Remember: Harsh Immigration Regulations Make American Lives Miserable, Too
Remember that awful federal government shutdown last year? From a libertarian perspective, having the federal government shut down doesn't inherently sound like a bad thing. But, believe it or not, the federal government shutdown made life miserable for people looking for jobs in the private sector.
That's because the government shutdown also rendered the E-Verify service unusable. E-Verify is the system by which employers check the citizenship status for potential employees. Federal law requires employers to verify their citizens can legally work in the United States. Some states have laws requiring some employers to use E-Verify for this process. When the government shut down, this left many employers skittish about hiring new employees, even though the federal government said it wouldn't hold anybody responsible for not using E-Verify during the closure, as long as they filled out the right paperwork.
I highlighted this issue during the government shutdown as one of the unfortunate consequences of becoming a society where we had to ask the government permission to live our lives and engage in commerce. Last year, Peter Suderman reminded us all that even when it isn't shut down, E-Verify is far from a perfect system that has falsely told people they couldn't legally work in the United States. This ends up costing businesses and American citizens significant amounts of time and money. Keep this in mind whenever anybody proposes more regulations or laws trying to "fix" illegal immigration. The unintended consequences will fall upon citizens as well.
Below, Reason TV interviewed Chris Calabrese with the American Civil Liberties Union about problems with E-Verify:
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Could we, for once, try harsh immigration regulations? For a change! Just to prove that they’re terrible and we should totally throw open the borders.
What do you call 1924 to 1965?
I call it “a vast improvement”.
A superpower emerges. The arsenal of democracy burgeons.
And crushes individual rights.
So presumably the U.S. was a miserable failure between 1924 and 1965? I suspect correcting the history books could keep plenty of illegals employed for a long, long time.
You keep on with the ignoratio elenchi, little man.
If you mean a miserable failure at respecting individual liberty, yes, that would probably be an apt description.
Because turning most of the country (population-wise) into a Constitution free zone and forcing employers to serve as immigration agents isn’t harsh enough!
Could we, for once, try open borders? Just for 10 years. Then we can go back to the e-Verify and all that crap that allows for graft and authority boners.
But then we’ll be overrun by the anti-libertarian* hordes with their monolithic everything and their Ebola and their something something!
* still trying to figure out what that means
Could we, for once, try abolishing the welfare state? For a change! Just to prove that it’s terrible and everybody would die without it.
And, you know, it would actually be a libertarian thing to do.
That’s the issue. Someone we ignore the elephant in the room.
E-Verify: Turning employers into ICE workers but without the government paycheck!
E-Verify is an abomination and I am ashamed that I work for an employer that participates in it.
In what particular? Asking that an employer verify that you are a legal immigrant or a citizen?
What do decrees from our Dictator do for our lives?
I still think the best solution is to declare anyone in the country illegally ineligible for protection under US law, and let the citizenry sort it out. I guarantee the issue will be sorted in short order to the satisfaction of everyone except the illegals and the handful of perennial whiners determined to practice population replacement on the rest of us. Best of all, no government intervention would be required. What could be more libertarian than that?
You are a crazy person that has watched the purge too many times.
Government boot licker. Shove off slaver.
WTF
Rosarch proposes a no government hands off solution not one I would support but then again I’m not a libertarian and badge bunnies cytotoxic and Florida man erupt in horror.
Libertarian: someone who favors just enough government to prevent the angry mob from giving him the righteous ass-kicking he thoroughly deserves.
You: groupthink sociopath. Fuck yourself.
Removing protection of law from criminals is a time honored American legal tradition. Where do you think the term “outlaw” comes from?
What just cause would you like? Being in the country illegally is a violation of law subject to penalty, no?
Legality and morality have nothing to do with each other. Or would you care to argue that the result of Korematsu v. U.S. was just?
Why? Do you expect to avail yourself to the rules of private organizations of which you are not a member? If so, you are arguing in favor of drawing checks where you have no account.
IR sociopathy – I’m arguing for a harsher penalty for something recognized as an impropriety in every society on earth. You’re the one arguing in favor of flouting the convention. I suggest you review the clinical definition of “sociopath” before throwing the word around.
If I was indeed condemning the innocent you might have a point. But people who are consciously and deliberately breaking the law without provocation are not innocent, even under the most tortured definition of the word. Try again.
You just got pounded and all you can do is offer of this lameness?
You have a really bad habit of throwing around words you don’t understand. Genocide is the deliberate extermination of a race or ethnicity. Show me where I advocated any such thing. I am advocating a penalty for breaking a law. Period. No law broken, no penalty. Simple as that.
I am sure the families and children of plenty of criminals are suffering due to their parents serving sentences for crimes. Presumably that’s a justification for not punishing crimes?
You can not draw upon the account entitled, “for something [freedom of movement aka the right to travel] recognized as an impropriety in every society on earth” as that account has a negative balance.
You seem to be ignoring the other half of that equation. You may indeed have a right to travel. But that does not constitute an obligation on the part of anyone else to grant you admission. A right to exit your current situation is not a right to enter someone else’s.
No, I am not as one need not view the world through the prism of the nation state. In fact, if one does, one is a slave.
Put another way, if A from Arvada wants to hire B from Belfast, it matters not what C wants nor his statist parasite pals.
