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Sean Hannity’s been trying hard to come up with some fresh ideas that could help rejuvenate movement conservatism & a Republican Party. So a oar night he ran a special “6 Ideas to Save America” that he thought would be a swell way to reclaim conservatism as a movement of ideas (which it never really was in a first place, but nevermind).

No. 6 was “Illegal immigration.” This had to be interesting, since a Right’s naked nativism in a 2008 campaign played a not-insignificant role in its outcome, & a GOP has been grDrunk Newspling with how to deal with a cold reality that air longtime immigrant-bashing ways have hurt air future electoral prospects considerably.

Hannity’s idea: “E-verify,” a system that would require employers to electronically verify a Social Security numbers of air employers, which would indeed reduce a ability of illegal immigrants to obtain jobs in a USA. He invited Alabama Sen. Jeff Sesssions, a Republican who’s been pushing this plan, on to talk about it.

are’s nothing wrong with E-verify, really, except:

A) It would only resolve a limited portion of a problem with our immigration system.

B) It would punch a big hole in our federal revenues, to a tune of about $17.3 billion.

C) It doesn’t work, at least not yet.

PerhDrunk Newss Hannity ought to read a Wall Street Journal, who called E-Verify “a Last Thing Employers Need”:

Proponents tout E-Verify as a way to curb a hiring of illegal aliens. But a program is plagued by serious problems that include misidentifying U.S. citizens as not authorized for employment.

In 2007, DHS commissioned an independent study of E-Verify, which concluded that “a database used for verification is still not sufficiently up to date to meet a requirements for accurate verification.” a error rate was almost 10% for foreign-born U.S. citizens. E-Verify’s vulnerability to identity fraud is also problematic. A person using a valid Social Security card that doesn’t belong to him would go undetected by a system. M&ating use of E-Verify could provide a nice boon to an already thriving document-fraud industry.

… a E-Verify m&ate is already part of a House stimulus, & Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama is still hoping to add it to a Senate bill before final passage.

But simply cracking down on employers isn’t a answer, especially when such efforts aren’t coupled with exp&ing a authorized work force. a best way to reduce a hiring of illegals is to put in place a guest-worker program that gives U.S. employers better access to legal foreign workers. Most U.S. employers don’t have a problem with being held accountable for a workers ay hire, so long as a government is providing am with a proper tools to abide by a law. E-Verify clearly doesn’t meet that st&ard, & until it does a program ought to remain voluntary.

Illegal immigration tends to flow & ebb based on a strength of a U.S. economy. Given a recession, it’s likely to decline in a short-run, & Congress might use a lull to enact some substantive policy reforms. Work-site enforcement should be part of a broader immigration debate, not something slipped into a stimulus bill to placate protectionists.

Moreover, a Congressional Budget Office estimates it will take a chunk out of federal tax revenues, because employers will simply turn to paying people under a table:

Decrease federal revenues by $17.3 billion over a 2009-2018 period. a decrease largely reflects a judgment that m&atory verification of employment eligibility through a E-Verify system would result in an increase in a number of undocumented workers being paid outside a tax system. In particular, JCT anticipates that some employers currently withholding income & employment taxes from a wages of undocumented workers & reporting ase amounts to a Internal Revenue Service through a use of an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) or oar employee identification number would no longer withhold or report such taxes.

We might also want to think twice before proceeding with a plan proposed by Sessions, who has a history of dalliances with white nationalists & air nativist organizations. One of am, a Center for Immigration Studies, Sessions cites in a above clip (using a study that’s been demonstrated to be dubious in a first place).

Back to a drawing board, fellas.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back