Mediaboss Marketing

The roof leaks, the fence is broken, and the grass needs mowing. Spring is fix-it time and you need help, but how do you proceed ethically if youre concerned about illegal immigration? After all, with 15.5 million illegal aliens already in the U.S., and more than 200,000 entering monthly, its a good bet your local contractor hires them at local day-labor centers matching unscrupulous employers with those who have no legal right to be employed.

Its a problem foisted on thousands of communities nationwide by our governments failure to enforce immigration law. The consequence is that anyone selecting contractors can become complicit in this illicit labor scheme; just ask former presidential candidate Mitt Romney whose alleged use of illegal labor on his property became an embarrassing issue for him during the 2012 presidentialcampaign.

Yet as is often the case, knowledge and grassroots action are the keys, and there is an at-homeremedy.

The first step is to simply ask how your selected contractor verifies legal status. Many small firms answer this inquiry by robotically stating they, I-9 everyone, referring to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employee Eligibility Verification process that requires new employees to provide documents proving they have the right to work. This sounds fine if there was not widespread counterfeiting of identity papers and theft of Social Security numbers, potentially affecting nearly 40 million Americans. Because of that, even honest employers who earnestly use the I-9 process dont have time, or the expertise, to adequately verify the authenticity of government-issued identification or work authorizationdocuments.

Thats why your second, more desired step, is to ask if the company uses E-Verify, and if not, why not? E-Verify is the real meat and potatoes of worksite authorization, offering an effective electronic alternative to the old paper-based I-9 system. Social Security numbers or alien identification numbers of new hires are checked against government records to weed out the duplicative andfraudulent.

Businesses (those who actually want to avoid hiring illegal workers) depend on E-Verify because its fast, easy, and free to use, and it means that theyre no longer expected to be document experts. When a company uses E-Verify, the liability of determining the legal status of an employee is placed on the U.S. government, not the employer. So if a mistake is made, the employer is off the hook provided it was usingE-Verify.

Should you want to provebeyond verbal assurancesthat a company is enrolled in E-Verify, its a simple matter of asking to see their Memorandum of Understanding Agreement. Its your right to scrutinize the hiring policies of those you deal with, and nothing prohibits a company from sharing this document. Youre asking for hiring policies, not personally identifyinginformation.

Remember, even if a company claims to comply with the law using the I-9 process, thats not a guarantee their employees have lawful status. But, to be fair, its a lot better than many small firms that do nothing. However, E-Verify is the gold standard for weeding out unauthorized workers in addition to being fast, simple, and free for hiringmanagers.

We know. It wont be easy, it takes some nerve to ask questions, and your contractor may twirl his mustache while he spins dubious claims about hiring standards. It may even turn out you dont know for certainbut at least you inquired.

If enough folks force the issue, businesses will get the message as they lose profits to others who understand Hiring Legally Authorized Workers Only is an appealing competitive advantage. The free market is funny that way, always responding rapidly towarddemand.

Be persistent, and just maybe in the process of getting things fixed around our homes, well be fixing our immigration crisis as well by shutting off the jobsmagnet.

The rest is here:
Backyard Activism: A Simple At-Home Tactic - Federation for American Immigration Reform