Idea for the working class #2: Make employers secure the border

Look to the forgotten 2013 immigration reform bill

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Jan 10, 2025

The newly published edition of the Washington Monthly magazine features Ten New Ideas for the Democratic Party to Help the Working Class, and Itself.

Another round of cruel and misguided workplace raids and migrant family separations is on the horizon, which presents an opportunity to show that there is a better way to fix our immigration system.

Instead of the blunt force of disruptive raids, with smarter policies employers can be part of the solution. Politics Editor Bill Scher points us to the forgotten 2013 immigration reform bill that passed the Senate:

Undocumented immigrants already here could obtain legal status and get on a path to a citizenship if they had no criminal record and paid penalties.

But before people could pursue green cards, border security goals needed to be met, including a 90 percent rate of preventing illegal crossings. At the same time, steps would be taken to clear out a backlog of visa applicants—people trying to enter through legal means.

And all employers would be required to use the “E-Verify” computer background check system to ensure that their employees were legally documented.

Since that bill was blocked by a Republican House, some congresspeople have proposed mandating employers to use E-Verify in stand-alone legislation. But Scher explains why those bills can't go anywhere:

If we suddenly imposed E-Verify on every business, without any other fixes to the immigration system, about 8 million undocumented workers would not only lose their jobs but be removed from the workforce entirely. During a period of low unemployment, that would force many businesses to close and risk recession.

To avert that risk, mandatory E-Verify should be paired with legal status for existing undocumented workers. It needs to be part of a comprehensive reform bill.

For more on how to really fix our broken immigration system, click here.

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A guest post by

Bill Scher

Bill Scher is the Politics Editor at the Washington Monthly, as well as a contributor to POLITICO and Real Clear Politics. He is a co-host of the online political show "The DMZ," and the host of the history podcast "When America Worked."