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Bad news! Bad E-Verify bill must be killed! |
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Our efforts to fix the fataly-flawed mandatory E-Verify bill in the House Judiciary Committee have failed. Our current Congress seems determined to pass a bad bill. We have 2 more opportunities to stop Lamar Smith's H.R. 2885, the Legal Workforce Act. Please call your own Congressman and members of the House Ways and Means Committee to ask them to vote against this bill. Some of the most egregious problems with the bill are listed in the next section of this alert.
1. Call members of the House Ways and Means Committee to oppose this bill.
2. Call your own Congressman to oppose this bill:
List of Congressmen from Indiana.
Look up Congressmen from other states here.
Call any U.S. Congressman or Senator toll free at:
1-866-220-0044 or 1-877-851-6437
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Can you handle the truth? |
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I'm sorry to tell you I have come to the conclusion that our government will not allow an effective E-Verify bill to pass. Since we failed to get Section 6, the part that preempts states' rights, removed from the bill in the Judiciary Committee--we must now kill the bill. 
When Lamar Smith changed his Legal Workforce Act from HR2164 to HR2885, he just made it worse, more intrusive and ineffective. Click here to read the bill.
Section 6 of the bill nullifies states' rights to enforce E-Verify laws.
Section 11 authorizes a pilot program for biometric ID cards. Our federal government won't allow us to require even one bonafide identity document from an illegal alien, but they want to add another more intrusive ID onto us citizens? No way!
Section 2 exempts "returning" agricultural workers from the E-Verify program. Not only will farmers be allowed to retain their illegal workforce, but there is no way to ensure that illegals stay on the farms and not in construction, factory and restaurant jobs.
Section 2 does NOT require employers to fire illegals who receive a final notice of nonconfirmation through E-Verify. Yes, you read that right! The company may opt to retain the illegal worker even after receiving notice of a final nonconfirmation from E-Verify! The employer who does this would be guilty of "knowingly" hiring an illegal and would be subject to severe penalties under the law. That is, IF the law is ever enforced! Please recall that the current administration has issued many waivers exempting certain favored companies from complying with Obamacare. What's to stop them from doing the same thing with illegal immigration? They have already exempted 300,000 deportable aliens from deportation. Why wouldn't they also exempt certain favored companies from penalties for knowingly keeping illegals on their payroll?
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Who's Who in Illegal Immigration? |
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Look at who is supporting Lamar Smith's H.R. 2885! If proponents of immigration enforcement had an Enemy List, this would be it! Included are:
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
National Restaurant Association
American Hotel and Lodging Association
National Association of Home Builders
National Roofing Contractors Association
Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado
American Meat Institute
Associated General Contractors of America
Immigration Works USA (Tamar Jacoby's group)
Numbers USA (what are they doing on the list???)
Now, look at who is opposing Smith's bill:
Tom Tancredo withdraws support for Chmn. Smith's bill.
Tom's initial reaction to the Smith bill.
Kris Kobach: Law & Border.
Kris Kobach video at Eagle Forum.
Kris Kobach: Another Amnesty?
Kobach: Throwing the States off the Field. Michael Cutler: Deja vu all over again? Opposes.
Rick Oltman questions Chamber's motives. Opposes.
Congressman Lou Barletta opposes bill as written.
Supreme Court orders review of Hazelton case.
AZ State Senator Pearce opposes bill as written.
Phyllis Schlafly/Eagle Forum opposes bill as written.
U.S. Border Control opposes bill as written.
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The Back Story |
 Here's what we think went on behind the scenes. The Chamber of Commerce has been leading the fight against immigration enforcement bills in the states. The courts have been ruling in the states' favor recently. A judge has upheld most of Alabama's new immigration enforcement law which is now thought to be even tougher than Arizona's! In May, 2011, our side won a huge victory when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Arizona law that penalizes companies that knowingly hire illegals. In the majority opinion in the case of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vs. Whiting, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "the state's licensing provisions fall squarely within the federal statute's savings clause and that the Arizona regulation does not otherwise conflict with federal law." Because of this decision, we expect more states to join the 17 states that have already passed immigration enforcement laws. We believe this drove the business community to work with Congressman Lamar Smith to craft a bill that would take the states out of the immigration enforcement game once and for all. That's exactly what Section 6 would have accomplished by preempting state rights. The main reason the states are passing these laws is that the Feds are not doing their job. The business community does not want E-Verify but they were willing to sign on to Smith's E-Verify bill because they were confident it would never be enforced! From the minute this bill was introduced, we were told it would never receive a vote if the bad state preemption in Section 6 was removed. Even though Smith's H.R. 2885 essentially exempted Ag workers from E-Verify for 3 years, even though Smith offered a separate bill (H.R. 2847) that would have authorized half a million more legal Ag workers, "Big Ag" never signed on to the Legal Workforce Act. The bottom line is we will never get a good immigration enforcement bill out of Congress until we replace more of the bad actors on both sides of the aisle. We are making progress towards this goal. Meanwhile, the best thing to do is to continue to pass immigration enforcement bills on the state level. |
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IFIRE is now on Facebook! |
 You can now find IFIRE on Facebook! You may request to join our group by clicking here. We will post our IFIRE alerts here after they have been archived so it will be easier for you to share them with your FB friends. This page will be especially helpful for notifying you about upcoming meetings and opportunities to testify in support of good state legislation. And, of course, we will post interesting immigration articles from Indiana and around the nation. Please join the discussion!
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Good news re: FAIR. Bad news re: Numbers USA |
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Thank you to everyone who called FAIR and convinced them NOT to support Lamar Smith's new mandatory E-Verify bill, H.R. 2885. Read FAIR's press release here.
Call FAIR to thank them for withholding their support for Smith's bill as long as it contains the Ag worker amnesty and preemption of states' rights sections.
FAIR
202-328-7004
Email remarks to: comments@fairus.org
Despite our calls, NUSA persists in supporting this bill. They have tried to explain their reasoning to me but I still strongly oppose their support of H.R. 2885.
Numbers USA
703-816-8820
Email webpage for questions/comments.
Caution: Trust but verify! If you send any faxes through these organizations, make sure they say that you oppose the Smith bill unless the state preemption and Ag worker amnesty parts are first removed. You may change the body of the fax or add a P.S. to make this clear. |
