Thread: NEW E-Verify.gov website

And I never said I didn't want it nationally mandated, not in that quote or anywhere else .... ever.

It doesn't look like the law is going to pass any time soon, so I'm suggesting the E-Verify program representatives go on Fox and Friends and promote using E-Verify by explaining all the advantages it offers to both American workers and American employers. With a pick-up in ICE raids on businesses, now is a good time to do that, because signing up for the program will help employers stay out of trouble and ensure they are hiring legal American workers for jobs our workers want and need and employers need to fill.

Originally Posted by Judy

And I never said I didn't want it nationally mandated, not in that quote or anywhere else .... ever.

It doesn't look like the law is going to pass any time soon, so I'm suggesting the E-Verify program representatives go on Fox and Friends and promote using E-Verify by explaining all the advantages it offers to both American workers and American employers. With a pick-up in ICE raids on businesses, now is a good time to do that, because signing up for the program will help employers stay out of trouble and ensure they are hiring legal American workers for jobs our workers want and need and employers need to fill.

I agree that the Trump administration needs to do more to talk up the program. Furthermore, IMO, Trump needs to be pounding Ryan for a stand alone bill on E-Verify. I dare every Democrat to shoot down such a bill with the 2018 elections right around the corner. Unfortunately, our GOP has no intention of pushing an immigration bill of any kind right now. E-Verify could be pushed as a national security issue. If many pundit predictions come true and we lose the House and/or Senate in 2018, all is lost and Trump's next two years will be a bust for us on any immigration issue that doesn't include amnesty.

I had high hopes on immigration/border security when Trump ascended to the Oval Office, however, Ryan and McConnel have pretty much dashed those hopes. My party has been a huge disappointment on immigration/border security!

Originally Posted by MW

So am I to assume you don't support nationally mandating E-Verify?

How perceptive since that is what I said!

Originally Posted by MW

Okay, shockingly I guess we can mark you and Judy down as not supporting required E-Verify for employers. Honestly, I'm at a loss for words.

Okay, maybe you're not that perceptive. I gave my reasoning.

Republicans don't have enough votes to pass any immigration bill in the Senate. Why are you disappointed with the party on immigration and border security? Voters are the ones who determine the composition of the Congress. If you don't have a majority of 60 votes in the Senate, you're cooked on immigration bills, until you do. I mean you knew the count in November 2016 as soon as the votes in all the races were counted. Not sure what you expected. Some Trump voters thought that because we had 52 Senate seats, a simple majority, that we could pass any bill we wanted. Unfortunately, that's not the case, and although Trump tried to get McConnell to change the Senate rules several times, McConnell thinks it's too dangerous and it probably is.

So unless Trump and GOP in Congress can figure something out later in the year with a reconciliation bill that only requires a simple majority, we're stuck with no new legislation until we work our asses off to elect more Republicans so we have enough votes to pass the immigration bills we want and need. And I'm good with that, I personally made that decision when I opposed the DACA DEAL and assume everyone else did too, because that is the reality of the choice we all made.

There's approximately 7 months until the next General Election and Trump is busy on a lot of fronts, he's gaining in approval ratings, Republicans are closing the gap in the generic polls, so if everyone would pull together to win in November, we certainly have the track record, results and a record list of accomplishments across the board due largely to Trump to gain seats in November and even have a super filibuster-proof majority in the US Senate.

Originally Posted by jtdc

How perceptive since that is what I said!

Okay, maybe you're not that perceptive. I gave my reasoning.

Originally Posted by MW

E-Verify could be pushed as a national security issue.

Just like TSA was pushed as a national security issue? Look how well that has worked. Innocent people on the No-Fly List. Some 95% penetration in tests. Many are calling for independent security instead. An airline might run tighter security if they don't want to lose a plane. With TSA, it's just a job! I relate that to a talk with a Marine when I was in the Air Force. Officers in the Air Force were elitist who felt superior to enlisted members. That Marine said the officers went bar-hopping with the enlisted men. He said the officer pilots wanted the men working on their aircraft to be their friends who wanted them to come home.

And of course Obamacare was pushed as a necessary mandate. How do you feel about that?

When I was in trucking and I hired a new driver, I had to get approval from my insurance carrier. They had access to driver information from many states and a pool of insurance company claims. In one case they even discovered a driver with multiple licenses that state's records couldn't show. Competition can make many things better.

As I already said, mandating E-Verify will not prevent people from hiring an illegal alien. It only makes it easier to make sure they are legal.

I agree with you jtdc, it's not the magic fix-all we wish it was. Still I support broader use of it because it helps both our workers and our businesses in many ways. Several states have passed their own E-verify laws, too. That's another way to go if we advertise and promote it, states can pick up the ball and pass their own E-verify laws. There were 20 in 2012 so I would imagine more by now.

Someone from the program needs to go on Fox and Friends and really promote using it and passing E-Verify in their state.

Tancredo: Mandatory E-Verify for Employment Should be Donald Trump’s Top Immigration Priority

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Alex Wong/Getty Images

by TOM TANCREDO7 Jan 2017

Yes, the wall on our southwest border can and should be built. But it is less important than enacting the mandatory E-Verify system for employment.

