New at Reason

David Weigel | May 2, 2006

Kerry Howley looks at the future your congressmen want -- workers and employers hamstrung by ID requirements.

Comments

|5.2.06 @ 1:37PM|#

Thanks Kerry. Excellent and informative article.

Dave W.|5.2.06 @ 1:43PM|#

You flout the employment laws for a long time, then don't be surprised when the smackdown is very smacky. Businesses that hire could have lobbied more modest proposals to bring them gently into conformance with the law as written, but they didn't. Employers could have simply decided to follow the laws as written, notwithstanding lax immigration enforcement, but they didn't. In view of this course of dealing, a vanishingly tiny violin for "hamstrung" employers.

|5.2.06 @ 1:47PM|#

We keep hearing of people being put on the DHS 'Do not fly' list for no reason, with no recourse and no way to get off. What is going to happen to all the people who get on the DHS 'Do not work' list, because their name is similar to a suspected terrist? We are going to wind up with natural-born US citizens forced to work under-the-table along with the undocumented guest workers.

|5.2.06 @ 1:52PM|#

What is going to happen to all the people who get on the DHS 'Do not work' list, because their name is similar to a suspected terrist? We are going to wind up with natural-born US citizens forced to work under-the-table along with the undocumented guest workers.

Very, very, very, very good point.

|5.2.06 @ 1:54PM|#

I don't endorse the database at all, for the reasons outlined the article, but it's a start toward the only effective way to discourage people from hiring illegal aliens. Nor do I recommend what I'm about to describe. If we want to stop illegal immigration, the only way to do it is to make hiring an illegal carry a 2 to 20 year sentence in federal prison. Not the "Club Fed" ones, either. Send the HR directors for KB Homebuilders and Tyson Foods, and a couple Beverly Hills housewives to Leavenworth for 10 years and very quickly no one else will hire illegals. I think what I've described is a truly dreadful idea, and I don't think it would prevent people from sneaking over the Rio Grande, but it's the only way I can see to actually stop people from hiring illegals.

Xmas|5.2.06 @ 1:55PM|#

Isn't one of the secondary factors driving the use of illegal immigrants the high costs of complying with employment laws. Creating a National "Do Not Hire" system will simply create a perverse incentive to hire more illegal workers.

Mike|5.2.06 @ 2:00PM|#

Creating a National "Do Not Hire" system will simply create a perverse incentive to hire more illegal workers.

Hiring illegal workers isn't illegal enough. We need to make it more illegal! Illegaler even!

|5.2.06 @ 2:03PM|#

I just can't bring myself to believe there is a problem - at least not a problem that could conceivably be worth it to 'fix'.

Yes, people are flouting the law, but so what? What is the harm that so desperately needs to be addressed?

The expressed feeling of entitlement you hear from the undocumented during this whole thing is annoying, I'll grant. But, again, I ask "Where is the harm?"

We are talking about building a humongous wall, manning it, and kicking out 11 million people. That CAN'T be the right answer to any problem, even if it were a significant one.

|5.2.06 @ 2:14PM|#

We are talking about building a humongous wall, manning it, and kicking out 11 million people. That CAN'T be the right answer to any problem, even if it were a significant one.

Well, there's the problem. Our legislature deals with problems one of two ways: either ignoring them, or doing something stupid about them. We have our current issue with immigration because they did the first for many long years, and now they're going to compensate by doing the second. In particular, making being an illegal alien a felony is a horrible idea, way out of proportion to the crime. I can see making it a misdemeanor, subject to a fine or, at most, maybe 90 days in the slammer for being a repeat offender. But a felony? For what? The closest comparable crime would probably be trespassing, and AFAIK, that isn't a felony anywhere.

|5.2.06 @ 2:15PM|#

Any "fix" to absolutely ensure illegal immigrants are not employed in the US would end up putting the old Soviet system to shame.

|5.2.06 @ 2:23PM|#

I think what I've described is a truly dreadful idea, and I don't think it would prevent people from sneaking over the Rio Grande, but it's the only way I can see to actually stop people from hiring illegals.

That would be dreadful, and it would likely only stop average people from hiring illegals. Since the work still needs to be done, I'm sure a black market for labor would arise, with all its accompanying negatives.

|5.2.06 @ 2:23PM|#

Yes, this sounds like one of the worst ideas ever devised. Christ, invading Iraq might have been a better idea (although probably not to the families who have lost loved ones in the war or our brave men and women who have been maimed in the fighting).

