Pandering Is Proving Difficult April 18, 2008
Posted by fitsnews in : SC Politics , trackback
SOUTH CAROLINA’S IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL HITS A ROADBLOCK
FITSNews - April 18, 2008 - How businesses should verify the legal status of their employees has become a sticky wicket in South Carolina’s effort to enact “sweeping” immigration reform, which is pretty much all poll-driven state legislators (and many of their would-be replacements) have been talking about for the past six months.
According to an editorial in this morning’s Charleston Post and Courier, the blame for the temporary derailment of this much-anticipated monument to election-year pandering lies with the S.C. Senate.
“The current standoff between the House-Senate conferees on the immigration reform bill still can be resolved if only the state Senate would see the light,” the editorial says, before chiding State Senators for buying into “the arguments of lobbyists for business and farm interests.”
As with most political disputes, this one hinges on two things that absolutely nobody understands - current federal employee verification systems and the quirky rules of the South Carolina Senate …
Regarding the ID verification standards, the Senate wants to use what’s called an “I-9 form,” which critics say prohibits employers from checking a workers’ documentation. The House wants to strip the I-9 form requirement out of the bill and use the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system, which the Post and Courier says “has proven to be successful in a number of states, most notably Arizona.”
Of course, E-Verify is also criticized as highly-inaccurate and susceptible to the same sort of abuses that plague the current system. In fact, one expert at the Cato Institute recently predicted that the $40 billion program would actually “deepen fraud” associated with the circumvention of our existing federal immigration statutes.
In case you were wondering, the original House bill included neither the “I-9″ nor the “E-Verify” standard (it only prohibited the employment of illegal aliens at companies which received government contracts), which to us makes the House’s recent whining about the issue a little less justified.
Also up in the air is whether or not the Senate can agree to the inclusion of E-Verify (and the exclusion of I-9), as a majority of Senators rejected that proposed change on the floor and the strange rules of their chamber require a two-thirds vote to give their committee representatives the authority to make the alteration the House suddenly wants.
Yeah … like you, we don’t understand any of that insider mumbo-jumbo.
What we do understand is that Republicans pandering to white voters and Democrats pandering to black voters this election year is proving much more difficult than leaders of both parties originally anticipated.
More importantly, assuming something does pass, how long will it hold up?
Last year alone, state and local governments nationwide passed over 1,600 new immigration reform laws, with another flood expected this year.
The federal government has obviously failed to act on this issue, but with Republicans likely to lose the White House and Democrats eager to turn illegal aliens into future Obama/ Clinton voters, don’t count on that being the case for much longer.
Like we said several months ago, just build your damn fence and shut up already.
Comments»
I have to admit I’m confused. Why do we need a law that prohibits companies that receive government contracts from hiring illegal immigrants? Isn’t it already illegal for any company to hire illegal aliens hence, you know, the illegal part of the phrase illegal alien?
Fences and walls work?
Ever been to Berlin?
Vote out ALL traitors regardless of party. No guest worker programs. No scamnesty for illegal aliens. Prosecute employers who hire illegals. It’s time to take a zero tolerance towards illegal immigration. If Mexico doesn’t like it then stop all legal immigration from Mexico also. We’ve had enough and this crap is going to stop NOW!
Boy, some people are gonna be really disappointed when it turns out that not all Spanish speaking people are here illegally. Then they’ll have to come out from underneath the “robes” of the illegal immigration issue to promote their agenda of a whites-only South Carolina.
Great blog and post. Unfortunately, SC is not the only place running headlong towards mandating E-Verify and it is causing problems for everyone everywhere it has been adopted. My American-born, Italian-American friend from Ohio went to the Social Security Administration this morning at 9:00 to correct her record because after repeated attempts, SSA had failed to get the memo that she was married and had taken her husband’s last name, and were refusing her work authorization. She sent me an e-mail saying she thinks she got it straightened out and is now back at her desk (at 5:30 p.m.!!!!). Now multiply it by millions and millions of hires by every business per year. The deportation-only immigration activists should watch what they wish for.