Employers see woe in E-Verify system Officials say hospitality, manufacturing and ag industries would be pinched. By Gary Martin [email protected]WASHINGTON – A mandatory E-Verify system for employers to check the immigration status of workers would have a negative economic impact on businesses in the agriculture, hospitality and manufacturing sectors, officials from those industries said Tuesday.
In states where legislatures have required the program, employers have suffered costs and difficulty maintaining a sufficient workforce, officials said in a teleconference call with reporters.
A state law requiring it in Georgia left growers without needed laborers to harvest crops and became ”a tremendous burden to our farmers,” said Charles Hall,[Email him] Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Association director.[More]
Well, yes, it's supposed be be a burden to anyone who hires illegals. And if your business model is such that you can't make it pay without a reserve army of the illegal population hanging around in your county, then what you have is not a farm or business, but a "criminal enterprise," and you need to stop doing it.
The Georgia Farm Bureau made the same noises last year—my post on it was headed ”Georgia Farm Bureau Cautions State On Immigration”—In A Sane World It Would Be The Other Way Around. See also The Needs Of America’s Farmers, in which I suggested that if farmers couldn't make their farms pay without illegals, in spite of the alternatives of American workers, legal guest workers, and mechanical pickers, they should go into town and get a job, because their farm is costing America more than the value of their produce.
