Letters of the Week: Oct 22 - Oct 26

Please email your letters to editor@ilw.com or post them directly as "Comment" below.

Comments

[lobster costume]

thanks, this link is helpful, i have been looking for it all day

[Angie Mercer]

How about updating it?

[T. Septembre]

Hi,

The graph that I see is dated 7/20/2012. Numbers do not match what you are representing.

[Beebop]

Please also note a fatal flaw in the statute creating the program. There is no
remedy for US citizens or work authorized aliens who lose employment or
otherwise suffer an adverse employment action because of an employer that
didn't follow directions properly. Finally, note that USCIS does not have
enforcement authority so in effect you have a program that subject to
misuse or abuse, that may negatively impact the employment prospects
of US workers (and in this economic environment!), that has no one watching
over the users. Amazing in my view.

[Beebop]

RE: E-Verify

Hi.
Please note an important error of fact in your article. You note that E-Verify is used on potential employees. This is incorrect. In fact, it is against program rules to use E-Verify on applicants for hire. The rules state that it can be used only after an offer of employment and an acceptance, and it is typically used after the person actually starts working. This is an important distinction between the use of E-Verify before hire is very problematic. If used pre-hire, it is more likely that individuals who receive initial mismatches will not be given an opportunity to fix the mismatch (they may not even though they got one) and simply not be hired, or they may be delayed in their start date and again suffer economic damages because of such misuse.

Also, please note that you should ask, but do not, for views on whether the system is worthwhile even though persons not authorized to work are confirmed as work authorized in a large percentage because they have valid documents that belong to someone who is authorized to work.

Finally, please note that it is important to gather views on a largely forgotten consequence of E-Verify: the misuse of the program by employers by not following program rules, leading to terminations, lost work or training, etc. For example, independent studies have shown that too many employers do not provide workers with a fair opportunity to challenge the initial mismatch while keeping their jobs. If the system becomes mandatory, expect that many Congresspeople who supported the bill will be deluged by their US citizen constituents who are being flagged by the SSA, and then losing wages by having to go to an SSA office (sometimes more than once) to resolve the mismatch, let along those who lose jobs. This is particularly important given expected budget cuts at SSA, and that its mission is benefits (and not status verification).

[Donald M. Miller]

Re: Comment on Immigration in the UK

. The Economist also constantly rails at the US for the same reasons, ie., banning essentially those Asian IT geniuses and Indian entrepreneurs who could do such wonderful things for the country. As you wrote, there are many similarities with the US on this, but you both are wrong. Or better. you are not addressing the whole picture in either country. I go to the UK (Scotland) frequently for family reasons and I am a born American citizen. My strong feeling is that the average citizen of both countries has no real objection to the above IT whiz or the entrepreneur. Once here, they become invisible to the rest of us and they never cause problems.

The objection comes when immigration not only includes but is dominated by, here in the US, semi-literate, unskilled Mexican and Central American Indians accompanied by their swarming families on their way to the emergency room to deliver their anchor babies which we will have to pay for. This is of course a stereotype, but to the average American this is what the word "immigrant" conjures up. To the average Brit the image is of some Pakistani or Bangladeshi bottom feeder and his huge extended tribe. These immigrants do not become "invisible" to the rest of us...they are everywhere. They are burdens to our criminal justice system, our medical system, our schools, and annoynig to the general public. Their language is penetrating our society everywhere; we have to choose not to hear their language on the phone and every store has everything written in their language. Even US Government information has to be printed and disseminated in their language. This is what we object to, not the Chinese or Indian coming to contribute rather than to take.

Certainly you and the Economist are correct insofar as it goes, but to be fair, you both should look at what is really happening in our countries because of fearful political entities which do not have the courage to stand up to shrill immigration advocacy groups and just say, as the Prime Minister of Australia did..."The American people will decide who comes into the United States"!