The recently ratified House Bill 318 aims to ensure only legal employment in North Carolina by invalidating consulate, embassy and privately issued identification, prohibiting sanctuary cities and discontinuing time-limit waivers for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
HB 318 is titled “Protect North Carolina Workers,” but it should read “Protect North Carolina from Undocumented Immigrants and the Unemployed,” because they are the targeted groups who supposedly threaten the integrity of this state.
Gov. Pat McCrory should veto the bill so its execution does not exacerbate existing problems and create new ones regarding illegal immigration and unemployment.
The bill mandates the use of E-Verify, a once-voluntary program that checks for employment eligibility by looking up the legal status of employees. This is a hypocritical position from a party that spends so much time decrying the overreach of government.
The fact of the matter is undocumented workers typically perform jobs most U.S. citizens would be unwilling to perform — dealing with conditions workers with citizenship would not tolerate. Scaring undocumented workers with mandatory E-Verify doesn’t “save jobs”; it creates a draconian surveillance state with a constant threat of deportation for undocumented immigrants, locking them into jobs lacking basic labor rights.
What comes first: addressing someone as a human being worthy of fair treatment or as an “illegal alien,” with the person’s obvious worth denied by our state’s government?
Employers in North Carolina are not allowed to hire undocumented employees — hence E-Verify — but there is no legislation pertaining to the treatment of these forbidden hires. Is this bill’s target really lawlessness, or workers?
In 2007, Chapel Hill adopted a resolution and became a sanctuary city. Neighboring cities like Durham and Carrboro, as well as counties like Chatham, Pitt and Wake, adopted similar resolutions. Moreover, the dynamics of the already-existing racial profiling of African-American and Hispanic residents would worsen as the element of checking for legal status is thrown into the mix. A simple stop because of a broken headlight could spiral into deportation, family estrangement and loss of children to Social Services.
