Down the rabbit hole.

• Author: Mooneyham, Scott
• Position: CAPITALGOODS

Illegal immigration can do funny things to politicians. Bring up the topic and sometimes even the most loquacious elected officials clam up. Even more bizarre is when party and ideological principles are turned on their heads.

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So it was when North Carolina became the sixth state to adopt a law requiring a broad range of private employers to use a federal electronic database to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants. The General Assembly adopted the requirement after an Alice-in-Wonderland debate in which Democrats claimed to be champions of business and Republicans, the defenders of labor. "Folks, I didn't come down here to impose greater regulation on business in this state. What are we doing here?" said Rep. Bill Faison, a Democrat from Orange County. Rep. George Cleveland, the Jacksonville Republican who sponsored the bill, responded that he was trying to protect the labor force from workers who shouldn't be here: "This is a jobs bill for North Carolina citizens." Neither Alice nor the Mad Hatter were spotted in the gallery. No one cried out, "Curiouser and curiouser!"

Regardless, Gov. Beverly Perdue signed the legislation in late June. It will be phased in over the next two years, with local governments having to check new employees' backgrounds using the database--called E-Verify--beginning in October. For private employers with more than 500 workers, it takes effect Oct. 1, 2012. For those with between 25 and 500, effective dates begin in 2013. The bill exempts employers with fewer than 25 workers. Seasonal workers also won't have to be checked. Violators face fines up to $2,000 for a third offense.

PO-Legislators ignored a potential problem of using E-Verify to make sure employers don't hire illegal immigrants: loss of tax collections.

Cleveland pointed out that many big companies, including Bank of America Corp., already use E-Verify. State government and universities have used it to check new workers since 2007. That hasn't stopped critics from condemning the move. Faison might have carped on another burden for employers, but the loudest criticism has been about the system's error rate. It's not very large on a percentage basis. According to statistics from the federal Government Accountability Office, 97.4% of workers run through the system are cleared. A report commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security found an error rate of only 0.8% among those not confirmed. But that small percentage could...