In January, the University of California announced that it would begin allowing illegal aliens to apply for jobs on campus. There was some pushback against the plan (more on that in a moment), so they decided to hold off on implementing it. But other colleges and universities have been making noises along similar lines, so some Republicans in Congress moved to take action against such illegal hiring this week. Senator J.D. Vance and Congressman Jim Banks have introduced legislation that would remove federal funding from schools that employ illegal immigrants and require them to use the E-Verify system to ensure the legal citizenship status of all applicants. But given the current laws covering this topic, such a bill should never have been needed in the first place. (Free Beacon)
A pair of congressional Republicans want to ban colleges and universities from hiring illegal aliens as campus employees, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) on Tuesday will introduce legislation that would condition a school’s eligibility for federal funds on compliance with federal law prohibiting businesses from employing illegal immigrants. The bill, which was exclusively provided to the Free Beacon, would also require all federally funded higher education institutions implement E-Verify, a federal program that checks the immigration status of all employees.
As noted above, the University of California didn’t entirely cancel its plan to hire illegals. They put it on hold for one year. And the initial pushback they received against it reportedly came from the Biden administration, which is rather shocking. You would probably have imagined that Joe Biden would be first in line to support a plan to hand out jobs to migrants. Or perhaps not. Biden’s team knows how badly the border crisis is polling and what a high priority the voting public currently places on dealing with all of the illegal migrants.
So why wouldn’t U Cal just cancel it completely? Perhaps it’s because the one-year “pause” will expire shortly after the next election. Could it be that they suspect Biden is only playing along for now to gain some traction in the polls and if he somehow squeaks through and wins a second term (God help us all), he’ll just turn around and return to his old, open-border ways? I wouldn’t rule that out completely.
As I already mentioned, none of this debate or the proposed legislation should have been required. Under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, it is a crime for any employer to knowingly hire and employ illegal aliens. Some migrants can eventually qualify for work permits, but the vast majority of the illegals flooding into the country across Biden’s open border do not have them. So if U Cal simply started hiring them, they would be in violation of the law. Of course, a lot of laws are being ignored these days when it comes to the illegal migrants and you would have to find someone willing to prosecute U Cal, which might prove impossible under Biden’s Department of Justice, particularly in California.
Speaking of California, the current unemployment rate there is riding slightly above five percent. That’s not off the charts, but it’s well above the national average. I’m confident that the University of California could find some citizens to fill whatever job openings they might have. Sadly, hiring American citizens doesn’t allow them to do any virtue signaling, so they probably wouldn’t be interested.