Yesterday I wrote about E-Verify, the website that allows employers to quickly and easily make sure new hires are legally allowed to work. Today¹ Don Lee at the LA Times writes all about it:
Even though E-Verify is free for employers, with more than 98% of those checked being confirmed as work-authorized instantly or within 24 hours, the program is significantly underused.
....In its earlier years E-Verify was riddled with errors, but today is seen as highly reliable. Of the 10 million employees checked through E-Verify in the first quarter of this year, fewer than 2% were flagged as mismatches. Of those, about 18,000 employees, or only 0.2% of the total, were later confirmed as work-authorized.
In other words, it's 98% accurate within 24 hours and 99.8% accurate overall. And it's easy to use. Despite this, few businesses use it and it's not mandatory. Why?
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), with Republican colleagues including Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Trump’s running mate, in June introduced a bill to make E-Verify mandatory across the country. But similar efforts in the past have repeatedly failed to win enough bipartisan support.
....In Washington, many Democrats have indicated they will support a national requirement only if it is part of an overall reform that includes legalization of undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S., which most Republicans oppose.
Republicans also face resistance from some employers and special interest groups, whether farming or construction or other service sector that relies on immigrant labor. For them, it’s a bottom-line issue.
The not-so-secret truth is that nobody really wants to get rid of undocumented workers:
One key reason: There are simply not enough “legal” workers to fill all the jobs a healthy, growing U.S. economy generates. And that’s especially so in low-wage industries.
Employers say that requiring E-Verify — without other overhauls to the immigration system, including easier ways to bring in workers — would be devastating.
“I think you would see a general overall collapse in California agriculture and food prices going through the roof if we didn’t have them do the work,” said Don Cameron, general manager at Terranova Ranch, which produces a variety of crops on 9,000 acres in Fresno County.
....It’s not simply a matter of not having enough workers to do the hard, often dead-end and low-wage jobs that most U.S. citizens don’t want to do. It’s the shortage of workers overall, experts say.
For decades, birth rates in the U.S. have been declining, as they have in most of the economically developed world. Today, the birth rate among American women of childbearing age has dropped below the level needed to meet the country’s replacement rate. California’s birth rate is at its lowest in a century. If the economy is to grow and prosper, as almost all Americans say they want it to, additional workers must come from somewhere else.
All of this could be solved relatively easily by a compromise that increased border security and increased legal immigration. But Republicans are dead set against it. It's too good a campaign issue.
¹Actually, the article is ten (!) days old, but only showed up in the print edition today. This is typical of the LA Times, for reasons I don't understand.
In a few decades, given the demographic trend we are on and witnessing its result in countries like Japan and South Korea, the problem wouldn't be unwanted immigration but too few immigrants.
[rant]
The not-so-secret truth is that nobody really wants to get rid of undocumented workers
OF COURSE they don't. The employers don't, the people whom they serve -- homeowners, eldercare and childcare customers, travelers, diners, produce consumers -- don't, NOBODY wants to "get rid of" workers who are cheap, work hard, and don't complain because they know very well they can be ratted out in a second if they make trouble!
And NOBODY actually cares that they are technically "illegal," not least because the first undocumented border crossing is a MISDEMEANOR, just like DRUNK DRIVING, which for some odd reason we don't hear much about, especially out of Red states and rural areas, despite the fact it actually KILLS lots of people.
ALL the shrieking and rending of garments about "illegal immigrants" is 100% RACISM. It's White people who are anxious as hell about losing their presumptive status as First-Class Citizens and nearly have a stroke when they hear "para Español oprima el nueve." It. Is. Racism. Nothing more.
[/rant]
Part of it is an inability to realize that "illegal" in this case does not refer to actual lawbreaking, as in things that harm society that society wants to prevent. They're just workers who have been unjustly and cynically labeled "illegal" to keep them exploitable, pit their fellow workers against them, and give cynical politicians a fake enemy that they can use to gin up votes by pretending that they're going to punish them.
I usually favor center-left thinking, but "illegal" immigration is a case where the far-left style of thinking provides the line of best fit.
