-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
While Republicans have been trying to leech the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, President Obama has upstaged them by laying out his immigration reform plan. This is a signature political issue that the Republicans have tried to make their own. However, the E-Verify program will test whether they really want to solve the problem or whether, like bin Laden, they’re more interested in maintaining the issue for its political usefulness.
The E-Verify system looks for a match between the name and SSN of the worker who applies for a job. If there’s a mismatch then the worker may be undocumented, or the worker has to contact the SSA to get the records corrected. The E-Verify program, if widely implemented, would dramatically reduce the incentive for illegal entry.
However, business hates it. The Florida Chamber of Congress has succeeded in getting mandatory E-Verify removed from a Florida immigration reform bill. Republicans are caught between their business overlords and the Tea Party.
The Florida Chamber of Congress cites out-of-date error rates and concerns over identity theft as the basis for their objection to mandatory E-Verify. Could it be there’s another reason? Maybe it’s because businesses can take advantage of the illegal’s vulnerability and pay them less than the minimum wage and violate work safety rules, as pointed out in Obama’s recent speech.
The error rates for E-Verify are steadily improving with most errors occurring due to typos and changes in names or citizenship that are not reported to the Social Security system. Workers need to get these errors fixed in order to receive their full Social Security benefits to which they are entitled.
The problem with identity theft occurs when an undocumented worker uses someone else’s (matching) name and SSN when applying for a job. That problem has been solved by something called “E-Verify Self Check” where individuals can access their status before applying for a job. The system knows whom you’ve worked for over the years and can ask the kind of questions that only the legitimate worker would be able to answer correctly. Therefore, workers can be verified and identity thieves won’t be able to verify their data.
Another problem for E-Verify is the case of Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting that is before the Supreme Court (Kagan, J., recused). At issue is a 2006 Arizona statute, the Legal Arizona Workers Act that requires all employers to participate in the E-Verify program, which is preempted by a federal law that specifically makes that system voluntary. The law was signed by then-governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, the department that runs E-Verify. What you have is the Obama administration’s Solicitor General arguing against the most effective tool in the administration’s arsenal against illegal immigration.
As pointed out by Justice Ginsburg during oral arguments:
How can Arizona take a Federal resource, which the Federal Government says is voluntary except in certain circumstances, and turn it into something that’s mandatory?
The E-Verify Modernization Act of 2011 seeks to make E-Verify permanent and mandatory. It will be interesting to see if the bill suffers the same fate as the Florida legislation.
H/T: VC, Miami Herald, Adam Serwer, Daily Finance.
“You do not live “within your means,” because you use the infrastructure we provide for free every day and do not pay anywhere near what it is worth”
Well damn, maybe thats why its crumbling before our eyes?
Roco, if you think I care what you believe, you are sadly mistaken. I could care less what the sycophantic followers of a long dead mediocre writer from the 1950s who had been traumatized by her childhood in communist Soviet Union, think. If you want to follow a neurotic sociopath as your guru, that is up to you. You keep posting the same half-dozen talking points with no original ideas or engaging in genuine dialogue. Endlessly repeating nonsense will not make it come true, no matter how many times repeated.
@Roco: But someone has to be the ultimate decision taker or tiebreaker if you wish.
No. This is false. I know it for a fact and by experience, successful companies can be run by committee. It happens with partnerships all the time, nobody has to be ‘in charge.’
@Roco: All I have to say is private insurance, don’t you think they would have emergency vehicles that are paid for by your insurance policy?
Why would they do that? How is that possibly in their best financial interest; after all if you die on the road, they don’t have to pay for your care, do they? In fact a health insurance agency might require you to have separate ambulance insurance before they would insure you; and then while you are disabled in the hospital they can battle it out (ultimately all at YOUR expense, since the cost of these battles will be reflected in your premiums) over how much of your care or disability is caused by their tardy or incompetent effort at saving you.
If you are talking about LIFE insurance, it wouldn’t be worth it to them, either. They certainly cannot be in the business of preserving life with ambulances, fire, food inspection, building inspections, anti-mugging campaigns or whatever. Accidents are accidents; they will just pay off your policy and move on; they aren’t going to try to save your life.
It is in the best financial interest of an insurance company to deny and delay as much payout as they possibly can, including every imaginable legal maneuver, including purposely forcing people they know have legitimate claims to take them to court in order to get the payments to which they are entitled, because sometimes people just give up, or die before they get their day in court.
That dynamic has been proven in the current for-profit insurance environment.
It is NOT in their interest to maintain your health, or save your life. A for-profit insurance company makes money by taking in premiums and paying out as little as possible, and they also make money by limiting your abilty to choose. That is why they only give “real” rates to group plans where the clients do not have a choice; their company or organization made the choice, and the company owners made the decision in their own self-interest, not their employee’s self-interest, and the employees typically have no real choice in the matter.
