Immigrant labor fuels US economy but Trump’s crackdown mostly ignores it

By Tim Sullivan And Rebecca Boone -CP-The Trump administration is touting an immigration crackdown that includes putting shackled immigrants on U.S. military planes, expanding agents’ arrests of people here illegally and abandoning programs that gave some permission to stay. One tool that’s conspicuously absent from President Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce illegal immigration: Going after the businesses that hire workers who are in the U.S. illegally. A nearly 30-year-old government system called E-Verify makes it easy to check if potential employees can legally work in the U.S. The program has had high-profile backers. Project 2025, the far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term, called for it to be mandatory. Yet it remains largely voluntary and rarely enforced. Trump’s own hotels and golf courses were slow to adopt E-Verify. The debate over…

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