The state of Illinois has passed a law forbids employers from enrolling in the federal worker verification database program, and the feds have filed suit against this.

This is one case where Michael Chertoff is right. (I can’t believe that I said that)

The law pre-empts a federal one, which is unconstitutional, and prohibiting employers from making an honest attempt to verify that their employers are, in fact, legal is simply crazy.

I tend to be a bit of a hard liner on immigration^*, but I think that an objective of making it easier for employers to verify that job applicants are not breaking the law is a basic goal of any society. Illegal aliens do not have an inherent right to work in the US.

That being said, the database is buggy and slow, and needs to be fix.

^*I favor going after employers who negligently employ illegals hard (think forfeiture), and offering bounties by way of green cards for illegals who rat these employers out.