The free market does not fix this problem because most people think they have good catastrophic insurance, because it sounds good, right up until they become the 1% that really needs catastrophic health insurance. But 1% isn’t enough of a dissatisfaction rate to harm the insurance company, and only a tiny fraction of the people screwed by the insurance company manage to find a few minutes onscreen on a slow news day that might hurt the insurance company, and for those lucky few the insurance company just apologizes profusely, pays the claim immediately, and mouths a few platitudes about glitches and red-tape and reform until the camera moves on to something else, and of course their victim never again has the audience THE INSURANCE COMPANY got to refute their lies about what REALLY happened, because the insurance company executive is ‘important’ and an insurance ‘expert’ and the victim is just another nameless office drone.
The free market doesn’t fix it; the free market would make it even worse than what we’ve got now. You operate on a presumption of equal influence that doesn’t exist, you think you would have some kind of power you would most certainly be denied. You are a fool that doesn’t understand how power is really used.
Well you are finally right, I should have said “only socialists believe that a ruling elite can provide effective government in a purely secular, progressive, anti-market, non-competitive, social engineering sort of way.”
Thanks for the correction.
“Only socialists believe in a ruling elite.”
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What a naive statement. Neo-con right wingers believe that. So do religious tyrants. Sometimes those two groups are one and the same. It also appears the Koch and Bush crime families do too.
Tony C:
the best ideas usually come from the guys actually doing the work. So why do you think I would run a company tyrannically? I have given no indication of that at all.
The best way to come to a decision is to hash it out and think about the alternatives pro’s and con’s. But someone has to be the ultimate decision taker or tiebreaker if you wish.
Only socialists believe in a ruling elite.
@Roco: I guess you must be a psychotic with delusions of grandeur.
The psychotic diagnosis that fits you more than me; because I am willing to obey laws passed by a super-majority if they are fairly applied to all people (including politicians and the wealthy), and you are obviously less willing than I.
As for delusions of grandeur, I have fewer than you. I am actually happiest as a member of a democratic team without any hierarchy, which is how we operate my research group and the businesses I have joined or help create.
I firmly believe nobody needs to be in charge. The idea that somebody has to be in charge to make final decisions is simply false; the Supreme Court doesn’t work that way. A jury doesn’t work that way. An election doesn’t work that way; no one person gets the job of picking the winner. There is no reason a business, campaign, or country must have a “chief executive” or “Commander in Chief” or anyone else with final decision making power.
If the public demands a face of the government, we can declare an individual the “Speaker” for a governing committee without giving that person any authority whatsoever over the members of the committee or the agenda of the committee.
Decisions do not have to be made in just one head, and IMO the only reason they ever should be is if there is only one person qualified to make the decision (for example, like a lone attorney for a company on a legal issue). I think my organizational beliefs are pretty much incompatible with psychotic delusions of grandeur.
ekeyra,
shock, v., v.t.,
1a : to strike with surprise, terror, horror, or disgust b : to cause to undergo a physical or nervous shock c : to subject to the action of an electrical discharge
Contrast with . . .
indifferent \in-ˈdi-fərnt, -f(ə-)rənt\
3b : marked by a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for something : apathetic
Like I said, I’m indifferent to the opinions of those who adopt the philosophies of children.
“….roads and waste water treatment plants and military and police are legitimate functions of government.”
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OK, you agree that government has a legitimate function that is to be paid for with tax money from all of us. Then the argument becomes nothing more than what services are deemed essential. Frankly, I am prone to err on the side of humanitarianism. Sick people are not productive and are a drain on families, resources and employers. So, lets keep folks as healthy as possible by providing health insurance at zero profit margin. The government is the only entity that can do that. That way the dollar goes a lot further than when anywhere from a quarter to three quarters of the monies paid in go to the company and not back into paying for health care. Doctors do not complain about Medicare and Medicaid clerks telling them how to practice medicine. Private insurance has driven doctors out of private practice because they will wiggle out of paying the bill any way they can.
Tony C:
What you say isn’t even worth responding to.
All I have to say is private insurance, don’t you think they would have emergency vehicles that are paid for by your insurance policy?
A good economy does more for workers than any government regulation could ever hope to do.
Infrastructure is not free, I pay for it out of my taxes.
You just make me laugh. And anyway I have mostly contended that roads and waste water treatment plants and military and police are legitimate functions of government.
Tony C:
you have learned well to throw that sociopath charge around. I guess you only do it when you don’t have anything better to say.
Too much government, not enough government? Do you even know what you think or believe?
I guess you must be a psychotic with delusions of grandeur. It seems to be de rigueur among big government socialist elites.
@Roco: So people who believe in not taking from other people, living within their means, not using force against other people, and relying on themselves instead of government…
Except you don’t believe in any of those things.
You DO believe in taking from people; because you do NOT believe in business regulation. Right? One direct consequence of that belief is the elimination of sexual harassment laws, correct? So don’t you believe that a boss can threaten to fire (and actually fire) a female employee if she does not engage in sexual intercourse with him?
By your lights, shouldn’t he be able to do the same thing to an employee’s wife, or daughter, at a time when he knows the job market is down and a loss of their income will force them into bankruptcy? No rules, right?