The individual’s right to travel trumps any nation state considerations. If one disagrees, one is a group thinking slave.
But, presumably, one’s right to travel doesn’t preempt another’s right to their property. Unfortunately, as imperfect as it may be, the only guaranteer of your right to your property is, er, the nation state which is sovereign in the jurisdiction where your property is located.
But, presumably, one’s right to travel doesn’t preempt another’s right to their property. Unfortunately, as imperfect as it may be, the only guaranteer of your right to your property is, er, the nation state which is sovereign in the jurisdiction where your property is located.
Yes, the government that regularly tramples property rights is a perfect candidate to be the guarantor of them.
This is effectively already the case. Illegal immigrants don’t call the cops, because they fear being deported.
Not exactly; as I understand it, the proposal is that citizens would be able to threaten, harass, assault, steal from, rape, and kill illegally resident non-citizens without any fear of punishment from the state. That is presently not the case; even if you kill a non-citizen, you can still be charged with and convicted of murder.
If the government was serious about cracking down on illegal immigration they would stop the border BS and fine anyone who hired illegals like 10 grand per head and pay bounties to people who report employers of illegals. Instead they create massive government institutions, raise taxes, and wipe their ass with our civil rights. Maybe this is government being incompetent, but I suspect it is just another boogeyman to keep control.
How would you fine employers 10 grand per head without a massive bureaucracy?
Magic!
You could use local police. Do a split between the local pigs and the Feds. Also payout to the rats that sold out the employer. Look how aggressive cops are with asset forfeiture, they would love to skip the auction and get pure cash. Also no need to arrest the immigrant because the employer is on the hook for the fines. Once immigrants learned no one will hire them, they would stop coming.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a police state at all. If there’s anything we want to encourage more of, it’s certainly the use of paid informants and policing for profit.
See below.
After we successfully and completely stopped people from hiring illegals, we could resume our attempt to completely and fully stop people from spellings drugs. Because, according to your follow up, it is possible to stop a voluntary transaction without eroding civil liberties.
I don’t think I was clear. I don’t support this course of action, merely stating there is a more cost efficient way to raise migrant labor cost to decrease demand. Like a high income tax discourages making more income. I’m wondering aloud if they purposely choose the path that stomps on civil liberties, creates more police forces and requires more taxes vs being too dumb to think of other solutions.
I understood you Florida Man, I just disagree that it would be an efficient way either.
Thank you. I thought I was taking crazy pills. You’re probably right about it not being more efficient. The U.S. gov can screw up anything.
How dare someone enter an employment contract without getting permission from the state!
Read above.
Thank God they don’t do that.
If you are going to require that employers only hire lawful citizens, then e-verify seems like the least bad option.
– Having the employers check and copy documents is BS. An employer can get sued for discrimination for questioning the validity of obviously fake documents, so the requirement amounts to taking someone’s quite possibly forged or stolen document and putting a copy in the file.
– I guess the alternative is to stop punishing employers for hiring illegals. That’s a policy decision – I’m not crazy about it unless you also allow open borders.
It’s reasonable that if the gov’t puts out certain requirements for action, gov’t provide a quick & officially sanctioned way for someone contemplating such action to determine whether the requirements are met.
No need to worry, I have it on good authority that Obama will fix everything dysfunctional about the immigration system through his announcement tonight.
There’s also the small matter that when you tell a US citizen that he can’t hire a person, you are infringing on his right to freedom of contract.
Immigration law, virtually ALL of it, is “regulatory capture” by domestic labor interests. It is designed, almost in it’s entirety, to prevent foreign workers from competing for jobs with the established (i.e. US citizen) players.
“B-b-b-but open borders is Chamber of Commerce conyism”-THIS IS WHAT CONSERVADERPS ACTUALLY SAY
Some say you can’t have open boarders AND a welfare state. I don’t think that’s so. The real danger to society is open borders AND a legal system that doesn’t recognize the right to free association.
The real danger to society is a legal system that doesn’t recognize the right to free association.
FTFY
Free association is the mechanism by which a local culture can preserve itself. Open borders are all well and good until Al Shabab sets up shop in the refugee camp across the street from your house. The nasty bits of open borders can be avoided if people have a legally acknowledged right to choose to not associate, which is not legally possible presently.
Would you advocate that IRS discontinue any services it provides for people to determine whether they’re in compliance with tax oblig’ns?
What? E-verify is a problem? Then FIX IT. The ONLY solution to the waves of illegal immigration is the enforcement of the law by employers. Be real–if you are a legal immigrant, you have your paperwork. If you are a citizen, you can prove it. Nobody born in the 19th century without birth registration is looking for work.
my friend’s mother makes $64 /hr on the internet . She has been out of work for ten months but last month her income was $18244 just working on the internet for a few hours. go to website….
?????? http://www.payinsider.com
Fucking well done.
10/10
1/10 Carlyle’s prose was about as celebrated as it gets during his age. Glibetarians are known for fetishing perhaps the most embarassinlgy cloying writer of the 20th century so rocks meet glass house. and why should he have to submit to Alan Moore’s authorial intent. Harriet Becher Stowe meant for uncle Tom to be a positive character maybe start with that misappropriation first.
You don’t need an argument when you can simply jump on the far left bandwagon and have them and the tribal, compliant media do your dirty work.