Gallegly: Create Jobs by Making E-Verify Mandatory

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Gallegly: Create Jobs by Making E-Verify Mandatory
• By Rep. Elton Gallegly
• Special to Roll Call
• July 18, 2011, Midnight
If Congress is serious about putting Americans back to work, it should quickly pass the Legal Workforce Act.
The act would make it mandatory for all employers to use E-Verify — an easy-to-use, accurate, computer-based employee verification system that ensures employees have a legal right to work in the United States.
More than 7 million people take American jobs by working illegally in the United States. Under the act, many of those 7 million jobs will be available to American workers when E-Verify is fully implemented in two years.
What other jobs program can guarantee millions of jobs for American workers in two years?
There is a clear need to pass the Legal Workforce Act now.
The U.S. unemployment rate has now hovered at or above 9 percent for the past 24 months, topping 8 percent for the past 29 months, the longest streak since the 1930s.
The economy added only 18,000 private-sector jobs in June. Clearly, we have to do better.
The myth that illegal immigrants only hold jobs that American workers won’t do is just that — a myth. Recent studies estimate that 20 percent of cooks, 25 percent of construction workers, 22 percent of maids and housekeeping personnel, and 25 percent of groundskeepers are illegal immigrants. In addition, 40 percent of illegal immigrants are visa overstays, many of whom take high-end jobs from Americans.
When fast-food company Chipotle was audited and hundreds of its illegal workers were fired, American citizens lined up the next day for a chance to work at those jobs.
Fifteen years ago, I introduced the program that evolved into E-Verify, then called the Basic Pilot Program, which was included in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and I have been working to make the program mandatory since the Basic Pilot Program became law.
Making E-Verify mandatory will remove the primary factor that entices people to illegally cross our borders or overstay their visas — the ability to take an American job.
When companies such as Chipotle are audited and its illegal workers are fired, the workers will not be able to cross the street and take a job from another American worker at another fast-food establishment.
Mandatory E-Verify will also deter those who enter the United States on a temporary visa but never leave.
E-Verify simply matches a person’s name, Social Security number and birth date against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security databases. Its accuracy rate is far superior to the I-9 forms that are currently used to check eligibility, it lowers costs for employers and it is race-neutral.
Although the program is currently voluntary, more than 250,000 American employers willingly use E-Verify and an average of 1,300 new businesses sign up each week.
But employers who voluntarily use E-Verify are not the problem. Employers who willingly and knowingly hire illegal immigrants do not use E-Verify. Until we make E-Verify mandatory for all employers — from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to fast-food chains to the deli on the corner — employers will continue to hire illegal immigrants at lower wages and at the expense of American workers.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data from last year show that 98.3 percent of employees were confirmed as work-authorized instantly or within 24 hours using E-Verify. A 2009 report by research firm Westat found that those eligible to work are immediately confirmed 99.5 percent of the time.
E-Verify is free, very accurate and reduces paperwork for American businesses. Making it mandatory through passage of the Legal Workforce Act would discourage illegal immigration and open up millions of jobs for American workers.
The time to make E-Verify mandatory is now.
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) is chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement.
Mandatory E-Verify would help U.S. workers
The June unemployment numbers are bleak. Joblessness rose to 9.2 percent nationally. That means 14 million Americans can't find jobs, and that number doesn't include additional millions who are underemployed. Few new jobs were created during the last reporting period. It is clear all too many Americans are hurting.
CBS News reports devastating statistics for black Americans who are living with Depression-era unemployment rates.
In the black community the jobless rate has risen from 14.7 percent to 16.2 percent. Teenagers are in the same predicament. Indeed, joblessness is high among every class of worker.
And consider this shocking fact reported by CBS: A majority of graduating high school students does not have marketable job skills.
In light of all this, it is upsetting to witness the federal government's failure to stop employers from displacing U.S. workers with illegal workers. Employers have illegally taken jobs out of the hands of at least 8 million American workers. By the way, CBS reports only 4 percent of those jobs are in agriculture, perhaps the only sector where legal guest workers with H-2A visas are really needed.
Most of our displaced workers don't have a college education -- and less-educated workers constitute a third of our work force. So why is our federal government abandoning them? If we fail these Americans and they can't find jobs to support themselves, the welfare, food stamp, health care and other taxpayer-supported services will soon be strained to the breaking point.
Help, however, could be on the way. Requiring the mandatory use of the online E-Verify system protects the American worker and also causes more and more of the 12 to 15 million illegal workers here to self-deport themselves. Experience shows that if a worker cannot explain to an employer why he does not have proper legal documentation, he simply moves to a more permissive state or back to his home country.
More than 260,000 businesses at more than 1 million worksites currently use the E-Verify system found on the Department of Homeland Security website. This feature allows an employer, within minutes, to verify the legal status of a potential new employee.
Louisiana just became the 15th state to require the mandatory use of E-Verify, because it is the best tool available to prevent jobs from going to illegal aliens. Many of the E-Verify states, by the way, have also passed laws establishing stiff fines and jail time for public contractors and private employers who knowingly hire illegal workers.
E-Verify can be even more effective when coupled with another system to identify and remove illegal workers who have committed identity fraud. (By the way, the term "undocumented" workers is ludicrous, They are often the most "documented," except that the documents are all fake!)
A national Social Security No-Match program, coupled with a national mandatory E-Verify program for employers, would put millions of Americans back to work soon. If a Social Security number is bogus or was stolen from a legal resident, the illegal worker is busted. The Obama administration supports the E-Verify program for businesses on a voluntary basis. But why not the Social Security No-Match program?
Why not make both required nationally by law? Legislation is being forged in Congress to make this happen. Let's just hope there will be enough citizen pressure to generate bipartisan support to enact this legislation, and to send the bill to President Obama's desk for his signature.
Americans want action. Most are not interested in blaming the previous administration. Let's face facts: The Obama "jobs stimulus" spending didn't work.
I wasn't alive in the 1930s and there has been serious debate whether such a spending spree worked during President Franklin Roosevelt's administration, but we know for sure it has not worked this time. It has only made our nation drown in debt.
If official unemployment figures hover at around 9 percent or even 8 percent, with many Americans hurting and piling up more personal debt, it is hard to see how the president can be re-elected, no matter who the Republican Party picks as its presidential nominee.
E-Verify, however, can help get the unemployment numbers for many unemployed American citizens going in the right direction.
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