E-verify program: an economic harakiri

Quotes from Samuel McKewon’s article in the Nebraska State Paper (12.12.08).

• Quality

“When Ekeler, CEO of Overland Products in Fremont, posted notifications that he would use a federal E-Verify program to determine whether prospective employees had viable Social Security numbers, job applications quickly dropped. […] Ekeler said. “…I didn’t want undocumented workers to make my life miserable.”

Ekeler, who was appointed chairman of a Fremont task force on immigration, gave testimony in favor of Nebraska implementing an E-Verify program during a three-hour hearing on illegal immigration Friday in front of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee.”

Just as interesting would be Mr Ekeler’s opinion on the quality of his firm’s products after the notified he’d be using E-Verify. It doesn’t take a Nobel laureate to figure out that as his recruitment pool dried up the average quality of the prospective employees ought to have lowered considerably which in turns must affect his output one way or the other.

Now everybody’s free to run his firm the way he wishes and Mr Ekeler can choose not to employ un-documented foreigners, but why on Earth would he try to impose the same policy on his fellow entrepreneurs?

• Stupidity

“The lack of effective federal laws – and, in some cases, failed applications of the laws already on the books – has created a “tragic scenario,” for the state’s 35,000-55,000 estimated illegal immigrants, Ashford said, in the “development of an underclass of workers who can’t progress because they don’t have the legal status to work here.”

Hence, Ashford said, an E-Verify system, run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, becomes one way to dissuade undocumented workers from living and working in Nebraska. The federal program costs about $500 million per year and is fully funded through March 2009. Ten states, including neighboring Colorado and Missouri, have passed E-Verify laws. Rhode Island has it by a governor’s executive order.

“Even though there are a lot of consequences that are not positive, especially in rural Nebraska, I come up to a brick wall. I cannot get around the idea that the state is somehow complicit by not providing an enhanced way of checking.””

I’m not sure I’ve seen such a beautiful piece of conscious stupidity since Isabella of Spain expelled the Jews and the Moors from her realm in 1492 fully aware it would devastate it but certain it was the only way to please God. The only difference here is that a fair dose of double-talk and hypocrisis is added to the mix.

I’m not sure that the best way to help this tragic underclass of workers is to prevent them from living and working. By the way I don’t want to sound picky on words but in my mind “to dissuade one from living” is oddly similar from “to persuade one to die”. Anyway what can you expect from people that intend to spend 500 million dollars (0.6% of the state GDP) on a policy that has “a lot of consequences that are not positive”.

• Racism

“One testifier said there were “100,000 terrorists who want to hurt us” in the United States, adding “if you can get 20 million people into this country, you can get anything into this country.” A second interrupted the hearing with an objection that another speaker had been allotted too much time. A third accused the Judiciary Committee of taking bribes from large corporations to keep illegal immigrants employed within the state. […]

“Right now, someone is arrested who is not documented, they bond out and leave,” he said.”

After a few lines our old pal racism comes back. He is in good company: populism, infringement on Civil Rights… hmmm I’m lovin it!

Still, Ashford, law enforcement doesn’t want to engage in a federal program allowed under section 287g of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act, which partners ICE agents to train law enforcers in how identify, process and detain illegal immigrants they come across in their daily police work.”

For once the police is being quite sensible. Nebraska’s policemen are not too keen on arresting about a tenth of the state’s workforce, surely they have better thing to do such as fighting gangsters and arresting real terrorists.

Once more the paranoia and self-interest of some is costing all a great deal.