Yes, many employers have put themselves in this position by taking advantage of our gov't "doing nothing" about illegal immigration. But it works so well for just about everybody involved...that's why it's been going on for so long.

Yes, by liberalising immigration policy, I believe it (immigration and the hiring of immigrants) would work even better, but for some reason our gov't refuses to liberalise anything.

I'm with you Jason...

|5.2.06 @ 2:36PM|#

I work for a large energy concern. As a condition of employment, I had to prove my citizenship. The horror. The horror.

|5.2.06 @ 2:44PM|#

Several years ago I rode the length of the Salinas Valley - one of the richest agricultural zones in the country - while on a bike trip. Outside of the towns, the only people I saw outdoors (aside from the occasional fellow-cyclist) were Hispanic... and I'd bet a solid majority were illegals. Agricultural work in the California summer looks miserable as hell, and if we kick them out who the fuck is going to take their place? (Unless you're really looking forward to forty dollar salads, of course...)

|5.2.06 @ 2:52PM|#

The amount of money this will cost employers is going to be staggering. Seriously.

I guess I'll have to ask the same question about this decision as I do about the drug war: are politicians stupid, evil or a combination of the two? (I'm guessing 'C', but I have to ask, because they do things that make absolutely no sense!

|5.2.06 @ 2:59PM|#

Handsome Pete:

You making $11K a year?

Didn't think so.

|5.2.06 @ 3:00PM|#

And Dave W., only Smacky is "very smacky" ;)

|5.2.06 @ 3:16PM|#

End welfare, open the prisons, and pay 15K per year for vegatable pickers.

We'll show those mexican there are NO jobs which an american is too good for!

|5.2.06 @ 3:21PM|#

A few ideas:

There could be a short-term upside to all this non-sense. By doing this, the government is giving employers an incentive to not hire employees at all. There's a lot less paperwork involved when you just "hire" a contractor, who won't legally be your employee. (This sort of thing is bad for unions, since no one will actually work at the place they're employed any longer.) The upside is that contractors have to make estimated, quarterly tax payments instead of having their taxes come out of their paychecks piecemeal, which means writing out a big fat check to the IRS. People who have to write big fat checks to the IRS tend to be in favor of lower taxes shortly after writing those checks. So, by implementing this hair-brained scheme, we could potentially wind up with lower taxes.

Of course, within a year the geniuses in congress also pass some other law forcing employers to run checks on contractors as well. Employers will stop hiring individual contractors, but will be suddenly interested in contracting work to another company entirely. The numbers of small businesses will explode and congress will give itself a pat on the back for stimulating the economy. But the small business owner has to pay quarterly taxes for himself AND for his business, so he'll still be in favor of lower taxes.

This whole scheme makes the American employee more expensive, which in turn makes outsourcing work to other countries even more attractive to the employer. And since you can't outsource farm hands to India, the knock-off effect will be a loss of more factories and tech jobs to companies overseas.

I suspect there's money to be made by buying up farmland in Mexico, then selling it to the agri-businesses who will move their operations there.

|5.2.06 @ 3:22PM|#

I just watched Baran. A part of the story deals with Afghan refugees in Iran during the late 90's. The Afghanis are working construction for cheap. The Iranian INS types are hassling the foreman to make sure that if there are any Afghanis working there, they are all fully documented, etc. Although Fox's government is nowhere near as brutal as the Taliban was, I still had to laugh at the parallels.

|5.2.06 @ 3:24PM|#

I saw Faux News at lunch. Day Side I think it was. Some lady in the audience said, if we "legalized" undocs, wouldn't they be able to make more money, and pay more taxes, and this would be good for us? Idiot Brian Kilmeade's retort was something along the lines of, "no, because they'd just be forced to get health insurance and pay medicare & SS and benefits, etc., so they wouldn't get hired. And then when they go to the emergency room, you and I pay for it." Blah blah blah. Then, later, I'm walking down our "walking mall" main street here, and I notice all the useless layabouts, and it occurs to me: there's all this talk about how immigration is bad simply because they're supposedly a drain on our social services infrastructure. Putting aside the stats that debunk that, wouldn't the logical end of that argument include kicking out all the homeless/unemployed citizens who don't pay taxes, yet can take advantage of all of our social services?

|5.2.06 @ 4:04PM|#

Making employees more expensive won't necessarily result in offshore outsourcing. It just as likely could result in mechanization.

|5.2.06 @ 4:07PM|#

It'll certainly increase the market for fake credentials.

|5.2.06 @ 4:07PM|#

An official "No Work List" that must be consulted via the bureaucracy before hiring somebody.

