Show Me Your Papers: GOP passes bill requiring federal permission to work
E-Verify is not about illegal immigrants, it’s about controlling us
On Thursday, the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill under the guise of controlling the border.
Before I get to that, I want to take us back to post-9/11. Selling us on security, the Congress passed maybe the most unpatriotic bills ever, the Patriot Act.
John Whitehead, in 2019, wrote:
“Take heed, America.”
“Our losses are mounting with every passing day.”
“What began with the post-9/11 passage of the USA Patriot Act has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.”
“The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.”
“Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, police violence and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.”
“The rights embodied in the Constitution, if not already eviscerated, are on life support.”
For the false promise of security, the American people rejoiced and gave up liberty with the Patriot Act.
Back to this week, with the false promise of securing the border, the Republicans approved of a massive power grab for the global elites to control our ability to work.
The bill, H.R. 2 titled the Secure the Border Act of 2023, which included multiple new provisions, one being mandatory nationwide E-Verify imposed on all employers, public and private. The bill was approved by a 219-213 vote with just two Republican no votes, Reps. John Duarte (R-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky).
The saving grace is that the bill will need to pass the U.S. Senate, and likely with a veto-proof majority. But, the GOP has been ready for years to compromise, even with increasing the federal minimum wage.
But let’s talk about why E-Verify is bad. Afterall, several Republican states, like Florida and Texas, have already approved of this liberty destroying provision. And it’s base generally supports it.
Listen to the language from the bill:
“SEC. 811. Use of employment eligibility verification photo tool.”
“An employer who uses the photo matching tool used as part of the E-Verify System shall match the photo tool photograph to both the photograph on the identity or employment eligibility document provided by the employee and to the face of the employee submitting the document for employment verification purposes.”
Two words in there tell it all: employment eligibility.
That’s right, to work in America you need permission from the federal government. E-Verify applies to all of us. We all must submit loads of information to the federal government in hopes they will permit us to work. And they tell us it’s to check immigration status, but nothing stops them from applying social credit scores or “vaccine” passports on you.
David Knight gets to is talking about how some Republicans, like Ron DeSantis, virtue signal on things like opposing central bank digital currencies (CBDC) while supporting E-Verify which allows for the same type of controls the CBDCs would have.
“They can play with the CBDC and they can virtue signal about CBDC while they stab you in the back with E-Verify. That’s how this works.”
This is show me your papers. Knight added:
“Nazi Republicans, Nazi Democrats. Both of them. Your ‘eligibility document’? I’ve got to have an eligibility document?...”
“This is how they create a crisis. The Republicans and the Democrats are creating a crisis. They’re using this to push their global ID agenda. They’re not going to do anything about the open border. They’re not going to do anything about the drug cartels, or the drug war, or the welfare state or the Cloward and Piven plan. They’re not going to do anything about that. Instead, they’ll use that to get you to demand that everybody has to have an employment document. And guess what, welfare will be right and working will be a privilege.”
And on the thing that the GOP base supports, the claim E-Verify will stop illegal immigrants from taking jobs in America, that requires you to trust the government. As Reason Magazine’s noted, it has “built-in weaknesses” that won’t stop documents from being “forged, stolen, or otherwise faked.” Additionally, E-Verify adds an estimated 13.48 million man-hours that private businesses will have to pay for.
Ryan McMaken, who calls E-Verify a “trojan horse,” wrote for the Mises Institute:
“Much of the bill contains reasonable provisions such allowing state attorneys general the authority to sue the federal government for refusing to detain illegal aliens. Other provisions include denying asylum and residency to known criminals. In many ways, the bill is an effort to rein in the executive branch's control over immigration policy.”
“Alarmingly, however, the legislation also contains a provision mandating nationwide use of ‘E-Verify’ which is essentially a federal surveillance program that determines whether or not a person can be legally employed in the United States. Every American would require the federal government's permission to work. So long as the Border Security and Enforcement Act contains these E-Verify provisions, the bill presents a clear and present danger to basic American freedoms and property rights. The expansion of E-Verify would also go a long way in helping the federal government build essential infrastructure that in the future could be used to implement ‘social credit scores’ or restrictions on employment for those who refuse federally mandated vaccines or other mandates.”
I’ll note that even if some of the bill is reasonable, the entire thing ignores the real problem with immigrations. It’s not the immigrants, it’s the welfare state and entitlement state we’ve created.
Ron Paul, while still a member of Congress in 2005, wrote:
“We must end welfare state subsidies for illegal immigrants. Some illegal immigrants — certainly not all — receive housing subsidies, food stamps, free medical care, and other forms of welfare. This alienates taxpayers and breeds suspicion of immigrants, even though the majority of them work very hard. Without a welfare state, we would know that everyone coming to America wanted to work hard and support himself.”
“Our current welfare system also encourages illegal immigration by discouraging American citizens from taking low-wage jobs. This creates greater demand for illegal foreign labor. Welfare programs and minimum wage laws create an artificial market for labor to do the jobs Americans supposedly won’t do.”
“Illegal immigrants also place a tremendous strain on social entitlement programs. Under a proposed totalization agreement with Mexico, millions of illegal immigrants will qualify for Social Security and other programs — programs that already threaten financial ruin for America in the coming decades. Adding millions of foreign citizens to the Social Security, Medicare, and disability rolls will only hasten the inevitable day of reckoning.”
