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In an early indicator of how congressional Republicans will legislate on immigration, House GOP leaders are expanding an inquiry into an enforcement program that allows employers to check the immigration status of employees.

The E-Verify program has long been championed by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration panel, which will hold a hearing on it Thursday.

Many business owners believe that Gallegly and other House Republicans want to make E-Verify, currently a voluntary program for companies, mandatory. Critics of such a move, many of them farmers, warn that it could destabilize the agricultural economy, which is heavily dependent on undocumented immigrants, and jeopardize millions of jobs held by American citizens that are upstream and downstream of farm labor.

The fact is that agricultural mega-business have been using cheap, illegal aliens for most of their labor for decades at great cost to American taxpayers.

Why?

Well, it is way cheaper than hiring native born Americans or mechanizing their farming/manufacturing operations. Hence, more profits. But, the taxpayers are picking up the tab for the illegal aliens and their American born (and american citizen) children e.g. public education, medicaid, criminal justice et. al..

E-Verify is a sensible reform and if the large agricultural companies cannot obtain enough labor then there is always a guest worker program for which they can apply.

Let’s get the illegal aliens and their hidden costs out of the shadows and back to their home countries while supplying jobs for Americans.

I will gladly pay a bit more for my lettuce and grapes.