Stories

Because the Obama administration has slowed the implementation of a 2007 executive order signed by Pres. George W. Bush that would have mandated federal contractors and subcontractors use an otherwise voluntary work authorization database, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley hopes Congress will make the process law.
Grassley, a longtime supporter of the program now known as E-Verify, [...]

Citing the immigration raids on Marshalltown’s Swift & Co. and Mississippi’s Howard Industries as evidence, Eric Bord, a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based Morgan Lewis law firm, said that the government-run E-Verify program has the “perverse effect of encouraging identity theft.”

The names and faces have changed, but the stories coming out of Mississippi in the wake of the raid will not sound new to Iowans who have been following the news in relation to Postville.

E-Verify, known as the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program prior to 2007, was created along with two other pilot programs as a part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and was originally an option for only the five states with the largest immigrant populations (California, Illinois, Florida, Texas and New [...]