The White House speaks difficult about illegal immigration but ignores a key tool that could reduce it

The Trump administration provides an immigration repression that includes putting Crowded immigrants On US military aircraft, expanding agents ” arrests of people here illegally and Abandoning programs That gave a certain permission to stay.

An instrument that obviously absent from President Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce illegal immigration: to go after businesses that hire workers in the US illegally.

A government system for almost 30 years called E-Verify makes easy to verify if potential employees can work legally in the USA

The program had high profile supporters. Project 2025, extremely right -wing Blueprint For Trump’s second term, he asked for him to be mandatory.

However, it remains largely voluntary and rarely applied. Trump’s own hotels and golf courses were slow to adopt E-Verifia.

The debate on the application of the job is, in many respects, a reflection of America’s complex opinions on immigration, its economic dependence on immigrant labor and a quiet republican division.

“There are only so many people you can round and deported” who are criminals or fugitives, said Mark KrikorianExecutive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports for reduced immigration and has close links with the Trump administration. “In order to make a deep reduction in the illegal population, it must be done at least partially by applying the job.”

Trump’s order that declares a national emergency on the southern border used dark terms, describing a country in chaos because of an immigrant “invasion”, linked illegal immigration to violent crime, and alleged countries are emptying prisons, mental institutions and “crazy asylums” to send dangerous people to the US

Reality is often much more prosaic. Many immigrants living here illegally I amWORK. It fixes roofs and cars, lifting gypsum -cardboard and running hotels. It is ensured that buyers have salad, milk and apples.

E-Verifie resistance comes from all corners

E-Verify, an online department of the internal security system launched in the late 1990s, can quickly confirm if someone is authorized to work in the US, often using social security numbers.

Nearly 20% of US employers use it. The 1.3 million include Walmart, Starbucks and Home Depot.

Even his most careful defenders admit that there are a lot of ways to deceive him. But most of the states with E-Verify mandates have registered a small number of immigrants working illegally, according to a 2017 study of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank.

This, the researchers said, can also discourage more people from slipping over the border in search of work.

However, over the years, it has been opposed to everyone, from Republican immigration, to Idaho milk farmers, hotel owners in New York and lobbyists in the construction industry.

During the budget proposals of the first Trump administration, the language that requested the mandatory use at national level was abandoned quietly.

In one state legislator after another, many of them dominated the Republicans, the occasional attempts to mandate e-ves for all employers–they have repeatedly failed. Where it was mandated, many employers are often exempt.

Idaho exemplifies the complicated reality behind the discussion with the heavy line

Republican parliamentarians exceed the 5-La-1 Democrats in Idaho. Have Illegal immigration exploredand the Brad Little government has held state troops at the “Southern border without right”.

But they also pushed themselves back against attempts to require e-verifies.

Agriculture is one of the most important industries of Idaho, and its history is full of immigration, from the Basque pasture from the late 1800s, to today’s milk farmers, who have spent their childhood in the Nazis.

In turn, those milk farmers depend on more recent immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, who are often in the US illegal. The Idaho Dairyman Association estimates that about 90% of these workers are born abroad.

Little recently told reporters that the mandatory verification will be a burden for enterprises.

“This will be a problem,” said Little, who grew up in a prominent ranching family and still runs a small bovine operation. “It is not white -black.”

The problem, say the people here, is that mass deportations or mandatory electronic verification programs would create critical labor deficiencies, unless they are associated with new legal ways for immigrant workers.

The great industry of state dairy products, in particular, needs employees throughout the year and cannot depend on the visa programs for seasonal agricultural workers.

“It is the basic mathematics,” said Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairyman Association. “If you eliminate the unauthorized portion of the workforce for agriculture, at that time we do not have the ability to produce enough food to feed ourselves.”

“The level of anxiety for both producers and their workers are not healthy,” he added.

Last month, the state representative Jaron Crane, a Republican who praised Trump’s immigration fraction, introduced a draft law to create a program of workers for agricultural guests, who would have opened for many people living in the US illegally.

Former Idaho General Prosecutor Theo Wold, who has held several positions in the first Trump administration, replied that he would undermine the efforts of the current administration.

“Does anyone think that this is how Idaho voters wanted when they voted overwhelmingly to send President Trump back to the White House?” Wold wrote on X.

Trump and e-verified

When you are pressing, Trump administration officials say they will go after companies that hire people who are in the US, as well as workers.

“You can count on returning the application to work,” said Tom Homan border Tsar in a recent interview.

So far, raids at work remain rare.

Trump, who in 2016 demanded that E-Verify be needed for each employer, remained silent about the program since returning to the office.

In 2019, against the backdrop of reports that some workers of Trump companies were illegally illegally, the son of Trump, Eric, the executive vice president of the family company, said he will ” E-Verify Institute at any property Does not currently use this system. ”

But the E-Verify register shows that it took years for many Trump properties to register.

Trump organization officials have not responded to repeated comments.

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