While an amusing yarn, Russ Wood’s Sunday letter here opposing the latest effort to protect publicly funded Cobb jobs for legal workers (“Background checks for illegals too costly”) was amazingly short on research and facts. And it has nearly nothing to do with the proposed IMAGE certification debate at the Cobb Commission.
Mr. Wood clearly does not understand IMAGE and seems to be fighting the separate E-Verify battle the anti-enforcement set lost in Georgia nearly two years ago with the same 10-year-old false arguments tried then. He should not be playing the “ignorance” card on immigration expert D.A. King. Contrary to Wood’s assertion, and his effort to swing the focus of the debate to E-Verify from the real issue, which is IMAGE compliance, there is no “wait time” for any “government bureaucracies to process “the background check.” Because there is no “background check” on either E-Verify or IMAGE.
E-Verify is an Internet-based system in which all new employees’ names are checked as eligible to work against existing federal information on immigration status and Social Security numbers. The “wait” time is about 45 seconds after the employer hits “enter” on his computer. It costs nothing. Illegal aliens are not issued Social Security numbers. If they use one, it is either faked or stolen from an American. Oops.
The real issue is IMAGE compliance by the Cobb contractors who are paid with our tax money.
It too, costs nothing for the employer.
IMAGE is designed to help citizens stop the ongoing fraudulent use of their Social Security numbers and other identity documents by illegal aliens taking public-funded jobs. It simply involves the employer’s in-house rechecking of his past hiring records to ensure that he has followed the federal law in place since 1986. Then the feds audit the same books. Illegal aliens included, people who used false documents to get a job are revealed.
The cost of the audit for the employer is zero.
Apparently, this is pretty scary stuff to Russ Wood. And the Chamber of Commerce.
If Wood truly believes that using the tools that are already provided by President Obama’s administration to safeguard, budget money and American jobs is somehow an infringement on “liberty and trade” he is in the far fringe minority in Cobb County, Georgia.
The reason the IMAGE for contractors proposal is being fought so hard by the Chamber of Commerce is that it works all too well at saving public money and getting jobs out of the hands of low-wage illegal aliens and into the hands of Americans now on unemployment.
What is Woods’ real agenda? Is he saying we should not enforce our immigration, education or ID theft laws?
Count this voter in as YES on IMAGE for Cobb contractors.
Dr. William B. Hudson
Marietta
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It is not any harder to check out your employees in the construction & landscape industries than it is in any other industry. It is done every day when employing office employees. It requires planning and most of us know that is lacking in some industries.
Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal - IMAGE puts legal not illegal workers to work
Georgia law requires all employers with at least 10 employees to use E-verify which is much improved over Mr. Woods early experience. Image is designed to protect legal workers and taxpayers in Georgia.
Tim, get out of the Chamber's pocket and pass this IMAGE ordinance as you previously stated you would.
No public funding should go to illegal workers. Contractors have already been violating this law, and the bricklayers at the Courthouse were infiltrated by a Hispanic citizen who reported them. We already know for certain contractors were deliberately disobeying the law.
If a contractor contests using IMAGE, then we know he is dirty. If the Commission refuses to demand this program for County contractors, then what can we decide about that?