One test of his sincerity

One test of his sincerity
Why would the administration not retain a system that would not only help the government do its mandated job more effectively, but would also help avoid fraud and strengthen national security?

By Glynn Custred
February 10, 2009

On January 30, his tenth day in office, President Barak Obama expressed indignation at reports of big bonuses given to CEOs in 2008, huge pay-offs to executives despite financial losses on their watch, massive job cuts and government bailouts.

"We learned this week", said the president, "that even as they petitioned for taxpayer assistance, Wall Street firms shamefully paid out nearly $20 billion in bonuses for 2008. While I'm committed to doing what it takes to maintain the flow of credit, the American people will not excuse or tolerate such arrogance and greed." The president assured the public that he would insist on "unprecedented transparency, rigorous oversight, and clear accountability" for funds expended for the stabilization of the financial system.

At the same time, however, the Federal Register announced that the Obama administration would delay for ninety days the implementation of a measure designed to crack down on employers who hire workers who have entered the country illegally. The measure is known as E-Verify, an electronic internet-based system enabling employers to compare the names and the social security numbers of new employees against government data basis to detect violation of immigration law. One result of such verification is that it would help prevent fraud that might harm the public. E-Verify would bring the enforcement of labor law in line with current technology already long in use by other branches of the federal government, by state and local police to see if you have any outstanding warrants when pulled over for a traffic violation, and by businesses that keep track of your bank accounts and manage your credit card transactions.

Bill Wright, spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, that operates the system, told the Wall Street Journal that E-Verify which is free and voluntary “represents the best means available for determining employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their social security numbers." The computerized system works. It also has the backing of many in federal and state government. Yet immigration attorney Angelo Parelli, who specializes in employment, told the Wall Street Journal that "E-Verify is technically on life support" and may eventually disappear altogether.

Another rule used to verify employee eligibility is the revised Form I-9 which employers were to begin using on January 26. This measure has been postponed until April 3. As things are going now, effective employment verification of any kind will no longer be used, unless the Obama administration takes steps to retain it.

Why would the administration not retain a system that would not only help the government do its mandated job more effectively, but would also help avoid fraud and strengthen national security? The answer is that employee verification has powerful and influential foes in the business community, prominent among them the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. If those special interests cannot abolish the law altogether, they spend millions on lobbying and obstructionist legal action to prevent it from being enforced.

Why would the Chamber of Commerce and other powerful business interests be so intent on subverting federal law? The reason is the same as that which motivates corporate abuses and the wasteful use of tax payer bail-out money: greed.

There is nothing wrong with profit. It is the reason why people expend their labor and other resources to provide us with goods and services. What is wrong is when profit trumps everything else as we have seen in the current economic meltdown. The profit that many businesses make on illegal immigration is good for their bottom line in the short run. But as economist William Hawkins argues it is bad for industry and the economy in the long run, for cheap, exploitable labor brought into the country illegally becomes an addiction that discourages innovation. As agricultural economist Phillip Martin says labor shortages in history have been met with an increase in innovation and productivity. Business' addiction to such labor now promises negative consequences for the future.

But what about the present? Millions of people are losing their jobs in the economic down-turn and many of those at the lower end of the income scale would be pleased to take jobs that illegal labor now absorbs. Proper verification of job eligibility would help make those jobs more available to Americans, many of whom are black and the sons and daughters of recent immigrants, and thus provide a stimulus to the economy not just at the upper end of the scale but for those near and at the bottom as well.

Proper verification of labor laws would also prevent exploitation of illegal workers, the dark underside of the no-borders globalization philosophy that drives the economy today and that has facilitated the melt down on a world-wide scale. John Bowes, award winning journalist and writer, gives us a peek into that darker side of illegal immigration in his recent report on appalling worker abuse in the United States.

Bowes visited work sites in Oklahoma and Florida interviewing workers whose personal testimonies should shock those who believe that illegal immigration is nothing more than the match of willing workers with willing employers. Workers tell Bowes of their squalid living and working conditions, which Bowes also observed, and of the deceit, intimidation, underpayment and in some cases even no payment at all that they suffer at the hands of abusive employers. Bowes titles his book Nobodies, for that's what those workers are, adding the provocative subtitle Modern American Slavery and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy.

That is indeed what Bowes describes, the dark side, which needless to say is not the whole story, yet it is part of the story, the result of the government's refusal to take its enforcement responsibilities seriously, partly at the behest of the Chamber of Commerce and many of its constituents. The lack of enforcement is not restricted to greed on the part of those who profit by illegal workers. We need only look at the many red flags that went up in the case of former chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange Bernard Madoff whose massive Ponzi scheme has damaged foundations, ruined individuals and affected banks abroad. The SEC whose mission is to look out for such fraud simply did not do its job. There are many other instances of the retreat of government oversight from the economy which together with corporate greed has led us to the situation in which we now find ourselves.

We have a new president who tells us that he is concerned about the economy, and we assume who is equally concerned about the welfare of people. One test of his sincerity is how he handles the verification of worker eligibility in the case of E-Verify and other such measures. By his actions we will know who is really in charge; the new president of the United States, or the Chamber of Commerce and their corporate constituents.

Glynn Custred is co-author of Proposition 209 and is a professor at California State University Hayward.