Former Congressman Tom Tancredo wrote an op-ed for Breitbart calling on the incoming Trump administration to make E-verify mandatory for employers their top immigration priority. E-Verify is free to employers and has an error rate of less than 1%. NumbersUSA has made mandating E-verify the first step in fixing our broken immigration enforcement system.

In the op-ed Tancredo says that mandating E-Verify would severely decrease the jobs magnet that encourages illegal aliens to cross the border.

“If we turn off the jobs magnet, illegal entry across our borders can change from a flood to a trickle. Then the Border Patrol could concentrate on stopping terrorists and drug traffickers, and job seekers would have to get in line for one of the many LEGAL guest worker programs already on the books.”

He then makes the case that decreasing illegal immigration would help stop the replacement of American workers and would help increase wages in some areas.

“There is an important principle involved in legal guest worker programs. They are authorized only when it has been demonstrated that American workers are not available at market-based wages. Foreign workers should be SUPPLEMENTING American workers, not REPLACING them… If there are genuine labor shortages in some occupations, then by all means, let’s have a viable, LEGAL guest worker program available to employers in those fields. But that is not the case with 98 percent of the jobs now going to illegal workers. The ready availability of cheap illegal labor has been a major factor in wage stagnation over the past 20 years.”

Tancredo also notes the E-Verify program’s history of success.

“The E-Verify system already exists as a voluntary program administered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) bureau within the Department of Homeland Security. A 2014 statement by Lori Scialabba, Obama’s Acting Director of USCIS, endorsed the program as an immense success, with over a half-million employers participating nationwide: 'Since it was established, E-Verify has experienced exponential growth, increased accuracy and high customer-satisfaction ratings.'"

Tancredo is a former U.S. Representative from Colorado who formed the House Immigration Reform Caucus that was focused on implementing the recommendations of the bipartisan U.S. Commission for Immigration Reform chaired by civil rights icon Barbara Jordan. Tancredo earned a career A+ grade with NumbersUSA over his six terms in Congress.

You can read the full op-ed at Breitbart.com.