March 1, 2009 – Our president has lofty goals. Under his tutelage, we will cure cancer, end our dependence on foreign oil, reform health care and guarantee higher education to everyone who wants it.

I would like to focus on something that the president has not addressed: illegal immigration and its impact on unemployment, job creation and our failing educational system. Until he is willing to acknowledge the obvious, our best efforts are doomed to fail.

Over the next two years, his job-creation plan promises to save or create 3.5 million jobs. Meanwhile, there are an estimated 6 to 7 million illegal immigrants working in low-wage, low-skill positions that could be filled with U.S- born workers with high school educations or less.

A detailed breakdown of U.S. Census unemployment data released by the Center for Immigration Studies reveals startling levels of unemployment for U.S.-born blacks and Hispanics without a high school education. Blacks had a 24.7 percent unemployment rate and Hispanics were at 16.2 percent.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for legal and illegal immigrants without a high school education was 10.6 percent.

The president can act now to ensure that all American jobs go to people authorized to work in the United States.

Instead of expanding and protecting American jobs, the president allowed Senate Democrats to strip two E-Verify provisions from the stimulus bill. E-Verify is a highly effective voluntary program run by the Department of Homeland Security, which allows employers to check Social Security numbers against a national database. In 2007, it had a 99.6 percent accuracy rate and could yield results in less than three minutes.

The program is scheduled to expire unless Senate Democrats reauthorize the program by March 6.

Not only should the program be reauthorized, it should be made mandatory for all employers. We can aggressively tackle unemployment by taking simple steps to ensure that American workers are protected from illegal competition from those unauthorized to work in this country.

Unemployment is only one of many problems. Many of the president’s new programs lack any mechanism for verifying that the recipients are in the country legally. Such a failure to tackle the obvious does not bode well for the future.

Our rising health-care costs and educational burdens are all impacted by the presence of large numbers of undocumented and unauthorized residents who make it more difficult for hard-working Americans to enjoy some of the benefits of living in a nation that used to be one of the greatest in the world.

Commentary by Carol Swain and published on The Tennessean on February 28, 2009.

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