President Obama's executive order is an undesirable way to jump-start immigration reform, but it may help provoke Congress to make the badly needed legislative overhaul. Taking up to five million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows would accomplish a lot; however, an even greater good and more permanent reform could begin by picking up on the immigration bill S.774, as the president said in his nationally televised address. Although it never came to a vote in the House, the Senate bill is still the best place to start. Embedded in S.744 are compliance burdens and construction- industry risks about which relatively little has been written.
S.744, which the Senate passed, requires all employers within five years to use the E-Verify internet-based system to determine a worker's legal status. Using E-Verify, employers would have to compare the information from an employee's I-9 form, which companies create from information provided by the worker, with U.S. records. Some states already require employers to use E-Verify, but only 7% of U.S. employers were enrolled as of last year.