Question of the Week: Jobs

These questions are culled from phone calls, letters, faxes and e-mails sent to Rep. Gallegly's Camarillo, Solvang, and Washington offices. Each week Rep. Gallegly adds another question and answer. Please add your comments.

August 12, 2011

Question: What are you doing to create jobs?

Answer: I understand that many Californians are continuing to suffer from the current economic downturn. I have been working on three ways that will help grow our economy and help employers create jobs for U.S. citizens and legal workers.

• We could open up as many as 7 million jobs within two years by requiring all employers to use E-Verify to ensure all new hires are legally authorized to work in the United States.
• We must eliminate out-dated, unnecessary government regulations. Too many employers have had to divert resources to follow expensive and inefficient government regulations rather than focus on creating jobs.
• We need to keep the tax burden low for small businesses. Although it is critical that we address our budget deficit, the best way is to ease the deficit is to grow the economy, not the government.

I will focus on unnecessary government regulation and the tax burden in future weeks, but this week, I will address the importance of requiring all employers use E-Verify.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas, Representative Ken Calvert of Corona, and I have introduced legislation, H.R. 2164, the Legal Workforce Act. This bill would make it mandatory for all employers to use E-Verify. E-Verify is an easy-to-use, accurate, computer-based, employee verification system that ensures employees have a legal right to work in the United States.

It is a myth that illegal immigrants only work jobs American workers won't work. Recent studies estimate that most of the jobs associated with illegal immigrants are actually held by American citizens. In fact, 80 percent of cooks, 75 percent of construction workers, 78 percent of housekeeping personnel and 75 percent of groundskeepers are legal American workers. That means that 20 percent of cooks, 25 percent of construction workers, 22 percent of housekeeping personnel and 25 percent of groundskeepers are illegal immigrants taking jobs from American workers.

American citizens should not have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs. According to conservative estimates, at least 7 million illegal immigrants are currently working in jobs that should be available for American citizens. Replacing the current inaccurate, paper-based I-9 system with E-Verify will enable employers to almost immediately determine whether a new hire is legally authorized to work in the United States. It will reserve American jobs for those with a legal right to work here.

For more information on my positions on the economy, please see my Key Issue: Economy page.

For previous Questions of the Week chronologically and by topic, please see my Questions of the Week page.