President Bush Jun. 6 signed an amendment to an earlier executive order requiring contractors and others who do business with the federal government to make sure their employees can legally work in the U.S.            
    “It is the policy of the executive branch to enforce fully the immigration laws of the United States, including the detection and removal of illegal aliens and the imposition of legal sanctions against employers that hire illegal aliens,” the newly amended Executive Order 12989 of Feb. 13, 1996, reads in part. “Because of the worksite enforcement policy of the United States and the underlying obligation of the executive branch to enforce the immigration laws, contractors that employ illegal aliens cannot rely on the continuing availability and service of those illegal workers, and such contractors inevitably will have a less stable and less dependable workforce than contractors that do not employ such persons.”
    Aimed at cracking down on companies that hire illegal aliens, the amended order requires federal departments and agencies to require contractors to use an electronic system to verify that the workers are eligible to work in the U.S. Opponents complain the order may snare people with expired visas or people who came to the country legally but don’t have permission to work, such as some students or those awaiting work permits.
    Bush’s action comes as a worker verification bill has all but fizzled out in Congress. The illegal alien issue has long been debated at both the federal and state levels, but has run into opposition over the years from both various business groups who say the E-Verify system is flawed and from civil libertarians who allege it could lead to discrimination and job losses by U.S. citizen workers misidentified as illegal aliens.
    Comprehensive “immigration” bills considered by Congress in 2006 and 2007 included worker verification measures. But those proposed federal bills were soundly defeated, in part, at the strident urging of voters who put pressure on legislators to squelch the bills because they were generally perceived as attempts to provide amnesty for illegal aliens. As a result, states began passing their own laws to keep employers from hiring illegal aliens.