How about Emergency medical service? Suppose a private truck runs a red light and smashes into you; the driver is killed and had no assets or insurance anyway. You are going to bleed to death, but EMS gets there in time: But you have to sign (or verbally agree to on tape) a half page contract delivering all your possessions, including houses, cars, all savings and retirement plans — Or they will let you bleed out.
You believe in taking from people by virtue of believing that no rules apply. These are extreme examples, but the reason there are laws is that employers used unfair leverage to coerce employees all the time, and the majority of us recognized that unfairness and decided to end it.
Many people are tied to their geography and cannot move, due to the decisions of their ancestors. It is the same reason you don’t pick up and move to India, where the laws are far more to your liking but the culture and environment is alien to you.
You do not live “within your means,” because you use the infrastructure we provide for free every day and do not pay anywhere near what it is worth.
You do not “rely on yourself” instead of the government, because the government provides that infrastructure. If you want to rely on yourself, pull a Kazinski and build a fort-farm in the forest without electricity, don’t use any gasoline or products that might have been shipped on our roads, dig your well and septic tank by hand, and then maybe I’ll believe your pathetic claim of self-reliance.
What makes you childish is your pathetic ignorance of what society does for you. You are like a five-year-old threatening to run away with a charming, adorable absence of any knowledge of what would face them if they actually did. But of course it is only charming and adorable in a five-year-old, in an adult like yourself, the condition evokes primarily pity.
@ekeyra: Also love how you equate border crossing with murder and theft.
Illegal border crossing is a crime. I do not “equate” all crimes, because all crimes are not equal. They fall into the same class by virtue of sharing a characteristic: They are against the law.
But you don’t believe in law because it requires the majority to use force against the minority of criminals that would break it.
Every position you claim I have is a figment of your fevered imagination.
No, every position I claim you have is inferred from your statements about yourself. You say you would “never dream” of using force against another person, and from that we can infer you do not believe in law, which requires using force against others. You say you consider laws passed by the majority to be oppression of the minority, we can infer from that you only believe in unanimous decisions, which logically are not binding on any criminal that changes their mind because the decision is no longer unanimous. It is an obviously unworkable philosophy of governance, and thus we can conclude from your statements you are just stupid.
You say: Which is it?
I said sociopaths LIKE you, but of course I only care to lock up those that commit crimes.
“It’s no coincidence that both anarchy and objectivism appeal to those with stunted emotional growth, Tony.”
Let’s take a look at what you are really saying. From all of ekeyra’s posts she/he has consistently said people should be free to choose and people should take responsibility for the choices they make. Since she/he does not believe in government she/he also does not believe in government welfare programs. Again meaning she/he believes people should take responsibility for their actions and live within their means.
I have said the same thing. Although I think we need some government. However ekeyra makes a good point, people like Buddha is Laughing and Otteray Scribe and Tony C seem to be the ones in control of government and they have made a fine mess of it.
So people who believe in not taking from other people, living within their means, not using force against other people, and relying on themselves instead of government are emotionally stunted in their growth.
We used to call people who thought like that adults.
Otteray Scribe:
You may not be able say that something is 100% certain with 4 data points but you can establish a trend.
If you have 4 pit bulls and 3 attack children and 1 does not what can we say about pit bulls? Nothing according to you because 4 data sets are not sufficient. I don’t know about you, but I would keep my child away from pit bulls.
Same with 4 companies, if 3 failed because of government assistance and 1 that didn’t went on to become successful I would stay away from government assistance.
You stick to books and I will stick to reality. Reality will beat you every time if you don’t pay attention to it.
Otteray Scribe:
“Later Matt Drudge introduced him to Arianna Huffington (when she was still a Republican)[6] and Breitbart subsequently assisted her (after she became a progressive) in creating her website.”
From Wikipedia
Tony,
One moment im a frail pacifist who wouldnt dream of harming anyone, even murderers. The next im a villianous, wicked, and dangerous criminal that must be locked away from the rest of society. Which is it? Unless you really want to go on record for opining I be caged simply for the ideas I choose to express? Isnt that what they do in those horrid countries we drop bombs on?
B,
I think you would be quite shocked were I to spell out exactly my opinion of you. However my comment had nothing to do with you or what I thought of you. It was merely an observation that pointing out flaws in the adherents to an idea is not a refutation of the idea. Its called ad hominem, but im sure you knew that.
eykeyrah,
I’m glad to see that you still suffer from the delusion that a free market anarchist’s opinion of me matters any more than that of an objectivist. Children often think that adults care what they think when they really don’t. If you ever outgrow the political and economic philosophies of disaffected teens, you might come to that realization.
Tony,
Hilarious and completely ridiculous. Every position you claim I have is a figment of your fevered imagination. Also love how you equate border crossing with murder and theft. Your right how foolish to think one was completely absent violence when everyone knows if you cross the border illegally it inevitably leads to the death of another person. Its quite amazing you can say that with a straight face. Especially given that if this was 1860 one could make the exact same argument in favor of returning slaves in accordance with the fugitive slave act. Your entire position on this is a house of sand.
B,
Glad to see you still don’t have anything to add to the conversation.