“Economic considerations aside, we must address the cultural aspects of immigration. The vast majority of Americans welcome immigrants who want to come here, work hard, and build a better life. But we rightfully expect immigrants to show a sincere desire to become American citizens, speak English, and assimilate themselves culturally. All federal government business should be conducted in English. More importantly, we should expect immigrants to learn about and respect our political and legal traditions, which are rooted in liberty and constitutionally limited government.”
Only 2 Republicans Stood for Liberty
As noted above, two Republicans voted against it, both stating it was the E-Verify provision.
“My biggest technical concern with the bill is the mandating of Washington’s rigid E-Verify program, which would require employers and employees to provide extensive, expensive and intrusive paperwork to the federal government. Rather than taking responsibility for the border situation they created, Washington politicians would burden our working families and small businesses with huge costs. Lawmakers need to take responsibility and pass effective legislation to fix the humanitarian crisis on our border.”
Massie was very active in opposition taking to Twitter before and after the vote. He supported the bill mostly, but voted against it because of E-Verify. He exposed the hypocrisy of Republicans who complain about Democrats putting multiple bills into one noting this bill had eight separate bills in one.
Massie’s Tweets:
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1657059326630952964?s=20
“If you give the federal government more power, they will weaponize it. Biden showed this when he used OSHA to make employers force their employees to get vaccinated. In a pandemic, the national E-Verify system could easily become a national ‘V-verify’ program.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1657025027928096768?s=20
“Insanity: Giving the federal government more authority over Americans’ everyday lives and expecting it won’t be weaponized it against us.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656720681176911874?s=20
“FACT: National E-verify assumes every American is an illegal immigrant unless their identity can be matched to a government database.”
“I will vote against it today.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656695751173455887?s=20
“National E-verify is a mandate on all Americans in response to a problem the government itself caused by failing to secure our border.”
“Today I will vote No on the 200+ page package of 8+ bills that contains E-Verify.”
“Solve the real problem; don’t infringe on Americans’ rights.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656691394180792321?s=20
“Wondering how needing Joe Biden’s permission to get a job could go horribly wrong?”
“Mandatory national E-verify is a Trojan horse:”
Massie linked to a piece from the Brownstone Institute.
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656638097537335298?s=20
“Today is the day the House votes to E-Verify every American who wants to get a job or keep a job.”
“Illegal immigrants who do farm labor likely won’t be e-verified due to a last minute bipartisan carve out for Ag.”
“I’m voting No because this will eventually be used against us.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656453481715101698?s=20
“Instead of offering an amnesty/loophole from E-verify for corporate agriculture, republicans should have removed E-verify from the border bill. E-verify will not eliminate the magnet for illegal immigration. It’s an unfunded mandate on Americans that will be used against us.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656380262710689798?s=20
“How did Joe Biden force millions of people to take vaccines?”
“He threatened to disqualify them from employment, using existing federal bureaucracies like OSHA, CMS and federal contracting authority.”
“I guarantee he would use E-Verify to do the same if it were federally mandated.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656267977522569216?s=20
“Passing 8 bills in a single vote of Congress? I thought we weren’t going to do this when we got the majority, yet here we are.”
“These are completely separate bills and should be voted on separately, especially E-verify, which is an employer mandate, not a border security bill.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656258899765329924?s=20
“E-verify is a federal bureaucracy between you and your right to work for a living.”
“It can be cheated by dishonest people and won’t achieve it’s stated purpose.”
“It contains pilot programs for alternate verification (eg biometrics) and will be used to control Americans.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1656015011062464514?s=20
“Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are set to vote this week on new legislation that would greatly increase the federal government's power over private businesses, workers, and US citizens.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1655874681788850178?s=20
“I hear people say E-verify will be so effective at denying employment to illegals that millions of them will self deport.”
“For E-verify to work that well would require biometric proof of identify for every American and a cashless society.”
“Is this what you want for your children?”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1655871801774206978?s=20
“If E-Verify (background check system) is twice as accurate as NICS (background check system), mandating it federally will cause grave problems for tens of thousands of honest Americans. NICS results in roughly 100,000 false denials each year, with only 12 federal prosecutions.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1655754838091653120?s=20
“National E-verify bill contains vague references to two pilot programs of non-photographic technology you must use to prove your identity to DHS in order to get a job.”
“What is it? Fingerprints? DNA? Retina? Why not just say it in the bill? Is E-Verify actually Patriot Act 2.0?”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1655717731319304192?s=20
“I will NOT vote to require EVERY American to get Biden’s permission if they want to work.”
“Specifically, I’m opposed to E-verify. Giving the federal government more power over YOU is a mistake in my opinion.”
“I support border security, but not E-verify.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1655219404009873409?s=20
“Republicans are about to make a huge mistake.”
“Biden forced millions of Americans to take VACCINES by threatening their JOBS, and turning EMPLOYERS into enforcers.”
“Imagine giving Biden the ultimate on/off switch for EMPLOYMENT called E-verify.”
“Might as well call it V-verify.”
https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1655181734013554695?s=20
“If, heaven forbid, the United States government ever adopts a social credit score, National E-Verify is one more tool they can use to prevent honest people from being part of society.”
“Believe what you will, but it will have little impact on illegal immigration into this country.”