Thread: WA-Lakewood may check legal status of its workers

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Lakewood may check legal status of its workers

04:54 PM PDT on Monday, May 11, 2009

DREW MIKKELSEN

LAKEWOOD, Wash. - Illegal immigrants looking for work in Lakewood, may want to try somewhere else if one councilman has his way.

The Pierce County city could be the first local government in the state to require immigration status screening for all new employees, grant recipients and contractors.

“We want to look after our legal residents first,â€

From: "The News Tribune"
Seattle-Tacoma (Wash.) News

E-Verify rule will protect legal workers

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: 06/04/09 12:05 am

There are two good arguments for the City of Lakewood’s decision to require its contractors to confirm the legality of their employees.

First, there will never be a solution for illegal immigration in this country unless businesses stop hiring undocumented workers.

The dynamic U.S. economy has always been a magnet for immigrants – legal and illegal – seeking better incomes. As long as enterprising Guatemalans or Chinese or Mexicans can readily find work in America, legions of them will find a way to sneak past the borders.

Even a vast roundup of illegal residents – logistically impossible in the first place – couldn’t begin to solve the problem. Drying up the jobs is the only way to restrict immigration to those who’ve stood in line and played by the rules.

The second reason is a matter of fair wages in the labor market. In some industries, unskilled illegal labor tends to drive down wages. Undocumented workers are willing to work for less, and unscrupulous employers are more than happy to pay them less. The losers are legal American workers – citizens and immigrants alike – who could find better-paying jobs more easily if they didn’t face illegal competition.

That dynamic has been intensified by the recession. The brutal reality is that jobs are scarce right now. Many have been laid off and are hungry for paychecks. Especially in hard times, companies should not be employing illegal workers at the expense of legal workers.

Like some other municipalities and a few states (and the entire U.S. government come September), the Lakewood City Council will require its contractors to screen their hires with a federal database system called E-Verify. E-Verify has been criticized as inaccurate – particularly by people who want no screening at all to happen. In fact, its accuracy has greatly improved since it was introduced in 1997.

The system now rapidly determines the legality of 96 percent of job applicants. When an applicant’s documents don’t square with the U.S. government’s, he or she can challenge that finding. It may not be perfect, but it satisfies the federal law against hiring illegal residents. It’s a whole lot better than a wink and a nod and a pro forma glance at falsified documents.

More than 100,000 American employers now use E-Verify. It hasn’t proven to be an undue hardship.

The City of Lakewood can’t fix America’s broken employment enforcement system by itself, but its new policy puts it in the good company of other municipalities that have done the same thing. Every local and state government that demanding a legal work force makes it easier for legal workers to find work.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/story/766643.html