Thread: Mandatory E-Verify Fights For Life in Florida

E-Verify Fights For Life in Florida

By BOB DANE April 12, 2018 1 Comment

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Bidding to make Florida the largest state with a mandatory E-Verify law, immigration-enforcement activists are close to putting the program up for a public vote.

Frustrated with politicians whose campaign pledges evaporate in office, Floridians for Immigration Enforcement and allied groups are on the verge of getting an employment-verification proposition on the November ballot.

The state Constitution Revision Commission voted for the proposal 19-13 after two committees unanimously approved it. But 22 votes are needed by next week’s deadline to make the ballot.

Billionaire GOP contributor Michael Fernandez and nearly 70 other business and political leaders are stepping up their fight to block the way. Money talks, and Fernandez is speaking loudly.

Throwing in with the Immigration Partnership and Coalition (IMPAC) Fund – and against legal workers in Florida — Fernandez & Co. blithely assert that “E-Verify will destroy our state’s economy.”

In truth, the big-money opposition to E-Verify is a rear-guard effort to perpetuate Florida’s shadowy low-wage economy at the expense of legal workers. Though Gov. Rick Scott signed a 2008 executive order requiring E-Verify for state agencies and their contractors, Florida remains the only state in the Southeast without a comprehensive E-Verify program.

The Naples Daily News, in an investigation into “Florida’s Disposable Workers,” reported that employers across the state “continue accepting false documents without checking them, even in industries with a high percentage of unauthorized workers or with a history of employees using fake identification. Some workers have accused employers of actually providing the false documents.”

The fight over E-Verify comes down to a battle between powerful lobbyists and billionaires against working men and women whose voices and concerns have long been ignored at the Legislature, where Republican super majorities have killed 48 immigration-enforcement bills since 2008.

Though a rising tide of illegal aliens costs the Sunshine State more than $6 billion annually, Floridians cannot assume that the three additional votes needed for the E-Verify proposition are a lock. Nor can they count on all the earlier supporters holding firm.

CRC Chairman Carlos Beruff ran for U.S. Senate against Marco Rubio on a mandatory E-Verify platform. Now on the commission, Beruff voted against E-Verify.

Florida politicians can make all the empty promises they need to get elected. They can even pass immigration laws that tinker around the margins. But until E-Verify becomes law, Florida’s illegal job magnet will continue attract outlaw labor, and law-abiding workers will pay the price.

It’s time the citizens of Florida had their say.

https://immigrationreform.com/2018/0...-life-florida/

Though a rising tide of illegal aliens costs the Sunshine State more than $6 billion annually

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SIX BILLION AND RISING EVERY YEAR!!!

MORE PUERTO RICAN'S WILL BE COMING TO THE MAINLAND

PUT THEM TO WORK AND KEEP THEM OFF WELFARE AND FOOD STAMPS!

WORK FOR WELFARE TO KEEP THEM OFF WELFARE!

DEPORT ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS

Florida Bends to Illegal Job Magnet, Boots E-Verify

By Bob Dane April 17, 2018 3 Comments

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The E-Verify employment-vetting system won’t be on Florida’s November ballot for a public vote, but the program is growing nonetheless.

The state Constitution Revision Commission on Monday rejecteber of Commerce and allied activists for illegal aliens, 24 of 36 commissioners voted to kill the ballot measure.

While the Chamber called the commission’s action “a win for protecting Florida’s Constitution,” E-Verify continues to expand throughout the state and across the country.

Twenty states have laws requiring at least some employers to use E-Verify. Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee mandate it for all employers. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, in 2011, signed an executive order directing state agencies and their contractors to use the system.

Nationally, 2.4 million hiring sites were enrolled in the E-Verify program at the end of 2017. California, that famed sanctuary state, listed the most E-Verify-compliant hiring sites: 216,850.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reported a record 9.1 million individual cases were processed during the last fiscal year. Notably, Florida ranked fourth in the country, with 454,100 E-Verify checks.

Growth of E-Verify has been rapid. In 2001, just 1,064 employers participated in the program. By 2017, 749,923 were on board.

The Center for Immigration Studies calls E-Verify “one of the most successful tools available to address illegal employment.” By cross-checking information from the federal I-9 form, which must be completed for all new hires, against records from USCIS and the Social Security Administration, E-Verify enables employers to instantly verify whether a new employee is legally authorized to work in the country.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce boasted it had protected the state’s constitution by aborting the E-Verify ballot measure. In fact, the Chamber’s rear-guard lobbying campaign shielded shady, bottom-feeding employers who suppress wages and undercut law-abiding competitors with illegal workers.

