Unemployment rates dropped during the recession in states which adopted the E-Verify program to screen illegal aliens from jobs, says a study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

“Many opponents of E-Verify portray the system as a barrier to employment opportunities,” the report explains. “To the contrary, this study finds that states requiring the use of E-Verify are leading recovery efforts following the worst global recession since World War II,” said the report, which added:

Millions of American citizens would find gainful employment if they did not have to compete against unauthorized workers who undercut local wage rates. E-Verify plays a critical role in alleviating unfair competition against unauthorized workers; and states utilizing the program are experiencing positive job growth that outpaces national averages in the majority of cases.

The E-verify program is built around a website which allows employers to check the identity documents of job-seekers, so helping exclude illegal aliens. The free service is used by at least 600,000 employers, but immigration reformers say employers should be required to use the system to check all prospective employees.

According to the new study,

… this report examines the U-6 unemployment rate in states one year after instituting or expanding E-Verify requirements. The U-6 unemployment rate includes discouraged job-seekers who have stopped searching for employment and those who are working part time for purely economic reasons – as opposed to those who may be working part time by choice. Accordingly, U-6 data provides a better representation of those who are genuinely unemployed than the number that is commonly reported by the mainstream media. The most frequently reported number—the U-3 unemployment rate—only includes those who are completely out of work and still actively searching for employment… All states that enacted or expanded E-Verify after 2008, save one, saw their unemployment rates drop, even when the national rate increased. More impressively, 12 of the 15 states that passed new measures experienced a drop in unemployment larger than the national average. Furthermore, states that made E-Verify mandatory for all employers, public and private, experienced the most pronounced decrease in their unemployment rates.

Enforcing immigration law and easing pressure on American workers is highly popular with voters. A poll released on election day found 59 percent believed the first step taken towards controlling illegal immigration should be requiring all U.S. employers to verify the legal status of their employees.

Breitbart News has also reported 75 percent believe unemployed Americans should be first in line to receive U.S. jobs—compared to only three percent who think the U.S. should import more foreigners to fill them. Another 61 percent said politicians “who would rather import foreign workers to take jobs rather than give them to current U.S. residents [are] unfit to hold office.”

Since the housing recession began in 2007, 8.7 million additional migrants have arrived and settled in the U.S. while Americans struggled to find work. There are some 42.4 million foreign-born immigrants, illegal aliens, contract workers, students, refugees residing in the U.S. as of 2014, comprising 13.3 percent of the population.

Each year, roughly four million young Americans enter the job market—and the federal government provides work permits to about one million new legal immigrants and to almost one million temporary contract-workers.

Illegal and legal immigration flood the labor market, imposing a $500 billion tax on working Americans and established immigrants by transferring billions of dollars to employers, investors and newly-imported foreign workers, says a September report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Mass immigration from the Third World is crippling workers in the economy, as Breitbart News reported in July. White, working-class men have been hit particularly hard by relentless levels of migration and unrestricted trade: 41 percent have abandoned work, according to the Economist.

E-Verify will empower American workers and protect them from being underbid by illegal aliens, FAIR said, recommending every state, plus the federal government, makes E-Verify mandatory.

“E-Verify ensures that only authorized workers gain employment opportunities in the states where it’s being used. As a result, American jobs are going to authorized workers, many of whom had abandoned their job hunt altogether and had given up hope of ever again finding employment,” said FAIR’s President Dan Stein in a statement accompanying the report.

E-Verify will also discourage illegal aliens from seeking work in the U.S., since the widespread tax fraud and identity theft required to gain employment will no longer be ignored by authorities. Many will simply return home if they are unable to find American jobs.