Let’s face it. We all know it is the prospect of a better life through employment that attracts the vast majority of border jumpers. Our system for blocking unlawful employment of foreign-born workers who lack a lawful work permit has always been a joke, and under Obama, enforcement has been an even lower priority than it was under Bush.

Congress can turn off the jobs magnet by enacting the mandatory E-Verify program, an internet-based system allowing instant verification of the legal status of job applicants. It has an error rate of less than 1 percent and costs employers next to nothing.

Foreign born workers have no constitutional right to employment. Like every European country, Mexico and all of the advanced nations of the world, the United States has a system of “work authorization permits” for legal employment by immigrants and all foreign nationals. The problem is, our laws against unlawful employment are not enforced– in fact, they are unenforceable without major changes and improvements.

The easy availability of unlawful employment is the giant magnet motivating millions of illegal aliens to cross our borders unlawfully. We also have a mushrooming problem of millions of “visa overstays,” people who arrive on a legal tourist or other temporary visa but do not leave on the expiration date. They, too, are most often seeking employment.

If we turn off the jobs magnet, illegal entry across our borders can change from a flood to a trickle. Then the Border Patrol could concentrate on stopping terrorists and drug traffickers, and job seekers would have to get in line for one of the many LEGAL guest worker programs already on the books.

The United States already has several guest worker programs that allow employers to hire foreign workers for seasonal labor– in agriculture, in seasonal ski resorts, in landscaping, and other fields. Foreign workers are brought in for seasonal jobs where it has been demonstrated that American workers are not available — and then they go home. We even allow the hiring of year-round foreign sheep herders from Peru, Portugal and Afghanistan because, evidently, Americans will not do those jobs.

There is an important principle involved in legal guest worker programs. They are authorized only when it has been demonstrated that American workers are not available at market-based wages. Foreign workers should be SUPPLEMENTING American workers, not REPLACING them.

As a member of Congress, I sponsored a bill to allow any employer to hire a foreign worker for any job after the US Labor Department had verified that wages had been rising in that occupation for at least three successive quarters, which would be a free market demonstration of a labor shortage. If wages are flat or declining, there is no documented labor shortage.

If there are genuine labor shortages in some occupations, then by all means, let’s have a viable, LEGAL guest worker program available to employers in those fields. But that is not the case with 98 percent of the jobs now going to illegal workers. The ready availability of cheap illegal labor has been a major factor in wage stagnation over the past 20 years.

That illegal spigot must be turned off, and making the E-Verify system mandatory for all employers is the way to do it.

The E-Verify system already exists as a voluntary program administered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) bureau within the Department of Homeland Security. A 2014 statement by Lori Scialabba, Obama’s Acting Director of USCIS, endorsed the program as an immense success, with over a half-million employers participating nationwide: “Since it was established, E-Verify has experienced exponential growth, increased accuracy and high customer-satisfaction ratings.”

So, why hasn’t mandatory E-Verify program been adopted by Congress already? It has been included as part of some of the amnesty bills proposed over the past decade, but only as a sop to immigration enforcement, never as stand-alone legislation to fix a concrete problem.

Why not? The answer is that the E-Verify program has been opposed because the open borders lobby knows it will work. It is opposed by the US Chamber of Commerce and every other member of the coalition that supported the 2013 “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill.

Rep. Lamar Smith’s mandatory E-Verify bill, HR 1147, was approved by bipartisan committee vote in the House in 2015, but never allowed to reach the floor for an up or down vote. Sen. Grassley’s bill was considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee but similarly never allowed to get to the floor.

With Republican majorities now controlling both the House and Senate calendars, there is no valid reason not to bring these bills to a vote. Differences can be ironed out in a conference committee and a bill sent to President Trump in the first 100 days of the session.

Sadly, despite lip service paid to mandatory E-Verify by scores of Republican bill sponsors, only strong push by President Trump and his executive branch appointees can move E-Verify program to a vote in Congress. If Trump is really serious about immigration enforcement, he will make this his top priority.

The E-Verify bill will be a good test case for his White House team. Will Trump’s White House policy team prevail over the “pragmatists” who will want to wait for “congressional consensus”?

Does Trump want to fix the problem, or merely continue blaming Democrats for obstruction? In truth, on many important immigration enforcement issues, the obstruction is coming from within his own party.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...tion-priority/

Republicans can't pass E-Verify without Democrat votes, there are no Democrat votes for E-Verify or any other immigration bill. So Tom, nothing's changed since you were in Congress and you couldn't pass it when you were there.

Originally Posted by Judy

Republicans can't pass E-Verify without Democrat votes, there are no Democrat votes for E-Verify or any other immigration bill. So Tom, nothing's changed since you were in Congress and you couldn't pass it when you were there.

You can't possibly know that. E-Verify should be a bipartisan issue. To my knowledge no U.S. Congress has attempted to pass a stand alone E-Verify bill. We need to get every congressperson on record with a vote! Republicans are afraid of going against the Chamber of Commerce and businesses that hire illegal labor and the Democrats are afraid of illegals self-deporting because of no jobs. The Democrats want illegals to stay here until an amnesty can be passed (future voters). Like I said, we need to get these people on record through the voting process! I dare any Republican or Democrat in a red or purple state to vote against it.

If such a bill ever actually hit the floor, many would find it very difficult to go on public record as non-supporters.