“E-Verify is a must,” said immigration expect Dale Wilcox, calling for the inclusion of a national mandate on employers to use E-Verify in any final legislative amnesty proposal.
Wilcox is the Executive Director & General Counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI). He offered his analysis on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight in an interview with co-hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.
The White House’s Thursday-revealed amnesty proposal does not include an E-Verify mandate, said Wilcox.
“One thing that disappoints me is, the administration has conceded E-Verify,” said Wilcox. “I’ve always said, institute E-Verify and then you reduce the jobs magnet. People aren’t going to come here if they can’t work. That’s obvious.”
Use of E-Verify will broadly deny illegal aliens access to work, said Wilcox, describing it as a uniquely important tool relative to a border wall and ending chain migration in pursuit of reducing illegal immigration.
“They included money for a wall, that’s great,” said Wilcox. “The wall will deter and will significantly reduce illegal immigration, however 40 percent of our illegal immigration problem in this country is a result of visa overstays; people flying in as tourists or students and never going home. So, what does the wall do for that? What does getting rid of chain migration do for that? Nothing. E-Verify is a must.”
Broad political opposition to an E-Verify mandate was connected to businesses and individuals supportive of the depressive impact of mass migration — both lawful and unlawful — on wages, said Mansour.
“Big employers and big corporations don’t want [E-Verify] because they know it will work,” said Mansour. An E-Verify mandate would immediately yield “tangible and measurable results,” she added.
Mansour concurred with Wilcox’s description of E-Verify as an indispensable tool toward combating illegal immigration. “That E-Verify was taken off the table, [that it] wasn’t mentioned as a must-have, that to me was the biggest tell that we were going to get screwed on this deal,” she said. “Because as you said, nearly half of the people that are in this country illegally are visa overstays, and it is the jobs that are the magnet, and this is something that we can institute right away with E-Verify.”
Members of Congress broadly oppose an E-Verify employer mandate because “they know it will work,” said NumbersUSA’s Rosemary Jenks on Monday’s edition of Breitbart News Tonight, explaining why E-Verify is not being pushed in congressional negotiations for an amnesty deal for recipients of the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Jenks further noted that both parties are beholden to special interests — “big business,” “organized religion,” and “ethnic advocacy groups” — supportive of “mass migration” policies at odds with popular American will.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) similarly focused on E-Verify’s utility in reducing illegal immigration on Tuesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight.
Implementation of a national mandate for E-Verify use by employers “should be a part of any immigration reform package” because it “would stop the jobs magnet that attracts so many illegal immigrants to come into this country,” said Smith. He described such mandate as a crucial component of any final legislative deal pertaining to DACA, broader immigration reform, and border security.
“E-Verify should be a part of any immigration reform package,” said Smith.
Breitbart News Tonight airs Monday through Friday on SiriusXM’s Patriot channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).
LISTEN:
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.