Thread: States do Fed`s jobs on immigration -E-verify poll

Friday, June 20, 2008
States do fed's jobs on immigration
Letter from Washington: A patchwork of laws govern workplace verification. YOU VOTE: Should the federal government mandate E-Verify.
DENA BUNIS
washington bureau chief
orange county register
dbunis@ocregister.com

Immigration reform has become persona non grata in this town ever since comprehensive bill failed last spring. But as silent as lawmakers here are on the subject, the louder it's getting in the states.

And if you look back to other major issues, maybe that's what has to happen for lawmakers here to actually do something on the issue.

In the 1990s, the drumbeat for welfare reform didn't lead to federal action until state after state passed the kind of welfare-to-work laws that President Clinton finally signed. States were beginning to demand concrete educational standards long before the Bush administration championed No Child Left Behind.

And the head of steam that Sen. Barbara Boxer's global warming bill got this year is due in part to the actions by states and cities. This is especially true in California where the state's groundbreaking climate change bill is in danger of being hung up because the Bush administration has balked on a waiver for the state's tailpipe measure.

In 1932 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the phrase "laboratories of Democracy.'' Lawmakers have since used that phrase when trying to get federal funding for pilot programs in the states and drafting federal laws patterned after experiments in individual states.

So with Congress not acting on immigration, states have started to.

And what most states are turning to is E-Verify – the electronic verification system designed to ensure that people working here are legally entitled to.

In fact, Gerri Ratliff, who is in charge of the E-Verify program for the homeland security department, told me that only 15 states haven't had some piece of legislation introduced or passed on this program.

Arizona, Mississippi and most recently South Carolina have laws mandating E-Verify for new hires. Idaho, Minnesota and North Carolina have laws that apply only to state workers. Georgia and Colorado require that any business gets any public money has to use E-Verify.

Only two states – Illinois and yes, California, are going the other way.

Illinois passed a law that bans the use of E-Verify. As soon as that was enacted DHS sued the state and Illinois officials have agreed not to enforce the law until the court case is settled.

And Sylmar Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes has gotten a bill passed in the Assembly that would bar state agencies form using E-Verify and discourage private employers from doing so. It would also stop local governments from requiring the companies that do business with the municipalities use E-Verify.

Fuentes told me he doesn't believe the system is reliable. Ratliff said that's not true. She said DHS is constantly making upgrades, including using photographs, adding information to the DHS and Social Security Administration database and working to lower the error rate, which she said already, is less than one percent.

Fuentes's bill is expected to get approved by a Senate committee this week and could be passed by the full Senate in the next couple of weeks. What's not known is whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would sign it. Fuentes said he hasn't heard from the governor on this and I couldn't get his people to bite on what some DHS folks say is the word on the street that Schwarzenegger would veto such a measure.

Human resource organizations and other business groups say the E-Verify system is not dependable and puts too much of a burden on business to handle something they say the federal government should be taking care of. They support a system that is based less on DHS information than on a database that every state uses to track down deadbeat dads.

As with everything in this town, there's a political aspect to this debate.

Getting an immigration bill enacted that gives benefits to illegal immigrants is always controversial.

The 1986 amnesty bill, for example, only got passed because it had a carrot and a stick. The carrot was the amnesty provision. The stick was the creation of the I-9 form, which was supposed to make sure that only people who are legal to work got jobs here. I'll save the discussion on why that failed for another time. But it did.

For an immigration bill to pass these days, it needs carrots and sticks.

So immigration advocates who want to see a new guest worker program and a legalization plan, worry that if a big enforcement piece like E-Verify is settled separately, that they'll have one less bargaining chip to work with in pushing for comprehensive reform.

Ratliff said the more state bills the better. When states encourage — or mandate -- E-Verify, she said, that means more companies use it and the closer DHS can get to showing that it can handle a mandatory national system.

While such a mandate isn't in the cards for now, something has to be done.

The law creating E-Verify, which was authored in 1996 by Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, is due to expire on Nov. 30. Calvert has a bill in to make the system mandatory but has also authored one to extend it as a voluntary program.

As DHS officials have been lobbying the Hill on this, Ratliff says they've been assured lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that an extension is in the bag. None of them wants to be tagged for letting even a voluntary system that tries to weed out illegal immigrant workers expire.

We'll be watching.

WHAT YOU SAID

Last week we asked about Democrats dragging their feet on approving President Bush's judicial appointments.

Most – 61 percent – said that Republicans should do whatever they can to get the president's nominees confirmed. Another 26 percent support the Democrats blocking judges and 4 percent said the fight over judges shouldn't spill over into other legislation.

Here's this week's poll:

Should Congress require all employers to electronically verify a person's legal status to work in the U.S.?
Yes
100%

No
0%

No opinion
0%


Total Votes: 1



Bunis is the Register's Washington bureau chief


Contact the writer: (202) 628-6381 or dbunis@ocregister.com



Poll at the link , E-verify .



http://www.ocregister.com/articles/veri ... -state-dhs

Should Congress require all employers to electronically verify a person's legal status to work in the U.S.?
100 %

No
0%

No opinion
0%


Total Votes: 8

Should Congress require all employers to electronically verify a person's legal status to work in the U.S.?
Yes
95%

No
5%

No opinion
0%


Total Votes: 21