Why would we want to get rid of law abiding people who work for a living and add value to the US?
The people we need to get rid of are criminals and moochers.
Noncitizens (legal and illegal) who drive drunk, shop lift, take drugs, or commit vandalism, who go on public assistance, whose children are habitually truant. Deport them.
If there is a preponderance of evidence they committed a crime, deport them. This is not a punishment. It is just a decision that the US is better off without them and we have no obligation to allow them in the US.
I think it is telling that the only illegals liberals are even remotely enthusiastic about getting rid of are workers.
Angry, dishonest, bigot troll is back at work on the keyboard. FIGHTIN THE LIBS AND THE MOOCHERZ!
lol, poor guy. sad life.
"I think it is telling that the only illegals liberals are even remotely enthusiastic about getting rid of are workers." You reading comprehension is poor. Besides according to conservatives anyone who comes here illegally is a criminal.
Sounds to me like you would be happy were Elon Musk, if found guilty, were deported.:-)
I agree that this
"ALL the shrieking and rending of garments about "illegal immigrants" is 100% RACISM"
is part of the issue, but it really comes down to money in the end. Employers like to hire illegals because, as bleh says, they work cheap and hard; and consumers reward these employers by patronizing their businesses. Neither party is ever going to close the border because too much money wants that border open.
I have an acquaintance here in town who used to work for the INS and I asked him if he'd ever seen an employer charged for hiring illegals and he said "not one single time." All of the fuss about the borders and walls and detention centers is just kabuki theatre, meant to rile up one base or the other before they go to the nearest drive-thru full of illegals for a cheap lunch.
Tough talking Texas passed laws requiring proof of citizenship a while back...and it didn't last. The Republicans like to demonize the undocumented--but also want their roofs and lawns taken care of.
Ditto GA, WA and I think it was MS. They ALL passed laws targeting employers, the laws worked, the immigrant workers fled, and ... the crops rotted! Disastrously. And the HEAVILY REPUBLICAN agricultural business owners raised hell, and somehow ... somehow, despite the Existential Threat of Illegal Immigration, the enforcement and/or the laws just ... went away!
And of course there's always people who say "oh well that was just temporary and eventually Americans would take those jobs." To which it can only be said, on the basis of decades of data in multiple industries, hahahahahahahano.
Not WA. No one here gives a crap about legal status—urban or rural. Illegals can get driver licenses—because they’re here and we want them to know how to drive, DUH.
Yeah, the "conservative" policy of reducing the age for child labor in order to replace the disappearing adult worker.
Let us not forget, an E-Verify card could (would) quickly become a valid voter ID.
That’s . . . incorrect. Only citizens can vote in federal elections. Legal residents who are not citizens cannot vote in federal elections.
Immigrants can get drivers licenses too, but they are widely used as ID at the polls.
Sadly you are probably right because uber liberals would probably make it so that citizenship versus green card would not be allowed on the cards in order to prevent discrimination. That being said a national ID card that is free for all who qualify and provides proof of residency status (citizen, green card, temporary protected, etc.) would cost less than 0.1% of GDP to enact and then a trivial amount thereafter to maintain. Unfortunately almost nobody actually wants the problems solved.
This is like the problem of the high cost of housing. Nobody wants to actually solve it, but for most of the middle class, their house (and more significantly, the land it is built on) is their main asset. Nobody wants house prices to actually fall.
There are nearly 13 million green card holders (noncitizens with permanent residency and the legal right to work) in the US. No one takes a green card as a voter ID.
This troll farm character lied about this the other day.
New York Times: All the news that's fit to print.
Los Angeles Times: All the news that fits, we print.
You think the NYT is any different?
I quit reading the NYT after Judith Miller sold the invasion of Iraq with the WMD lies.
“All the news that fits” was the long-time motto of the Rolling Stone.
I lived in Tokyo for awhile and joked that motto of the Japan Times—perhaps the most boring paper on the planet—should have been “All the news without fear of flavor.”
