Big government's big, scary broken stick

E-Verify is an Internet-based system that allows an employer, using information reported on an employee's Form I-9 to determine the eligibility of that employee to work in the United States.

Clear all the smoke, rhetoric and good intentions. And find a big, comfortable chair if you are going to wade through the final rule.

An independent evaluation of the E-Verify program showed that it cleared nearly 54 percent of non-eligible workers by concluding incorrectly that they had proper work authorization. These workers had fraudulent or stolen identities (executive summary pages xxx - xxxi).

It really doesn’t matter that the system verifies properly 93.1 percent of people. Why?

Remember all the talk about punishing employers employing people illegally in this country? Where is the punishment for the people working in a government system that misses 54 percent of people able to beat that system? Where is the punishment for "sanctuary" city officials?

This is really important because businesses being challenged by the government for hiring illegal people have to pay all legal and procedural costs out of their operating profits. These are not planned expenses.

On the other hand, government prosecutors do not have time, money or integrity constraints. They get paid regardless of whether they are right, wrong, timely or not.

“No Crime But Prejudice” by Jon Entine summarizes how the government targets individuals and corporations and subjects them to a long miserable experience. Fischer Homes of Crestview Hills was the subject of the book and the target of wrongful prosecution.



It's clear the government not only has a big stick but it's a big stick with no accountability -- an absolute fact that shatters the foundations of freedom, liberty and innocent-until-proven-guilty policy.

This is one Kentucky example. It should scare the daylights out of you if you own a business!