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The Oakland Press: E-verify can help fight illegal immigration
June 14th, 2009
EDITORIAL: Thursday, June 11, 2009
Illegal immigration is a hot political issue that just won’t cool off. It’s a controversy that shouldn’t be that controversial. Illegal immigration is just that — illegal.
The problem has been made a racial and culture issue. But in this day and age when America is under the constant threat of terrorist attacks, it’s just plain suicide not to get this under control. And, we might add, we’re not saying that all immigrants are terrorists. But some could be.
That’s why we favor a proposal by Oakland County Commissioner Jim Runestad, R-Waterford Township.
Runestad wants the county to require businesses to use a federal program called “everify” for obtaining county contracts. The program is a free service implemented in 1997. It provides a comprehensive check of the employment documents of all potential new hires. E-verify reportedly is fast, convenient and 99.6 percent accurate. It is already required of all federal agencies and in 12 states.
However, the General Government Committee for the county commission has put off a vote on Runestad’s resolution until July 20. We feel the panel should approve it.
As Runestad noted in a recent guest opinion on this issue, Oakland County businesses are suffering. Contributing to the problem is the fact many companies are struggling to compete on a very uneven playing field because some unscrupulous competitors dramatically undercut their operating costs by using illegal aliens in their labor force.
The employees are often paid under the table or through dummy “front” operations. Sometimes these unethical contractors hire people who complete I-9 forms using resident alien or Social Security cards that any prudent employer would suspect were forged.
We agree with Runestad when he writes “... it isn’t just our legitimate businesses that are pulverized by this scam. It’s all our lawful, Oakland County taxpaying residents.”
A large number of these illegal employees — we don’t know how many — reportedly don’t even pretend to pay any income taxes.
Many simply claim numerous dependents on W-4s to minimize (or even eliminate) withholdings, and then fail to file tax returns.
Meanwhile, the illegal workers use all the services the tax money they fail to pay provides to everyone — from schools and hospitals to the criminal justice system.
We are all for immigration. America was founded by immigrants.
You can argue that even the native American Indians were immigrants thousands of years ago, reportedly crossing a now nonexistent land bridge between Alaska and Russia and working their way south on the continent.
Immigration is not the problem. Illegal immigration is.
We urge the commissioners to approve e-verify. It’s not going to solve the problem but it could be a step in that direction.
There are a lot of reasons to get the illegal immigration problem under control but the main one is it’s just the right thing to do, if we are to be fair to all those who did legally enter and help build this nation.
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