DHS sues Illinois for blocking immigrant crackdown

[Soldier4Christ]

DHS sues Illinois for blocking immigrant crackdown

Chicago Tribune - The Homeland Security Department is suing Illinois to undo a new state law the federal agency says would make it more difficult to enforce the nation's immigration laws.

The law is an amendment to Illinois's “Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act" which would make it impossible, says Homeland Security, for employers to participate in a voluntary federal program many currently use to verify whether new employees are legally entitled to work in the U.S.

Called E-Verify, the Internet program allows employers to transmit to the federal government certain identity information which permits immigration officials to confirm (or not) whether the employees can be legally employed.

About 93 percent of such queries come back either immediately or, if a manual check is necessary, the next day, confirming that an employee is eligible to work in the U.S. The rest are categorized as "tentative non-confirmations."

The employee can decide not to contest the non-confirmation. If he does contest it, Homeland Security will further investigate the matter, but that can take weeks.

Here's where the new Illinois law comes in. It essentially says that until Homeland Security can conduct 99 percent of those investigations within three days, it's illegal for all businesses operating in Illinois to participate in the E-Verify program.

Thus the lawsuit which was filed by the Justice Department on behalf of Homeland Security today. It's the first such lawsuit the federal government has filed since no other state has taken on the federal program as frontally as Illinois has.

It would seem that Illinois will have a challenge in persuading a federal court to see things its way since the Constitution's "supremacy clause" generally gives federal law the upper hand over state laws.

In an interview with me, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said:

    "The state of Illinois has now made it illegal to comply with federal law. That's not acceptable as a matter of the Constitution and it's not acceptable as a matter of our discharging our federal obligation to enforce the immigration laws."

    "There's obviously a lot of concern in certain quarters about our efforts to bring employers into compliance with the law because a lot of employers recognize that they means they may lose illegal workers and they may be depending on illegal workers.

    And while I'm in favor of comprehensive immigration reform and I've argued that in many ways we need to find a regularize those illegal workers, that's not what the law is. So we have to enforce the law as it is. The fact that it may hurt business is not an excuse not to enforce the law."

I asked Chertoff if he suspected that this the new law was a ploy by the business community and its allies in the statehouse to block his department's efforts to enforce the immigration law.

    "I don't want to impute motives to people... I can tell you the effect of this would be to thwart our efforts and the efforts of those who want to comply with the law, to follow the law.

    The irony of this is, this program doesn't make employers join it. It seimply offers employers the opportunity to make sure they're in compliance with law. And yet the state law, the Illinois law here, would actually prevent people from checking to make sure they're in compliance with the law, which is a very strange outcome.

The Illinois law is, for Chertoff, just another example of how many politicians want to have it both ways. They talk about the need to secure the nation's borders but don't want to do what it takes to accomplish that because of the pressure from business or immigrant groups.

    "... It's not a matter of personal frustration. It's really frustration on behalf of the 208,000 hardworking men and women. Here's the deal. The public through Congress has said to this agency 'We want you to enforce these laws. We want you take every reasonable, constitutional step to make it more difficult for people to make it more difficult for people to work illegally and to prevent illegals from coming in.

    And of course then there's been criticism over the fact that in the preceding 30 years we have not done a good job of enforcing the law.

    So now that we are taking the reins and really driving forward on this and really making some progress, we're beginning to see the schizophrenic nature of the way some politicians are looking at it. Which is that they're now coming back and saying 'We want you to enforce the law but we don't want you to do anything that would actually lead to enforcement. So we're going to prevent you from either helping businesses identify who's illegal, or encouraging business to identify who's illegal or arresting people who are illegal. So that the idea is we're going to get on the record saying we want you enforce it then we're going to make sure you can't enforce it."

    That seems to me in a nutshell to explain why we have a tremendous wave of cynicism in the American electorate. I think the public looks and they go 'Well, on one hand Congress looks at this and says enforce the law, on the other hand the law doesn't get enforced. The government is obviously playing a shell game with Congress.' "

Homeland Security's has sent me a copy of a "blog post" they attribute to Chertoff. (Didn't know he had a blog.) For anyone interested in more on his view of the matter, here it is:

    Could it be that the Illinois state legislature wants to prevent businesses from using the best available tools to determine whether new employees are illegal aliens? I certainly hope not, but that’s precisely what a new state law is poised to do. The recently authorized changes to Illinois’s “Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act” will place restrictions on the ability of employers in the State of Illinois to enroll voluntarily in our Department’s electronic employee verification system (E-Verify) to check the legal status of workers. This is wrongheaded. It’s also unconstitutional because it is preempted by federal law. That’s why today the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on behalf of DHS to overturn the state law.

