August 22, 2007

Solving Illegal Immigration

If I was a business executive selecting which staffing company to use, I'd certainly lean hard in the direction of using Staffmark, a Nashville company that verifies the legal status of its workers with the government's new E-Verify system, so that it doesn't hire or send out illegal immigrants to work at its clients' job sites. Good for them. All businesses should do this.

Staffmark operates more than 250 staffing services offices in 30 states, if you're looking for a staffing company that's on the right side of the illegal immigration battle.

The story in today's Nashville City Paper reminds me of a concept that I have considered before regarding how to solve the problem of illegal immigration. The federal government can't do it - or won't. Congress, at least the current Congress, has no interest in securing the border and reducing the number of illegals in the county except by granting all of them amnesty and giving them a fast-lane to citizenship.

However, the market may be able to solve the problem - it's just a matter of aligning the incentives right.

"When we send people out to work, the last thing we want our clients to be worried about is whether they're illegal or not," [Staffmark CEO David] Bartholomew said. "I love telling our clients we're doing this. We can tell them unequivocally that [employees] are who they say they are, because it's been verified by Homeland Security.”

And therein lies the seed of my idea: an independent organization that accredits businesses as being "illegal-free," by verifying the immigration status of their non-citizen employees - granting businesses that don't employ illegals a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval-like designation that they are, indeed, illegal free.

Then, customers could chose to do business with stores and businesses that are certified "illegal-free," rather than businesses that continue to flout American law and hire illegals. If enough customers refuse to patronize businesses that aren't certified illegal-free, businesses would stop hiring illegals and get certified. Fewer job opportunities for illegals would mean fewer coming across the border.

The independent organization would charge businesses an annual fee for the certification process.

Of course, it may not be necessary - some states have already passed laws requiring businesses to use E-Verify. Tennessee's legislature should do the same.