What could possibly go wrong?

|5.2.06 @ 4:18PM|#

Another "solution" brought to you by people who believe that a LAW, in and of itself, will have an effect on the three-dimensional universe.

|5.2.06 @ 4:49PM|#

You making $11K a year?

Didn't think so.

And annual income matters because?

|5.2.06 @ 4:52PM|#

Another "solution" brought to you by people who believe that a LAW, in and of itself, will have an effect on the three-dimensional universe.

so the law of gravity is just a load of hooey? I knew that.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|5.2.06 @ 5:19PM|#

I don't endorse the database at all, for the reasons outlined the article, but it's a start toward the only effective way to discourage people from hiring illegal aliens.

Or we could legalize immigration pending a health exam.

|5.2.06 @ 5:26PM|#

I work for a large energy concern. As a condition of employment, I had to prove my citizenship. The horror. The horror.

There's quite a bit of difference between a company asking a potential employee for proof, and the government requiring every business to submit an approval form for every prospective hire.

Can anyone approximate the date when the state stopped having to prove that citizens were committing a crime, and the citizens had to start continually proving that they weren't?

|5.2.06 @ 5:37PM|#

And annual income matters because?

... it costs lots of time & money (the same thing, really) to become a citizen. What's the fucking point of blowing 5K if I'm only making 11K? Sheesh, even a stupid illegal immigrant can do math better than you.

|5.2.06 @ 5:39PM|#

Can anyone approximate the date when the state stopped having to prove that citizens were committing a crime, and the citizens had to start continually proving that they weren't?

1776?

Timothy|5.2.06 @ 5:47PM|#

I dunno, Russ 2k, I was thinking more 1789.

|5.2.06 @ 5:53PM|#

Well, I had thought about 1792, but I didn't want to guess and go over. Perhaps I've wacthed too much Bob Barker.

Larry A|5.2.06 @ 5:53PM|#

Can anyone approximate the date when the state stopped having to prove that citizens were committing a crime, and the citizens had to start continually proving that they weren't?

I could make a case for November 30, 1993, when President Clinton signed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act mandating a background check for handgun purchase.

|5.2.06 @ 7:02PM|#

"I could make a case for November 30, 1993"

I'm pretty sure the I-9 form existed prior to that date.

|5.3.06 @ 1:21AM|#

Really good article. Really disturbing article too.

In view of this course of dealing, a vanishingly tiny violin for "hamstrung" employers.

I don't buy the logic of slamming the employers here. But the problem is, the soon to be "hamstrung" employers aren't the only ones that are going to take this on the chin. I can see this doing serious damage to our entire economy.

I swear our politicians won't rest until they've knocked us a peg or two below Europe.

In fact, they won't rest then. None of this BS is going to stop until the Mongols come riding in on their war ponies and just take over.

And now you know who Kahn is. Some people's symbol is the sign of the dollar. Mine is the Mongolian war horse.

|5.3.06 @ 1:39AM|#

Mad Scientist,

This whole scheme makes the American employee more expensive, which in turn makes outsourcing work to other countries even more attractive to the employer.

You beat me to it.

Bob Smith,

Making employees more expensive won't necessarily result in offshore outsourcing. It just as likely could result in mechanization.

Maybe. But why mechanize here? All the design engineering and manufacturing are already going to India and China. The amount of tech work that's going offshore is unsettling to some of us tech workers. It increasingly looks like there just isn't a hell of a lot that's going to be staying state side for the long run.

I'd chalk it all up to "the US economy is just reinventing itself". But I have to wonder if this time, the US economy isn't just getting out of Dodge while the getting is good. Doesn't the whole idea of a global economy make this a real prospect?

We've already got an EPA that's intent on shutting down US industry asap, in order to make the world "safe" and "green". Don't worry about American industry and the cost hit that all the over board laws have imposed, somehow "they'll be able to afford it" is always the unspoken assumption.

Now we've got a Congress whose artistic imagination has come to full bloom. There's no end in sight, and no predicting what BS they'll dream up next.

So why wouldn't you get out of Dodge, if you could?