Illinois Sued Over Immigration Stance

J.J. Jackson* | September 29, 2007

The Bush administration sued the State of Illinois yesterday, hoping to block a new state law that bars employers from using a federal database to verify that immigrant job applicants are in the United States legally and are authorized to work.
With the suit, officials said, the administration is going on the offensive in the courts in response to cases intended to stall a crackdown on illegal immigration that the federal authorities announced last month.

“We will vigorously contest any effort to impede our enforcement measures,” the Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

The suit, brought by Mr. Chertoff’s department, seeks to stop Illinois from putting into effect a law that forbids employers from enrolling in the federal worker verification database program.

The program, formerly known as Basic Pilot, was renamed E-Verify last month.

Under the Illinois statute, the ban would remain until Washington certifies that the databases used to verify workers’ eligibility are 99 percent accurate.

Supporters of the law say the Social Security Administration and Homeland Security Department databases used to confirm eligibility are riddled with errors and could result in the denial of jobs to legal workers, including citizens.

Basically what you have here a state looking for a reason to not abide by immigration law and seeking a way around it. Even if there are errors like there are in other databases is that a reason to not use it as a tool? Is Illinois going to start telling recipients of Social Security in their state that because there are errors in the system that they will not be allowed to collect their checks?

This defense is indefensible.

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