Change you can believe in?

More of the same?

You decide.

The Houston Chronicle reports that President Obama’s choice to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says he wants to continue the Bush administration’s E-Verify system.

Here’s what John Morton said in his Senate confirmation hearing last week:

“We cannot make sustained reductions in illegal immigration without deterring employment of unauthorized labor,” Morton told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. “We need to place renewed focus on employers to ensure that they are playing by the rules.”

Morton vowed to “vigorously pursue” civil fines against employer violators. The Bush administration did not exact a single dime of civil penalties from employers in 2005 and 2006, Morton testified, compared to $25 million imposed as recently as 1996.

E-Verify is a system that uses a nationwide database to enable employers to check the immigration status of new hires.

Immigration advocates criticized the Bush administration last year for making E-Verify mandatory.

Is this system suddenly immigrant-friendly because the Obama folks have adopted it?