Friday, May 19, 2017

The Worst Thing About E-Verify (It is just one step away from a national biometric identity system)

David Henderson writes:

I asked Alex Nowrasteh for his input on the E-Verify issue that I posted about yesterday.
Here's what he wrote:
E-Verify won't work because employers ignore it in states where it is required with virtually zero legal consequences (see blog post). Enforcing E-Verify laws is about as difficult as enforcing current I-9 violations. If Arizona won't enforce its own E-Verify mandate and the Feds won't enforce their own I-9 mandate, there is no good reason to expect them to enforce E-Verify.
As Nowrasteh and Harper write in their policy analysis on pages 10-11, E-Verify has barely turned off the wage magnet that attracts illegal immigrants in Arizona (second link). E-Verify is a failed program that will raise hiring costs. What's worse is that its failure will prompt calls for a national biometric identity system to plug E-Verify's "loopholes." That system's potential will be abused in short order. Best to forestall that.

The policy analysis he refers to is Alex Nowrasteh and Jim Harper, "Checking E-Verify: The Costs and Consequences of a National Worker Screening Mandate," July 7, 2015.

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