"There are simply not enough “legal” workers to fill all the jobs a healthy, growing U.S. economy generates"
Sort of OT, but I've seen people say in interviews that they know the economy is bad because so many jobs are unfilled. Those are the people I know I could sell bridges to, if they had the money to make it worthwhile.
On the main topic, yes, it's unanimous. Too many companies, individuals, industries want to keep the people they depend on underpaid and in the shadows, in part because they don't want to spend more and in part because they're afraid of the people they depend on and in some cases despise them.
And that's how the R party wants it to be-- it gets to protect its constituencies *and* demonize the very people those constituencies depend on. Mighty white of them! (As used to be said in the old days.)
And if this was all regularized, the Rs would lose one of their biggest political weapons. What could law, order, and human equity matter when something that important is in the balance?
OT: New Des Moines Register poll has Harris up 47-44 in Iowa. She leads among women by 20 pts, with Trump leading among men by 14 pts. If she's competitive in Iowa, it's a rout.
Hopium injections always appreciated, and the simple math that follows from women being typically 52-54% of the electorate sure qualifies. In a similar vein, isolated anecdata suggests that that notorious commercial with Julia Roberts VO has some real-life exemplars.
Kevin, I am not against seasonal work, but...
https://www.wric.com/news/taking-action/inspections-find-no-water-no-beds-and-rats-at-virginias-migrant-labor-camps/
...The not enough workers is always, always a lie. They want workers who have no other choice.
The US is not going to run out of workers. In 2100 the ratio of working age people will be about the same as it was in 1900 and again in 1965:
https://www.skeptometrics.org/RealDemographics.html
Workers have to support kids as well as old people. Why would so many people be complaining about the cost of raising kids if it were free?
Bringing in young immigrants would improve Social Security finances, as it would reduce the fraction of old people (although there are other ways to fix SS), but unless the immigrants are celibate and have no children there would be more kids to support, and the fraction of working age would not be greatly affected.
There are lots of absurd distortions in the immigration debate (on both sides) but the idea that the country will run out of workers may be the worst and the dumbest.
Immigrants do bring and create children. Those children grow into the workforce - if well supported and educated.
What is your actual plan for increasing the workforce (especially in low paid industries) without immigrants AND their children, since almost every first world nation I know of is failing badly at this - including the US. This includes nations that provide a lot more child support and funds to families with children than the US does - that has not worked very well. How do you plan to solve this - or are you still having "concepts of a plan"?
What is your detailed plan to do this that isn't laughable? And the absurd distortions are mostly on the Republican's side - unless you really believe that Haitians are eating cats, dogs, and wild fowl - like Vance and Trump claim.
ETA to add specificity...
Implying that young people are the same as elderly people in terms of the 'demographic impact' on the economy and workforce is an absurd distortion.
Congrats on eye-roll worthy irony.
I do not have a plan to "increase the workforce". Why does the workforce have to be increased? I presented data showing that the fraction of working age people is not going to decrease significantly, so there is no need to counter the decrease which seems to be always taken for granted.
As Dean Baker often points out (see link in my piece), any actual reduction in the workforce will certainly be outweighed by productivity increases. China is projected to have a decrease in working-age fraction - from a much higher level than in the US - but its productivity is increasing much faster than that of the US. Kevin constantly claims that AI and other "robots" are going to take all the jobs. This could only happen because of productivity increase. It is simply idiotic to claim also that the US is going to run out of workers because of the reduced birthrate. As Dean Baker asks, which way is up?
I certainly did not imply that the 'demographic impact', if that refers to the burden of paying for young vs old people, is the same. I specifically said that this should be quantitatively evaluated, rather than assuming that the reduction in the fraction of young people has no impact, which is basically the assumption by most people who talk about the supposed reduction in the workforce.
As the birthrate decreases the total population will cease to rise, but exactly why is that a bad thing? Increasing population is certainly not a good thing if it is realized that resources are limited and that the capacity of the earth for pollution (including CO2) is also limited.
