Congress to Consider Mandating E-Verify
By Joe Sigg, Arizona Farm Bureau
Polls show that the American public believes that border security and strong sanctions against employers will solve immigration-related issues. Of course, immigration issues are only a part of border security, but there is some merger in the minds of the public.
Congress is considering mandating E-Verify (i.e. HR 2164), and it has high prospects for passage later this summer. Unlike Arizona’s mandatory E-Verify law, federal law will come with substantial penalties for non-compliance.
American Farm Bureau and Arizona Farm Bureau will not support this without some reforms to access a legal workforce.
Mandatory E-Verify without visa reform? H-2A is the only visa for agriculture. It is unwieldy and bureaucratic, very often not time sensitive, not all of agriculture can use it, physical housing rather than in lieu payments are required, there are no commuter provisions, just as there are no provisions for longer term needs. It is pretty much designed not to work.
What mandating E-Verify across the country without visa reforms means:
· In the early days it will cause severe economic dislocations. In the early days filling jobs will be difficult.
· In the early days there will be abuses/misuse of the system (remember we have some history in Arizona), which will cause problems for both employers and employees.
· Employees (yes, even citizens) will be hurt unnecessarily and employers will be the subject of lawsuits for both discrimination and violating immigration laws.
· It will cause employees to hunker down – put them more in the shadows – drive them further underground - it will depress wages.
· We will see illegal behavior by both employers and employees – it will create more systems of “under the table and off the books” hiring.
· Since Congress has been unwilling to provide the funds to make E-Verify even somewhat “fraud proof” – it will encourage identity theft – which is a huge public policy issue – not to mention a financial burden on any number of citizens.
The first bullet point above will hang around – nagging economic recovery – but we will also see new systems of illegality emerge and overlay the system – these forces of behavior cannot be legislated away – behavior on the ground must be codified and regulated to match reality. We will settle down once again with a huge illegal problem, we won’t know who is in our country, access to legal, timely and reliable labor will persist as an issue, and the pressure will persist for a comprehensive solution.
