E-Verify and undocumented workers in America

When alcoholic beverages were illegal in America, drinking didn’t stop. Alcohol smuggling just became lucrative for criminal gangs. Drugs like cocaine and heroin have been illegal for decades. Consumption of cocaine and heroin didn’t stop; smuggling of these drugs just became lucrative for criminal gangs. Making undocumented migration illegal and militarizing the Mexican border didn’t stop undocumented migration. Human trafficking just became lucrative for criminal gangs.

The problem of alcohol smuggling during Prohibition was solved by repealing Prohibition. Narcotics and narco gangs continue to be a huge problem in America, since the market for drugs in America amply repays the efforts of the gangs. And the labor market for undocumented migrants? That also continues to be huge in America.

All that could be addressed by enforcing the use of E-Verify. As Kevin Drum notes:

“[E-Verify is] 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.”

I’ve long said that militarizing the border and arresting and deporting undocumented workers is a fool’s errand. If we were serious, we would require all employers to use E-Verify. If undocumented workers are discovered in a workplace, the *employer* is fined and goes to prison. Of course, that will never happen, because undocumented labor is too lucrative for employers and consumers.

“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.”

Too easy to demonize poor people of color while exploiting them for our comfort and enrichment. Weird.

https://jabberwocking.com/the-long-sad-story-of-e-verify/