Flap's Blog

This is what Flap’s Congressman Elton Gallegly said on Thursday.

The balance between Republican calls to reduce government regulation of business and the GOP’s campaign against undocumented workers is about to be tested by a bill that would mandate use of an illegal-worker detection system, which critics say would cripple U.S. agriculture by depriving farmers of cheap labor.

House immigration subcommittee chairman Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) said Thursday that he plans to introduce the bill to mandate the use of E-Verify within the next month. The program is already mandatory for government agencies and contractors and used voluntarily by nearly 250,000 businesses to check the legal status of potential hires. But Gallegly said he hopes making it a requirement for all U.S. enterprises will drive out illegal workers entirely.

“If there was ever a need to do something quickly, when we have 14 million Americans who aren’t working today, I think they deserve to be put in the front of the line,” the California Republican said at a hearing on the use of E-Verify.

About damn time.

I think such a bill would have an excellent chance of passage. But, will President Obama who needs the Hispanic vote in 2012 veto the legislation?

Previous:

Businesses Fear Expansion of the Illegal Immigration E-Verify Program

Protesters at a Chipotle restaurant in Minnesota, where some workers were fired after an immigration audit

Well, too bad.

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.