OPINION:
It’s time for a new “New Deal” to replace the raw deal American workers have been getting. Throughout the recent Great Recession, foreign-born workers gained jobs while native-born workers lost. The Pew Hispanic Canter estimates there are more than 8 million illegal aliens working in the United States. Many of them are working in construction, manufacturing, hotels and restaurants - in jobs that 20 million unemployed Americans would love to do.
The government cannot create jobs, but it can reclaim them by requiring all employers to use E-Verify, the free, easy-to-use, Internet-based system by which employers can ensure they hire only legal, work-authorized immigrants. The program has been voluntary except for federal contractors and some businesses in the ever-growing list of states, including Indiana, that have passed E-Verify legislation. In light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling favoring Arizona’s E-Verify law, you can expect that list to grow.
Half a dozen good E-Verify bills have been proposed with wide bipartisan support. Even the Chamber of Commerce has come out early to endorse Rep. Lamar Smith’s Legal Workforce Act, which would take three years to implement. But if you think American workers have suffered long enough under our country’s current immigration policy, it would only take one year to roll out Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Mandatory E-Verify bill.
This bill is better than President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration or President Obama’s Jobs Project because it would remove illegal aliens from real jobs that already exist. These are the shovel-ready jobs we’ve been waiting for.
CHEREE CALABRO
Co-founder, Indiana Federation for Immigration Reform & Enforcement
Valparaiso, Ind.
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