E-Verify: the ultimate force multiplier

In his article for UnHeard, “The progressive case for Trump’s deportations,” Juan David Rojas says Democrats should follow the advice of the late Democratic icon Barbara Jordan, who said “For the [immigration] system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process”. 

But Rojas also offers another approach that is necessary to a credible immigration system. Requiring employers to confirm the work authorization of workers, “and making an example of those that don’t,” Rojas says, “would go a long way in curtailing migrant exploitation and raising wages for native workers.”

Rojas advises President Trump and Congressional Democrats to pass mandatory E-Verify. E-Verify is a free online system that verifies that a new hire is authorized to work in the United States. 

An enforced E-Verify mandate would not negate the need for detentions and removals (we will always need some level of hard enforcement) but it would lessen the dependence on them. More importantly, E-Verify is necessary to any credible enforcement system. As Rojas suggests, support for E-Verify is a litmus test to see who is “truly serious about deterrence and American workers.” Mandatory E-Verify discourages illegal immigration in the first place, encourages illegal workers to return home on their own, and increases economic opportunity for Americans and legal immigrants. That last point is especially relevant given that most of the employment growth over the last five years has gone to immigrant workers, and most employment growth for immigrant workers has gone to illegal workers. E-Verify is one of the essential solutions.