Argus-Courier (Petaluma, Calif.), June 1, 2011

According to experts at the University of California, Los Angeles, day laborers are overwhelmingly likely to be in the United States illegally, and therefore cannot be legally hired. Last week’s Argus-Courier editorial, "A day labor center for Petaluma,” gave support to a proposed hiring center, but such centers promote illegal hiring practices, encourage illegal immigration and create real victims.

The editorial suggested that the only solutions to illegal immigration are mass deportation or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, that neither solution will work, and concluded that day laborer hiring centers are therefore necessary. However, a real solution is “attrition through enforcement,” where the illegal immigrant population is shrunk over time through a commitment to enforcement of immigration laws combined with an effort to turn off the magnets for illegal immigration.

The most significant inducement to illegal immigration is the jobs magnet. Sonoma County could turn off this magnet by requiring all employers to use the workplace verification program E-Verify, which checks names against Social Security numbers in order to weed out illegal employment and fraud. If we send the message that one must come to the United States legally in order to acquire a job, people will come legally. Unfortunately, day labor centers send the wrong message by facilitating illegal hiring.

The editorial also got it wrong when it claimed that illegal aliens do work “that most American-born residents do not want to perform.” In reality, there is no such thing as a job Americans won’t do. According to statistics from the Census Bureau, many professions often thought of as “immigrant jobs” are mostly made up of native-born citizens. For example, of janitors, 75 percent are native-born; of construction laborers, it’s 65 percent; of grounds maintenance workers, it’s also 65 percent; of maids and housekeepers, 55 percent are native-born. The percentages would be even higher if employers were held accountable for violating immigration law. It’s not the work that is deterring citizens, it’s the substandard wages and poor working conditions, all of which is perpetuated by illegal immigration.

It’s important to remember that there is a high cost to this cheap labor. While some employers may find it profitable to hire day laborers in the country illegally, it remains costly to the rest of us because most day laborers are paid under the table, meaning taxes are not collected.

Additionally, much of it is not spent in the United States; on average, more than $20 billion is transferred to Mexico in the form of remittances every year. If income is reported to the IRS, it’s reported with use of a Social Security number that does not belong to the illegal immigrant, a phenomenon that creates real victims — usually young children. The SSNs of young children are prized among illegal immigrants because their illegal use goes unchecked for years until the true owner begins to make use of the ID at their first job. It’s only then that the citizen discovers he owes thousands in back taxes for jobs he never held.

As any victim of identity theft knows, it is painstakingly difficult to correct such abuse, and victims may find themselves being denied jobs, unemployment insurance, lines of credit, Social Security payments and Medicaid benefits. Additionally, taxpayers will be subsidizing this cheap, illegal labor by paying for “free” health care at emergency rooms and “free” public education for the children of day laborers at a time when unemployment in Sonoma County is above the national average.

Instead of building a day labor center, which will very likely be paid for with taxpayer funds when private donations run dry, the city of Petaluma should follow the national trend of requiring businesses to use E-Verify, a surefire way of discouraging illegal immigration that was supported by the Supreme Court in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting just last week. Cities have a role to play in immigration matters and the City Council should use its power to encourage legal hiring practices.