Kos takes on Lamar Smith (R-TX & Head of House Judiciary Committee) over E-Verify

[pampango]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/06/991815/-E-Verify:-Lamar-Smithsfact-freedefense

E-Verify: Lamar Smith's fact-free defense

A week ago I wrote in The Hill about Georgia's failed e-verify experiment, with hundreds of millions of crops rotting in the fields because farmers can't get enough workers to harvest them. In fact, the situation is so dire that the state has even tried to get criminal probationers to fill the gap left by thousands of undocumented workers, all to no avail.

Texas xenophobe Lamar Smith, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has committed to bringing Georgia's failed e-verify experiment national, so that we can have billions of crops lay rotting in the fields, decimating fragile rural economies and raising prices at grocery stores for consumers.

Why? So he can take a bat to "illegal" brown people.

A study by the Department of Homeland Security found that e-verify was only able to suss out undocumented immigrants 46 percent of the time, as it's unable to determine when a worker is using fraudulent identity information. In other words, an employer has a better chance of picking out ineligible workers by flipping a coin.

It's interesting that none of the "facts" pushed by Smith rebut my main two points -- that the e-verify experiment in Georgia has led to economic catastrophe, and that the system doesn't even work to begin with.

Republicans are obsessed with punishing those "illegals." The only question is, how much collateral damage will Americans suffer as a result? Because there's no painless way to remove "illegals" from our economy.


Rep. Lamar Smith, hanging out where brown people don't.