancement that uses electronic technology rather than an antiquated paper process, so there is only a minor burden.

Opponents claim E-Verify is difficult to use, but E-Verify has the highest customer-satisfaction rating of any federal program (82 percent), and a customer-support approval of 89 percent.

Opponents claim E-Verify is fundamentally flawed. This allegation relates to the major problem of document security that has existed for decades because our federal government has allowed counterfeit documents to proliferate unabated. While Floridians for Immigration Enforcement and others acknowledge the possibility that E-Verify can be circumvented by fraudulent documents, it's certainly not the only arena where fraudulent documentation is a concern. An E-Verify photo-matching capability is planned that will go a long way in addressing the issue of counterfeit documents; however, our government must comprehensively address document security as a national-security issue.

Agricultural interests claim migrant farm workers are the only source of labor, without which food prices would be exorbitant. Agricultural interests for many decades have exploited farm workers in many ways including wage theft, intolerably overcrowded housing, and unsafe working conditions such as unsafe pesticide application. All the while, the social costs are passed on to taxpayers at state and local levels. If exploited agricultural workers received a fair wage, the increased cost to the American family would be a mere $9 a year. This is because harvesting wages account for a very small portion of retail prices.

E-Verify is the best possible long-term solution for Florida, and it far outweighs the unacceptable status quo of the huge negative consequences of illegal hiring.

This is not a complicated issue; it's about the rule of law. You decide:

Is it right that the interests of greedy law-breaking businesses trump law-abiding citizens and legal employers?