Supposing that there must always be a huge supply of low-paid workers to keep wages (and inflation) down is a conservative, not liberal principle. I would like to see everyone in the US get decent income, no matter where they come from, but if masses of workers who accept much lower wages are always brought in, increasing wages at the lower end is impossible.
Of course there are distortions on both sides of the immigration debate, as I said specifically. Trump's attack on immigration is based on racist xenophobia - the idea that non-whites are replacing the "native" white population. If he and supporters had any real regard for the economics they would realize that deporting millions would be disastrous. I see no real evidence for an "invasion" of immigrants - the total illegal population seems to have been fairly constant at around 11 million for decades. It may be below that at the moment. There are ebbs and flows, which are at least partly responsive to demand for cheap labor in the US as Kevin has shown.
Changing demographics is a complicated issue in many respects. Immigration is only a part of it and demographics is only a part of immigration. Anybody who approaches these things seriously should try to think beyond whether something seems to agree with Trump's campaign. In fact you will rarely if ever seem anything like an appreciation of all the aspects in the popular media.
OK, Trump's vile racist attacks are probably the worst distortion, but the idea that the US is going to run out of workers at the same time as the robots are taking all the jobs may be the dumbest.
US Ag won't collapse. There's no cap on the temp ag H-2A visa, but because there's no mandatory e-Verify and it's a lot cheaper for employers to skip H-2A requirements, they've avoided it. If e-Verify becomes mandatory, prices will rise. When prices rise, there'll be domestic pressure to break USMCA for tariffs to keep US Ag competitive. Once prices have normalized, inflation will revert to the norm. Will the courts overturn the tariffs?
The bigger issue will be the non-ag temp H-2B visa which does have an annual cap. Unless they eliminate the cap or otherwise expand it, 66K annual temp workers is nowhere close to cutting it. Wages are going to have to rise, but because there's a cap on workers, the inflationary pressure on wages will always be present through the expansion part of the business cycle.
Rising wages doesn't sound like something I'm going to worry about. It's high time workers had a bit more power in job markets
It's a balancing thing between rising wages and rising prices. Here, rising wages will necessarily trigger rising prices.
Americans won't do these jobs - FOR THE WAGES - therefore the pay should increase until they do
Here (NZ) we have almost no illegal workers and a minimum wage of $24/hr
AND we can grow food so cheaply that the US government limits the amount that we can sell to the USA
The solution is fines and jail time for the employers
AND get your farming sorted out!
If we can do it then you guys should be able to
"The solution is fines and jail time for the employers
AND get your farming sorted out!"
Agree entirely!
To strengthen e-verify without immigration reform is pointless. The Democrats are right. But the Republicans aren't interested in fixing the problem, they are only interested in the optics of "looking tough" on illegal immigration without actually doing anything about it. This is one of the few remaining lies that their constituents still fall for. It gets them elected. There's no way they want to solve it.
Crowd-sourced proofreading takes time…
The GOP has played immigration perfectly
No funding for legal entry - border crossing staff, patrols, or immigration judges. So rather than wait months for legal status, workers jump the fence, giving employers cheap labor who won’t complain. Fox News will be filming the illegal crossings, but not the workplace to interview workers about pay and working conditions
No money to improve eVerify, giving employers zero liability for hiring illegals. Always amusing that no GOP proposal provides any liability for employers. “Gee I didn’t know- eVerify is broke”
I’m no political strategist but I wish some Dem would point out that not only has the House done nothing with the senate’s bill, BUT they won’t even say what they want changed to fix it. They can call it a “Steaming Pile” but they are obligated to make a counteroffer. Otherwise the border problem is now on Speaker Johnson.
Immigrants are people and people should be treated reasonably and fairly. If we really want to limit illegal immigration, going after employers is the way to do it.
It is ridiculous though, to suggest that this will be a better place to live with a billion people in it. The only meaningful measure of economic growth is per capita and capping individual wealth at a couple of hundred million dollars would leave a lot more to spread around.
If we were really concerned about a shortage of labor, we could implement a national single payer health insurance plan. This would free up around 4 million people currently working for health insurance companies and in the billing departments of health care providers.