    E-Verify (formerly known as Basic Pilot) is an online system that allows employers to check whether a new worker’s name and Social Security number are valid and the person is authorized to work in our country. The system is easy to use and free of charge. It’s also popular, with more than 23,000 companies enrolled nationwide, including more than 800 in Illinois. And you can see why: E-Verify enables employers, in real time, to determine if the name, Social Security number, and other identity information that a new hire provides for his or her I-9 form match information in federal databases, giving them certainty that the people they’re hiring are authorized to work in the U.S. It also will allow employers to compare photos on ID documents provided by a new hire against the photos in state or federal records, thus preventing the use of fraudulent or stolen documents.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

    Why, then, would the State of Illinois want to prevent employers from using this valuable tool? Critics in the legislature claim that E-Verify takes too long, contains inaccurate data, and might cause workers to be wrongfully terminated. Some also complain that employers might use it to discriminate against citizens or legal immigrants on the basis of their ethnicity. Let’s take these one by one.

    First, in 90 percent of cases, E-Verify returns an initial response within seconds. That seems pretty fast to me. Second, while I’ll be the first to admit that no system is perfect, the data in E-Verify isn’t “inaccurate” – instead, it reflects the data in Social Security Administration and DHS databases. And this actually results in a benefit to employees: E-Verify gives people notice that they might have to correct their information in our databases if the government's records are wrong because of things like a transposed number or misspelled name. This is important because it helps ensure that their Social Security benefits are properly credited. Third, employers are not allowed to fire a worker on the basis of an initial E-Verify check. In fact, federal law explicitly states that no worker can be fired until a final determination is made concerning his or her work eligibility. Finally, the law requires that employers use the system in the same way for all their new hires, and employers that use the system sign an agreement that says they will treat everyone the same, regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin.

    These are all important aspects of the program. But there is a larger issue at stake with the Illinois law. The American people have been loud and clear about their desire to see our nation’s immigration laws enforced. We are taking aggressive steps to do that – increasing worksite enforcement cases and bringing serious criminal penalties against employers who hire illegal aliens. We’ve also sharpened our existing tools, and, yes, we’ve given employers better tools like E-Verify. But we will not succeed if we are stopped at every turn by lawsuits and legislation that frustrate, slow down, or attempt to derail our efforts.

    Why now? Many Illinois businesses have already signed up for E-Verify, and others may want to. We’ve asked the Department of Justice to file this suit because those businesses should have certainty that the federal program they’re relying on won’t land them in trouble with Illinois.

    Of course, states are free to pass laws that they believe are in the best interests of their citizens. But when those laws interfere with my Department’s ability to uphold and enforce our nation’s immigration laws, or they deny employers tools they badly need and have asked us to provide, then we are fully prepared to fight for what we believe is right and necessary.

Rep. Pete Roskam (R-Ill.) has issued a statement as well, applauding the lawsuit and accusing Gov. Rod Blagojevich of trying to create "virtual sanctuary within the State of Illinois for illegal aliens."

Here's Roskam's statement:

    DOJ SUES BLAGOJEVICH FOR CREATING WORKPLACE SANCTUARY FOR ILLEGALS

    Roskam Applauds DOJ and DHS for Protecting Illinois Workers

    WASHINGTON, DC - Congressman Peter J. Roskam (R-IL) today issued the following statement on the heels of a United States Department of Justice lawsuit filed against the State of Illinois and its plan to prohibit employers from voluntarily enrolling in any Employment Eligibility Verification System:

    "Governor Blagojevich and the Illinois Legislature are acting against the best interest of Illinois workers, Illinois families, and against the safety of our nation.

    "It is unbelievable that a legislative body would prohibit honest employers the right to voluntarily verify the citizenship status of their workers. It is against the law to hire an illegal alien and the federal E-Verify system is currently the best means available for employers to ensure compliance.

    "Allowing undocumented workers into the workforce takes jobs away from hard-working Illinois families.

    "Immigration reform begins at the border. We must remove the magnets that attract hundreds of thousands of illegals to cross our borders every year.

    "Governor Blagojevich is attempting to preempt federal law by creating a virtual sanctuary within the State of Illinois for illegal aliens. Subsequently, the Department of Justice has filed suit in federal court today, and I applaud their actions."

[Soldier4Christ]

Yeah! I'm glad to see this also. Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his leftist cronies have been going to far in their agenda in this state. This is another reason that this state is getting a major overflow of illegal aliens. This same thing should be done on the many other things that this state has been doing.