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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   33840 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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No, this is a made-up misdirection from the left.

Employers are not the villain here - employers are legally required to accept any "reasonably genuine" documents that appear to relate to the employee, even if they are not ultimately confirmed by e-verify. Employers cannot terminate an employee simply because they believe they are an illegal immigrant. Doing so may result in anti-discrimination lawsuits against the employer, which are far riskier and carry heavier penalties than hiring illegals.

If an employer reports a worker to ICE as potentially illegal, the employer may get into trouble with anti-retaliation law. Additionally, claiming the employer is retaliating against you can be a pathway to getting 6 more years in the US - i.e. the illegal alien is financially motivated by the government to cause further trouble for the employer.

https://legalaidatwork.org/factsheet/deferred-action-for-noncitizen-undocumented-workers-in-labor-disputes/

> name is "yestrusocialist"

> "Employers are not the villain here"

Snark aside, I'm not super interested in assigning blame here. Although I imagine many (especially farmers and hotel owners) employers do know they're hiring illegals, I imagine they try to.

My logic rests upon the core facts:

  1. illegal immigrants come here to trade their labour for money
  2. the person on the other side of that trade runs an American business
  3. there are less Americans businesses than there are illegal immigrants
  4. the vast majority of American businesses have much more documentation/paperwork on their existence, location, etc
  5. due to the smaller # of businesses, and the significantly higher ease in finding them and monitoring them, it's way easier to enforce this via american businesses

I don't know the exact policy/regulation structure that both stops employers from hiring illegal immigrants while maintaining worker dignity and privacy, but I'm very confident there's a way to accomplish this. Also, the current status quo of ICE is 1) of middling effectiveness relative to the stated goals of the admin and 2) a shitshow that is very obviously not doing good at "dignity" or "privacy" so the bar is pretty low here

I also imagine (and in a couple of cases know with certainty) that employers know they are hiring illegals. But at $10k/violation for hiring illegals and $50k-$300k for discrimination for failing to accept "reasonably genuine" documents, I don't blame them for it.

I blame the legal structure they operate under and the politicians who created it. Capitalists will be Capitalists. It's on government to align the incentives with desired actions.

I agree this can be done, but it will be slow and will not get rid of illegals in the short run.

Employers are not the villain here - employers are legally required to accept any "reasonably genuine" documents that appear to relate to the employee, even if they are not ultimately confirmed by e-verify.

Okay, and why don't we have mandatory e-verify despite a Republican Congress and white house?

All of the obstacles you mention could easily be cleared with legislation.

I agree that it would be great to dismantle antidiscrimination law. It is not true that this could be "easily cleared with legislation" - among other things one would also need to eliminate leftist judges and other instruments of left wing anti democratic power.

Mandatory e-verify has nothing to do with discrimination. By definition, if you e-verify everyone, you aren't discriminating.

If you want to reduce the penalties for discrimination and commensurate increase the penalties for hiring illegals, to the point where employers happily risk discriminating in order to avoid hiring illegals, I support this.

Employment verification is not discrimination. Have you seriously never gone through I-9 verification to work?

Every employed illegal also went through it. I'm all in favor of mandatory e-verify plus giving employers broad leeway to reject any vaguely suspicious documents (even if "reasonably genuine") and re-e-verify any employee anytime for any reason.

I'd also favor inverting the cost of penalties - $50-300k for hiring illegals, only $10k for discrimination. (Today it's the reverse.)

But this is a major change in the law with exactly zero D support + very little establishment republican support.

Its nonsense to pretend that this new regime is anything like existing law, however.

Every employed illegal also went through it.

Indeed. But they didn't go through e-verify. The question is, why is e-verify not mandatory? It can't be due to discrimination suits, because I-9 verification is obviously not discriminatory, and e-verify is more of the same, but harder to fake.

I asked grok. Republicans tried to make everify mandatory in 2023 with HR2, and multiple times in the past as well. Dems prevented it.

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By definition, if you e-verify everyone, you aren't discriminating.

You're assuming court's follow actual logic. If "we apply this to everyone, so it can't be discrimination" the concept of "disparate impact" would not exist.

To be absolutely clear on this point - your position is that we don't have mandatory e-verify because Congress and the president know that the courts would make it de facto illegal to hire a person without work authorization? Do I understand you correctly?

My argument is that your previous argument is wrong, I made no statements about why no one tried passing mandatory e-verify. Where did you even get the idea?

I had the mistaken impression that you were responding to the substance of my argument. I apologize!

Let's try again.

Your argument is that mandatory e-verify would be ruled as illegal discrimination and that companies would be forced to hire people without work authorization?

I had the mistaken impression that you were responding to the substance of my argument.

I was. The substance of your argument was that e-verify can't have anything to do with discrimination by definition, because it would be applied equally to everyone, correct?

If not, I'm the one that should apologize. Though I hope you understand where my confusion comes from, given that you wrote "mandatory e-verify has nothing to do with discrimination. By definition, if you e-verify everyone, you aren't discriminating."

Your argument is that mandatory e-verify would be ruled as illegal discrimination and that companies would be forced to hire people without work authorization?

I have no way of knowing whether it would be ruled as such or not. The American legal system lets the judges rule whatever the hell they want. I'm just pointing out they already dismissed the "because it's applied to everyone" argument in another case.

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