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.
January 13, 2012
Question: What are you doing to help employers create new jobs?
Answer: Although I am pleased that the unemployment rate has slowly come down over the past few months, unemployment is still unacceptably high. I hear from many business owners that they will not hire new workers because of the uncertain economic climate because there is too much uncertainty caused by new proposed regulations, the possibility of a major tax increase, and questions about the economic stability of Europe and Asia.
I am working to help employers by eliminating unnecessary government regulation and keeping taxes and federal spending low, but the most important thing we can do to almost immediately create jobs for Americans is to pass H.R. 2885, the Legal Workforce Act.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas, Representative Ken Calvert of Corona, and I introduced H.R. 2885 on September 12. H.R. 2885 would require all employers use E-Verify. 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.
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.
It is simply untrue that illegal immigrants only take jobs American workers don’t want. 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.
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.
On September 21, the House Judiciary Committee approved H.R. 2885 by a vote of 22 to 13. 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 economic issues, please see my Key Issue: Economy page. For more information on my positions on immigration issues, 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.
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