A Quad Cities businessman who’s running for the republican nomination for the First District Congressional seat says the government has turned its back on the subject of illegal immigration. Mike Whalen is proposing a system to screen potential employees to ensure they’re in the country legally. He says you should be able to determine if a person is legally qualified to hold a job — that’s the first step. He says we also have to secure our border. Whalen says identifying legal job applicants is the key. He says if we had a system in which employers could determine on the spot if a person was legally seeking employment, we would stop 90-percent of the problems. Whalen proposes something like a credit card that would provide instant information on potential employees. He says you have to have some way to determine if a person’s documents are legal, just like you can with their credit card. Whalen is in the restaurant business and says he knows firsthand of the challenges of hiring people and avoiding hiring illegal aliens. Whalen says he’s tired of being “Handcuffed by federal regulations that are ineffective.”