Road safety is red herring

In considering the question, should illegal aliens be given official driver cards by the state government, advocates are trying to channel discussion primarily to matters of traffic or road safety. However, road safety is a phony issue. It’s a screen to hide the real issue, which is the hiring of illegal labor.

Illegal hiring is profitable to employers because they can pay substandard wages and pass on to the public the costs of providing subsidized housing, subsidized medical care, subsidized schooling and other services that would be unnecessary if adequate wages were paid and working conditions fair. The cost of illegal immigration to Oregon taxpayers has been conservatively estimated at $1 billion annually.

Besides the fiscal costs, there is another danger: the toleration of illegal hiring contributes to a culture of corruption that undermines our democracy. It also causes wage depression and forces citizens to compete with illegal aliens for jobs, a terrible injustice.

There are visa programs available to employers for seasonal and other special needs, including the H-2A visa for agriculture, through which employers can hire foreign workers legally if they pay prevailing wages and provide decent working conditions. Honest employers use these programs and don’t try to cheat.

Employers can’t claim they have no way to tell whether the people they hire are illegal aliens. The free federal E-Verify program has been in successful operation for more than 10 years; nearly half a million honest, patriotic employers use it now to check the legal status of new hires.

It’s ridiculous to tout road safety as an excuse to employ illegal aliens, and advocates can’t even prove that granting driver cards to illegal aliens would improve road safety.