Proposals to Alabama immigration law won’t work

United States, 17th May: Proposed changes to Alabama immigration law are not going to fix the legislation.

On the contrary, such reforms, if introduced, would inhibit job creation in the US state.

Proposed Alabama immigration reforms will do no good—It is being claimed that with regard to Alabama immigration law, no action is, indeed, the best action.

Although, some are of the view that Alabama immigration law introduced last year is appropriate. But, the general belief among various activist groups is that the best thing is to repeal Alabama immigration law.

A new bill was introduced axing provision of getting details by schools from students regarding their immigration status and other civil liberties abuses. The bill was introduced by Micky Hammon, House Majority Leader.

Compulsory requirement of E-Verify--As per Alabama immigration law, all employers in Alabama are required to make use of E-Verify system for hiring employees for their businesses. US E-Verify system is an electronic verification process checking the identity of any potential employee against different federal databases.

E-Verify prone to errors—Although, all businesses or employers are required to register themselves with US E-Verify in April this year, but, the number of enrollments have bee just around 7 percent, official figures show.

And this brings home the fact that the US E-Verify system is not only costly for businesses but also erroneous. Several discrepancies have been found in the US E-Verify system.

Many times, unauthorized immigrant workers may be approved by the E-Verify or legal US workers might get trapped by the erroneous system. Alabama is not the only state in the US to make mandatory use of E-Verify for all businesses and employers. In fact, Arizona had introduced compulsory use of E-Verify in 2008. But, even after four years since its introduction,

E-Verify is being used by just 70 percent of Arizona businesses and employers.

Mandatory use of E-Verify affects Alabama farmers—A large number of Alabama farmers are solely dependent on unauthorized immigrant labor for their businesses. They are not in favor of US E-Verify for hiring farm labor. That’s because they find the process quite costly.

And if they are forced to use E-Verify for recruiting farm help, they are going to change their businesses or shift to other crops. But, this can be a big blow to the agriculture industry of Alabama which is worth $5 billion to its economy.