So Florida continues to labor with an inequitable underground economy, and its citizens are denied an opportunity to exercise their constitutional rights. With the pre-emptive defeat of Proposal 6010, the illegal job magnet remains in place. More employers may now opt out of E-Verify altogether.

None of that sounds like a “win” for the Sunshine State.

https://immigrationreform.com/2018/0...oots-e-verify/

That's a shame.

Right now there is a law that requires legal eligibility for work in the US which is the I-9 form. Maybe there's a way to implement a regulation that gives the US Labor Department authority to verify I-9 form compliance, using the E-verify system as a verification tool to avoid automatic audits.

In other words, employers are already required to verify, but if they haven't verified the I-9 form, then there is no verification requiring an audit to verify. So as an alternative to an automatic audit by Labor or whoever does the I-9 verification audits, you can be signed up for E-verify, assert you E-verify the I-9 forms signed by the employee, or detail the other types of verification you use to verify their I-9 form. But, if you don't use E-verify, you will be audited by the government to verify your I-9 forms and verification process. You can send the employers an affidavit, sworn and notarized, that asserts their verification or if they're signed up for E-Verify, refer to that database for compliance. If upon discovery that a non-E-Verify employer provided a false affidavit, then that is a crime by the individual who provided the affidavit and that could be prison time for the owner or manager who submitted it when found to be false during an audit.

That might encourage more companies to sign up for E-verify voluntarily.

Just an idea.

Form I-9

Form I-9, officially the Employment Eligibility Verification, is a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services form. Mandated by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, it is used to verify the identity and legal authorization to work of all paid employees in the United States. All U.S. employers must ensure proper completion of Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States.^[1][2]


USCIS Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification (revised July 2017)

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_I-9}

More Employers May Be Using Temps To Skirt Immigration Laws

The I-9 form is mandatory but obviously NOT used in certain businesses or are mickey-ed up. Otherwise, we would not have 12 million illegals working in this country. Amazing the levels of lies/fraud. Comcast at one point was loaded with illegals as customer service agents that did not understand English properly but where able to con you into wasting your time w/o results. They must have rec'd many complaints; so now be happy with your indian visa worker. I-9 is often not req'd for many by the day workers, also construction crews paid under the table, BOH restaurants, cheaper to pay cash slave labor rates.

Versión en español

I-9 Inspections

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, employees from the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) at the Department of Justice, and employees from the Department of Labor may inspect an employer’s Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.

Employers will generally receive a written Notice of Inspection at least 3 days before the inspection. These officials can inform the owner, designee, senior management official or registered agent of the business entity of an inspection in person or by certified U.S. mail, return receipt requested.

Officials may also use subpoenas and warrants to obtain the forms without providing 3 days’ notice.

Officials generally choose where they will conduct a Form I-9 inspection. For example, officials may ask that an employer bring Form I-9 to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. Sometimes, employers may arrange for an inspection at the location where the forms are stored.

Recruiters and referrers for a fee who have designated employers to complete Form I-9 may present photocopies or printed electronic images of those forms to inspecting officials.

When officials arrive to inspect an employer’s Form I-9, the employer must:

• Retrieve and reproduce electronically stored Form I-9 and any other documents the officer requests;
• Provide the officer with the necessary hardware and software to inspect electronic documents; and
• Provide the officer with any existing electronic summary of the information recorded on the employer’s Form I-9.

Employers who refuse or delay an inspection may be in violation of the law.

Last Reviewed/Updated: 02/13/2017

https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/re...on/inspections

I-9 Penalties

The IRCA includes penalties for I-9 noncompliance.

According to the I-9 form, "federal law provides for imprisonment and/or fines for false statements or use of false documents in connection with the completion of this form."

An employer who hires an unauthorized worker can be fined between $250 and $5,500 per worker.^[3] In addition, such an employer can be barred from federal government contracts for a year.^[3] An employee who knowingly accepts fraudulent documentation can also be criminally prosecuted under other immigration laws.^[3]

An employer who fails to keep proper records that I-9s are properly filed can be fined $110 per missing item for each form, up to $1100 per form, even if the employee is legally authorized to work in the US.^[3] Since 2009, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted over 7,500 audits and imposed over $80 million in fines. In 2011 alone, ICE conducted 2,740 audits and assessed over $7 million in fines. ^[8]

An individual who knowingly commits or participates in document fraud may be fined between $375 and $3,200 per document for the first offense, and between $3,200 and $6,500 per document for subsequent offenses.<sup>[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_I-9</sup>

Florida politicians can make all the empty promises they need to get elected.

That's exactly what Sen. Marco Rubio did on immigration when he ran for and served in the Florida House.