Do illegal immigrants flood into the United States of America because all of these jobs go wanting for people to do them, or do the people who are unemployed in America have no luck in finding jobs because all the jobs have been taken by illegal immigrants who flood into America?
Come September, we may begin to answer that question with more accuracy, or at least cut down on the activity, whichever it is, the chicken of the egg. Starting September 08, E-Verify will become the official policy of the United States government. The program, operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration, uses federal data to electronically insure that potential employees are who they say they are. Employers who receive federal contracts will be required to use it.
It's being touted as a reliable tool to help or prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants, or more to the point, it's a tool to combat the argument that illegal immigrants are only taking jobs Americans don't want.
It doesn't seem the editors of the Wall Street Journal are at all concerned about American workers. Those paragons of free enterprise are still busy agonizing over the fact Barack Obama and former President George Bush are blaming employers for illegal immigration in the United States, and they decry the idea of E-Verify, telling us E-Verify isn't 100 percent accurate and no system on Earth is good enough to handle this problem. Their answer is to increase legal immigration quotas.
Proponents say E-Verify is correct roughly 95 percent of the time, provides a way to appeal, and usually fails when the worker himself forgets to [update] his or her address, or a marriage is not reported. If business is caught using illegal aliens, there's a substantial fine that can grow with continued non-compliance, and while only a fool would say the program is perfect, it's looking very, very good when you consider the alternative.
But that's not good enough for the Journal which argues that without a foolproof system, businesses will be unfairly targeted. If we were to use perfection as a metric, then we should throw out the Journal and question every single thing ever written in the Journal because of a typo in the sub-headline atop its very editorial (which read, ""businesson"" instead of ""business on""). What's the old saying? Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It's strange to hear the Journal talk about the unreliability of such an electronic system. When was the last time the editors of the Wall Street Journal cared so much about the viability of electronic record keeping like the credit card system we all participate in? When was the last time they cared so much about the viability of electronic record keeping that they would warn us about their fallibility in an editorial? They never have, of course, and they never will because those are things that make the wheels of commerce turn and that's all the Wall Street Journal editors are concerned about.
Besides, isn't the database they condemn the same one that's used to determine who gets Social Security checks? If it's as bad as the editors of the Wall Street Journal say it is, shouldn't they be complaining about that? Ah, but the editors of the Journal could care less about Social Security. To them, that's welfare.
It's also strange to hear the Wall Street Journal pity the poor employer when they said nary a peep after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans. It is an immutable fact that New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast of the United States were dug out by a regiment of illegal Mexican workers who flooded the region after Hurricane Katrina, ready and willing to do whatever needed to be done, and some of that work was dirty and dangerous, and the majority of those workers were paid as much as 40 percent less than the going wage, which was a violation of the Davis-Bacon Act --a law the federal government conveniently waived, incidentally.
But even in the face of that waiver, these illegals who have flooded into New Orleans are working for sub-par wages, living six and seven to a room in motel rooms in New Orleans. Why? Why weren't those jobs being held by native New Orleanians who had lost homes and jobs and had been displaced --why weren't they working there?
Two possible reasons: Either they don't wanna do those jobs or they can't get the jobs because unscrupulous employers would rather hire illegal immigrants whose status can be held over their heads so that they can be paid sub-par wages in cash without following the labor laws of the United States.
And yet, we didn't hear any complaints from the Wall Street Journal about unfair business practices then, did we? Or exploitation of illegal workers at the expense of legal ones?
Instead, the Journal suggests in its editorial that today we need to increase legal immigration quotas. That's a rather startling suggestion when you think about it. Ask yourself: Should we be considering increasing legal immigration quotas to provide workers for American employers when unemployment in the United States is nearly 10 percent nationally and over 10 percent in 15 states?
Our own fellow citizens, unemployed and unable to find work, unable to pay the rent or pay their mortgage, should take a back seat to people coming into this country illegally or even those invited legally?
Ah but when does the Journal every worry about things like that because the Journal champions the world of commerce and let the devil take the hind most. Except in this case, the hind most is many of our fellow citizens.
So which was it? Were New Orleans natives not interest in tough, dirty and dangerous work? Or were New Orleans natives frozen out by American employers who violated the law, refusing to pay American citizens a decent wage, refusing to follow the rules, take out taxes, provide worker's comp and proper insurance?
And which is it? Are jobs that have no one to fill them attracting illegal immigrants, or are illegal immigrants taking jobs Americans ought to have? Or, is the problem illegal immigrants coming here or American citizens enabling their illegal presence by breaking the law themselves.
Which is it, the chicken or the egg?
http://www.examiner.com/x-15870-Populist-Examiner~y2009m7d18-Illegal-immigration-a-chicken-and-egg-problem
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