Judge's 1804 Ruling Undermined by Presidential Executive Order

A judicial ruling to halt implementation of the private employer provisions of House Bill 1804, the state's omnibus anti-illegal immigration law, was undermined this week by a presidential executive order, state Rep. Randy Terrill noted today.

"It was clear from the very beginning that Judge Cauthron's ruling was inconsistent with recent decisions in other similar cases, most notably in Missouri and Arizona," said Terrill, a Moore Republican who authored House Bill 1804. "Now Present Bush's executive order makes it obvious the judge's ruling was wrong and should be overturned."

Last week, Judge Robin Cauthron issued a ruling that prevents implementation of the private employer provisions of House Bill 1804.

Those provisions would have required employers contracting with the state government to verify that their employees are not illegal aliens by using a simple federal database (E-Verify), allowed Oklahoma citizens
to sue an employer who fired them while retaining an illegal alien to perform the same job, and required businesses to check the citizenship status of independent contractors.

In that ruling, Cauthron claimed "federal law prohibits use of the Status Verification Systems to verify employment eligibility."

That claim was contradicted this week by President George W. Bush when he issued Executive Order 12829, which requires anyone contracting with the federal government to use the E-verify system.

Bush's order stated, "It is the policy of the executive branch to enforce fully the immigration laws of the United States, including the detection and removal of illegal aliens and the imposition of legal sanctions against employers that hire illegal aliens" and noted that E-verify "provides the best available means to confirm the identity and work eligibility of all employees that join the Federal workforce."

"Judge Cauthron claimed federal law does not allow the use of E-Verify to ensure an employee is a legal citizen or resident of the United States, but now President Bush has ordered federal officials to use the system for that explicit purpose," Terrill said. "It's clear the judge's decision was based on an incorrect reading of the law."

Terrill noted that other complaints of House Bill 1804 opponents are also falling apart.

Although business groups claim E-Verify is burdensome for employers, Stewart Baker, an assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, recently wrote, "In fact, it's a bit less burdensome than ordering books for the first time from Amazon.com."

In articles posted on the agency's "Leadership Journal", Baker dismantled many of the claims of E-Verify critics.

To use E-Verify, he noted the employer must enter data about a new hire such as name, social security number, date of birth, and other data that employers already record on federal forms.

"Anyone who has seen it done once can do it, and the process takes a few minutes," Baker wrote. "Understanding the rules that go with the process requires a bit of online training, but that takes at most an hour or two.

Plus, E-Verify makes it unlikely that a company will get a Social Security Administration notice at the end of the year indicating that some of its new hires have Social Security Numbers that don't match their names. So time spent now on verification will save hassles later."

"One by one, the criticisms of House Bill 1804 are being dismantled and it's becoming clear opponents of the law have just one goal - the continued exploitation of cheap illegal alien slave labor to drive down the wages paid to Oklahoma citizens," Terrill said. "Oklahoma can do better and we will when Judge Cauthron's poorly reasoned decision is overturned."