In response to criticism that they are paying for the defense of other countries’ borders while our own is a shambles, congressional Republicans have insisted that immigration enforcement remains a priority. The White House request for more aid to Ukraine and Israel offers the opportunity to prove it. In a positive sign, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is reportedly pushing for “major concessions” on the border in exchange for the White House aid package. In my opinion, those concessions should take the form of H.R. 2, the impressive border security bill that the House passed earlier this year and that McConnell himself has co-sponsored in the Senate.
Rather than just throw more money at the Department of Homeland Security, H.R. 2 gets to the heart of the illegal-immigration problem in two important ways. First, it would weaken the “jobs magnet” by mandating E-Verify, an online tool that employers can use to determine whether their employees are legally authorized to work in the U.S. While businesses that employ illegal immigrants aren’t too bothered by resource-based reforms, such as recruiting more Border Patrol agents, they are strongly opposed to an E-Verify mandate — which says a lot about which policy actually works.
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