Question of the Week: Passage of E-Verify

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.

September 23, 2011

Question: Did the House Judiciary Committee vote to require all employers use E-Verify?

Answer: Yes, on September 21, the House Judiciary Committee approved H.R. 2885, the Legal Workforce Act, by a vote of 22 to 13. This bill would require all employers in the U.S. use E-Verify to ensure that all new hires are actually authorized to work in this country.

E-Verify is based on one of the recommendations of the 1995 Congressional Task Force on Immigration Reform, which I chaired. E-Verify simply matches a person's name, Social Security number and birth date against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security databases. It is free, accurate, and easy to use.

Requiring that employers ensure they hire legal workers will free up at least 7 million jobs for Americans within the next two years.

Specifically, H.R. 2885:

• Repeals the current paper-based I-9 system and replaces it with E-Verify.
• Requires the largest employers, those having more than 10,000 employees, to use E-Verify six months after it becomes law.
• Requires employers having between 500 to 9,999 employees to use E-Verify 12 months after it becomes law.
• Requires businesses having 20 to 499 employees to use E-Verify within 18 months.
• Requires all businesses to use E-Verify two years after enactment.

H.R. 2885 recognizes that, unlike other industries, agriculture employs workers whose skills are not readily available in the United States. Therefore, the bill does not require E-Verify for farm workers until three years after enactment, giving Congress time to devise an effective agricultural guest worker program.

Now that the Judiciary Committee has approved the bill, it will be considered by the Education and Workforce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee before it can be considered by the full House of Representatives. As a strong supporter of E-Verify, I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to pass H.R. 2885 into law.

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

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