Mainstream Columnist Supports Nationwide Mandatory E-Verify

National Syndicated columnist Froma Harrop in light of high jobless rates called for nationwide use of E-Verify in her May 14 column entitled “Illegal Immigration in Tough Times.” Harrop ranks No. 14 nationally in reader reach according to Media Matters for America and supported Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

Unemployment stands at just over 4 percent for college graduates but at nearly 15 percent for those lacking high-school diplomas. In poor black neighborhoods, it’s around 30 percent and approaching Great Depression levels.

So let’s talk about illegal immigration in a serious way. Even in good times, the large presence of undocumented workers hurts our low-skilled natives and legal immigrants.

Harrop applauded the Obama Administration’s shift from focusing enforcement on illegal workers to the employers and concluded that attrition through enforcement is the best way to curb illegal immigration.

The illegal immigrants are the least blameworthy. They are hard workers who took advantage of what any reasonable person would have seen as an open labor market. … That does not justify the continued hiring of them at the expense of our most vulnerable populations.

She calls Obama’s new approach “more effective as well as more humane”, but also wrote that in order for the approach to work long term, E-Verify must be used nationally. She defended E-Verify and its 96 percent worker approval rate.

E-Verify cleared 96 percent of employees within 5 seconds. Less than one half of 1 percent was not verified because of errors in the Social Security database. (Employers can’t fire them while the mismatch is being contested.) The rest were illegal workers.

You can read Froma Harrop’s column in its entirety at Real Clear Politics.