If you’re really concerned about immigration, especially the not-legal variety, there’s a tool available – and has been for years – that’s cheap, would entail no masked armed forces, and could be implemented quickly. In a state where the political tides seem to run strongly toward sharp control of immigration, this would seem to be just the ticket.
Idaho legislation to do this, at scale and apparently covering most employers in Idaho, was proposed in each of the last two sessions.
What’s happening this session, which is a little different, makes for a telling distinction about attitudes on the subject.
The subject is E-Verify, which was set up in 1996 and is run by the Department of Homeland Security cooperating with the Social Security Administration. Its job is to determine – on request from an employer – whether an employee is a legal resident of the country. Generally, the system is thought to be accurate, with some exceptions.
The states vary widely in how or if they deal with E-Verify. None bar its use, but it’s mainly a voluntary tool in most places. In some like Idaho, governments are required to use it in hiring, and some (like Idaho) include state contractors in the mandate. But some – Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina – require it much more broadly for private employers.
E-Verify has drawn some critics. Civil libertarians are concerned it could lead to a kind of national registration system. The American Farm Bureau, for example, has been a critic of E-Verify: “while E-Verify may not adversely affect some parts of the U.S. economy, it could have dire impacts on agriculture due to the lack of U.S. workers and the absence of a workable visa program.” Other economic sectors could feel some pain as well. You’ll notice between the lines that the concern is the system might work too well, and those business sectors might be deprived of many of the workers they (really do) need.
Averting those touchy areas, Idaho already has some E-Verify requirements for government employers and some state contractors. But it’s not mandatory much beyond that.
In the last two legislative sessions, much broader E-Verify bills were proposed in the last two sessions, in 2025 by Representative Jordan Redman of Coeur d’Alene and in 2024 by Senator Chris T. Trakel and Representative Judy Boyle. The 2025 bill, for example, aimed to “prohibit employment of illegal aliens and require employers to E-Verify each new hire’s legal employment status as a condition of employment” – mandates covering “any employer,” in any sector. The 2024 bill was structured a little differently but had a similar end result.
Both bills in their respective sessions were introduced by and quietly died in the House State Affairs Committee. The idea has arisen in several previous sessions too, with similar results.
As hot as immigration is within Republican circles, you might expect this overwhelmingly Trumpian legislature to come back this session with something stronger, and maybe pass it this time.
You would be wrong.
There is a new E-Verify bill this session. The current proposal is Senate Bill 1247, introduced by Senator Mark Harris of Soda Springs. It would be the “Idaho E-Verify Act,” and would go into effect at the start of 2027, when “it shall be unlawful for any covered employer to knowingly hire, recruit, or refer, either for the employer itself or on behalf of another, for private or public employment within the state, an employee whose work authorization has not been verified through the e-verify program.”
Those covered employers, however, are “public agencies, at state and local levels of government, … [and] private employers that do business with state and local government, if they have 150 or more employees and contracts valued at $100,000 or more.”
More simply, Harris said “if taxpayer dollars are involved, the employer must use E-Verify to address the legal status of their employees.” More simply, he said his bill would be intended mostly to codify the existing procedures, which seems accurate.
More of the same, in other words, at a time when the Trump Administration is proclaiming a crisis of illegal immigration.
Must not be that extreme a crisis after all.
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