This week, the program that businesses trust (and the law demands in 16 states) to keep undocumented immigrants out of work has come to a screeching halt. E-Verify has suspended its operations due to the Government Shutdown.
NPR reports:
The government shutdown began with the president's demand for border security money. But it has also halted E-Verify, a federal program that's supposed to prevent immigrants from working here illegally. If U.S. employers want to check whether their prospective hires are eligible to work, they can't.
The E-Verify database is "currently unavailable due to a lapse in government appropriations," according to a note on the government-run website.
Trump wanted a physical wall to be built. Instead he had a digital one torn down. Irony abounds. But where does the status of Trump's wall stand, really?
There is no public funding that has been allocated for a wall and Mexico has refused to pay for it (as Trump repeatedly promised they would). Since public funding from either country seems unlikely for the foreseeable future, the idea of private funding has been raised.
The most successful advance toward that means of building a wall along the US/Mexico border is a GoFundMe page set up by a military veteran named Brian Kolfage. So far, he has raised just shy of 2% of his billion dollar goal. That self-imposed goal is only 1/5 of the amount that Trump projects he will need to break ground on his wall.
Washington Post reports:
“It’s time to stop playing games with voters,” Kolfage said in an email. “If we are told we’re getting something, make it happen.”
Could the government just take all the GoFundMe cash that Kolfage ends up raising? It’s complicated.
Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to allow the Treasury Department to accept public donations for the purpose of funding the wall. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) and Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) have both filed bills seeking to create a “Border Wall Trust Fund,” which Black’s bill specifies would be appropriated to the Department of Homeland Security. Black’s proposal would even create a “commemorative display,” honoring all the donors who chipped in. But those bills are just sitting in committee and would seem unlikely to have much chance once Democrats take control of the House.
Another promise that Trump made repeatedly on the campaign trail and other subsequent rallies is that department stores and other shops will stop saying "Happy Holidays" to their patrons and instead wish them a "Merry Christmas". But Mawlid, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Years have all passed with most stores instructing their employees to parrot the familiar and consumer-friendly "Happy Holidays". Even Trump's own businesses failed to mention the word 'Christmas' at all and retreated back to 'Holiday' in his manufactured "War on Christmas".
