Chapter 16: The 1980’s & Beyond

Enacted on November 6, 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status; made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit unauthorized immigrants; granted amnesty to certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants; granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously. About three million illegal immigrants were granted amnesty.

Some employers ended up discriminating against workers that appeared foreign. I feel like this Act is a precursor to E-Verify. The requirement of E-Verify in the hiring process damages the businesses’ productivity instead of improving it. Fortunately, employers know the positives and negatives of having the program. Even in Arizona, “nearly a third of [new hires] don’t get vetted by E-Verify” (Pagliery). Another concern employers face is the accuracy of the program. E-Verify has a high accuracy rate, but it’s not perfect. Although it has a low percentage of inaccuracy, people are still suffering under the mistakes and need to take another step to contest it, thus prolonging the hiring process for employers more. In 2011, Pagliery finds through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that “more than 46,000 [people] were incorrectly flagged and had to contest the results” (Pagliery). Whatever E-Verify’s accuracy rates are, 46,000 is a large number and if all of the other states were to use this program to the extent like Arizona, at least two million people suffer under that statistic. E-Verify also cannot detect people who are using the credentials of a citizen’s. If employers hire illegal immigrants that are using other credentials and Homeland Security, for example, were to investigate, the employer would face serious sanctions under Romney that could end up devastatingly. Arizona’s punishment for hiring illegal immigrants are: a suspension of a business license on the first offense and a revocation of the business license on a second offense. If employers do not thoroughly research each new-hire, they could possibly lose their business. Imagine if all the states were required to use E-Verify. There are about 311 million citizens in the United States and with E-Verify’s 3% chance of error; nearly 10 million people would need to contest their citizenship statuses. The productivity of businesses would be damaged while denying US citizens work.