Trump Routed the Democrats On the Shutdown. What’s Next?

The Schumer Shutdown came to an ignominious end after only three days. Obviously, the Democrats were looking at internal poll results that were disastrous for them. It’s a good reminder that, while the Chamber of Commerce might join liberals in advocating a more or less open borders policy on immigration, the large majority of Americans are not only firmly opposed to illegal immigration, but, if anything, would prefer to reduce legal immigration.

Our friends at Grabien produced this montage of liberals bewailing the collapse of the Democrats’ shutdown. It’s schadenfreude at its best:

What happens next? The Democrats wanted to sneak DACA legalization into the continuing resolution so they could subsequently negotiate changes in immigration policy without having to bargain for what they wanted the most. That effort failed. Now, if the Republicans are smart, they can craft legislation that legalizes the “dreamers” (but needn’t provide them a path to citizenship) in exchange for an end to chain migration, an end to the “diversity lottery,” and a merit-based system that would admit a reduced number of legal immigrants who can provide economic benefit. And, I suppose the wall, too.

The Democrats will hate it, but the alternative is to abandon their beloved “dreamers,” and Republicans can push through immigration reform in any event, if they stick together. The issue is so important that if necessary on behalf of thorough-going reform, they should take the president’s advice and do away with the filibuster entirely.

Note that I didn’t put the wall at the top of the list of policies the GOP should negotiate for. The much more important issue is employer enforcement. A reader with a deep interest in the subject writes:

An excellent suggestion to really stick it to the scofflaw employers:

On top of mandating e-Verify and re-starting worksite enforcement actions, the president should issue an Executive Order based on section 63 of the Internal Revenue Code directing the IRS to classify all compensation paid to aliens without employment authorization as illegal payments that cannot be deducted by the employer as a business expense. If they cannot pass a verification-audit, businesses will have to rescind these deductible benefits. Taking away these huge deductions from businesses will go very far in pushing them to do the right thing: Put Americans first.

Also this:

Astonishing candor, especially from the source: “E-Verify doesn’t prevent many companies from hiring undocumented workers.”

It is, of course, a classic “NOW they tell us” moment.

E-verify with respect to the permitted documents and other provisions IS a fraud, no doubt. It needs to be tightened up.

But the article hints at another, almost completely foregone, enforcement mechanism: Social Security fraud. The SSA knows full well all the fraudulent SS numbers. An employer who pays and withholds payroll taxes with respect to a given SS number is simply presumed to be acting in good faith when the SSA matches numbers for stolen or non-existent, i.e., fake SS numbers. But nothing is done! The very existence of a match failure should trigger an E-verify investigation, pronto. But, I believe, SSA is forbidden from giving the information to ICE. This is not a coincidence, comrade…it is intentional. As long as Treasury gets the money, they’re happy especially for fictitious accounts (although stolen accounts have to be sorted out). And the rest of the government doesn’t want to inconvenience the scofflaw employers anyway.

Enforcement, or rather lack of it, of immigration and labor law is a complete fraud, a Kabuki dance to permit mass illegal immigration. The dance around the border “wall” is a distraction to fool the proles. We don’t need it. A few RICO prosecutions of notorious scofflaw employers in a dozen locations would force the issue immediately. Politically, it has to be a winner since many scofflaws are not at all acting in good faith and are quite unsympathetic characters exploiting sweatshop and stoop labor.

How serious is President Trump about cracking down on illegal immigration? After a year, we still don’t really know.

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