E-Verify vs. Real Reform: What It Means for Immigrants, Their Communities and the U.S. Economy

Abstract

immigration system is broken. However, a divisive and angry debate rages as to what to do. Some call for closed borders, building massive walls, and deportation of “those people” who come to take away jobs from Americans. Others call for humane reform, including total amnesty and the recognition of mobility as a human right. Most Americans find themselves somewhere in the middle –descendents of immigrants (this author has ancestors from Ireland and Poland), sympathetic to those striving for a better life for their families, interested in new cultures, but fearful of the impact on overburdened local schools, hospitals, social services, and jobs. The result is that no one is happy with the current system, including employers, state officials, anti-immigrant forces, immigrant rights advocates, and immigrants themselves (Sherer, 2010). In this environment, the Obama administration’s approach has been to mandate greater enforcement of immigration laws since 2009 while calling for comprehensive immigration reform. The president’s argument is that strengthening the enforcement of our nation’s laws can set the stage for a rational discussion of immigration reform; that once members of Congress see improved actions against lawbreakers, they will be more confident about discussing reforms that may create a lawful path to citizenship. Unfortunately, Congress has resisted passing comprehensive immigration reform, and so the actual result of Obama’s policy has been simply a massive enforcement push by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This has not solved the issues, but instead has shown the