Thread: Sen. Stimulus Bill Would Provide 300,000 Jobs for Illegals

This report was just released. Please call your Senators and urge them to support E-Verify. Pro-illegal alien groups are lobbying furiously against E-Verify:
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heritage.org
February 4, 2009
Senate Stimulus Bill Would Provide 300,000 Jobs for Illegal Immigrants
by Robert E. Rector
WebMemo #2268

If enacted, the Senate stimulus bill would fund over $100 billion in new government construction projects with the goal of providing additional jobs to unemployed Americans. The House-passed stimulus bill contains explicit language to bar employment of illegal immigrants in these construction projects. However, the Senate bill deliberately omits this language.

If the Senate version of the bill becomes law, a great number of the workers employed in government construction programs will, in fact, be illegal immigrants. About one out of seven (or 15 percent) of workers employed in construction in the U.S. is an illegal immigrant.[1] Unless strong mechanisms are put in place to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants, it is reasonable to expect that a similar proportion of workers hired for construction projects under the stimulus bill would be in the country illegally.

Construction Funding and Employment of Illegal Immigrants

The Senate stimulus bill would provide roughly $104 billion in funding for a variety of construction projects including highways, schools, and renovation of public housing. This funding will be spread over five to seven years. Normal government estimates indicate that each $1 billion spent on construction will create around 19,500 construction jobs, each lasting a year.[2] Thus $104 billion in funding in construction projects would ostensibly create construction-related jobs for about 2.04 million workers over several years. Without specific mechanisms to ensure that workers are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants authorized to work, it is likely that 15 percent of these workers, or 300,000, would be illegal immigrants.

House Bill Blocks Employment of Illegal Immigrants

The House-passed version of the stimulus bill (H.R. 1, the American Recovery an Reinvestment Act) contains explicit language, introduced by Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA), requiring that all contractors receiving funds under the bill use the federal E-Verify system to determine whether workers are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants authorized to work.

E-Verify is a real-time, web-based verification system run by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. E-Verify can determine with great accuracy the authenticity of the personal information and credentials offered by employees and new hires.[3] In most cases, verification occurs almost instantly.

Some 99.4 percent of lawful workers receive immediate positive verification, while the other 0.6 percent of lawful workers receive positive verification after a brief visit to their local security office, generally lasting only a few minutes. Despite years of use and screenings of millions of employees, there has never been a single instance in which a lawful worker lost permanent employment as a result of erroneous information provided by the E-Verify system.[4]

E-Verify is a very effective mechanism for determining the legal status of potential workers. E-Verify is inexpensive for employers to use, costing between $4 and $20 for each employee screened.[5] E-Verify is in wide use; currently about one in 10 new hires in the U.S. economy are screened through the E-Verify system.

At present, all federal employees are checked by the E-Verify system, but outside contractors receiving federal funds (such as construction firms) are not required to use the system. Requiring contractors receiving stimulus funds to use E-Verify will greatly reduce the probability that those funds will be used to employ illegal immigrants.

Senate Bill Does Not Block Use of Federal Funds to Employ Illegal Immigrants

The stimulus bill currently being debated in the Senate deliberately omits the E-Verify provision from the House bill. Later this week, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) will introduce an amendment to include the House E-Verify language in the Senate bill. However, if the current Senate bill were to become law without language requiring contractor use of E-Verify, the inevitable result would be billions in federal funds spent to employ illegal immigrants.

Robert Rector is Senior Research Fellow in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation

[1]Steven A. Camarota, "Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit From the Labor Market, 2000-2005," Center for Immigration Studies, March 2006, p. 19, at http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back206.html (February 4, 2009).

[2]Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, "Employment Impacts of Highway Infrastructure Investment," April 7, 2008. This report no longer appears on the DOT website. Contact the author for the original PDF file. Of course, government spending is not a free lunch. Federal highway dollars must first be taxed or borrowed from the private sector, which will then lose a similar number of jobs. Consequently, these programs merely transfer resources and jobs from one part of the economy to another. See Ronald D. Utt, "More Transportation Spending: False Promises of Prosperity and Job Creation," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2121, April 2, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/budget/bg2121.cfm.

[3]Robert Rector, "Reducing Illegal Immigration through Employment Verification, Enforcement, and Protection," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2192, October 7, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/bg2192.cfm.

[4]Ibid.

[5]Ibid.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2268.cfm

Right....we don't want illegals leaving. That would undermine the passing of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (read AMNESTY). That would completely obliterate the elitest plan to reach world governance. That's what this stimilus plan is all about otherwise if we really wanted to stimulate the economy we could take 800 billion dollars and pass it out to the taxpayers of this country and they will spend it! How much more stimulus could you give to the economy?

Got my calls and faxes in on the Sessions amendments to the Reinvestment Act.

It is appalling to me that some of Obama's crack "economic advisors" are the leaders of unions that already have many illegal alien members. Furthermore, tax evasion is rampant in some of these groups. Yet it has always been frustrating to get officials---either Republican or Democrats--to go after these cheaters. I've noticed even on ALIPAC my comments on this subject don't get much notice.

Yet it is these "advisors" who are pushing the stimulus package, have invited illegal aliens to join their organizations, have chipped in their members' dues money to Obama's campaign-- and will reap the benefits of federal job creation. The secretary of the new Change to Win coalition---superseding much of the AFL-CIO--Ms. Anna Burger(SEIU)---is one of the big proponents. Also "Cash" McCarron of the Carpenters Union, among other union bosses. Rod Blagoyevich was even bargaining with the Change to Win/SEIU people.

If Daschle is called on the carpet for tax evasion--how do these other characters get away with it. Is it only politicians who are required to have high ethical standards? I know that isn't true. This whole Political Machine needs to be exposed. The union bosses shouldn't be condoning or turning a blind eye to tax evasion within their ranks. And if they are personally guilty they should be exposed. In addition to their RICO violations. C'mon ALIPAC'ers---we need to get vocal about this.

"Construction Funding and Employment of Illegal Immigrants

The Senate stimulus bill would provide roughly $104 billion in funding for a variety of construction projects including highways, schools, and renovation of public housing. This funding will be spread over five to seven years. Normal government estimates indicate that each $1 billion spent on construction will create around 19,500 construction jobs, each lasting a year.[2] Thus $104 billion in funding in construction projects would ostensibly create construction-related jobs for about 2.04 million workers over several years. Without specific mechanisms to ensure that workers are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants authorized to work, it is likely that 15 percent of these workers, or 300,000, would be illegal immigrants."

I think in the Southwest the percentage of illegal aliens on construction projects would be higher than 15%. While pointing out that being "Hispanic" does not make one an illegal alien, it is also true that 60% of illegal aliens are Mexican nationals. On construction sites in the Dallas area -- be it construction crews for the "George H.W. Bush Freeway", city street crews, or those building the many housing communities which burgeon around the Dallas, ALL the construction workers are "Hispanic "now. Any Northern European Americans Caucasians in view are in supervisory positions, and I never see an Afro-American working construction on these projects in any capactiy. We are told that Hispanic crews work as a homogeneous group, and I'm sure that workers who do not speak Spanish frankly would have a hard time working among them. It is my recollection that construction workers come in under H-2B Visas, which is one of the smaller legal visa programs. It is going to take a lot of effort for us to reverse the preference on the part of these large construction companies for using primarily Spanish-speaking crews, which serves to screen out the ability of native-born U.S. workers to work with them effectively even if they were hired, including "Hispanic" U.S. citizens who themselves do not speak Spanish.

ACTION ALERT! PLEASE JOIN IN!

http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-844030.html#844030

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-3955--0-0.html

Damn what country is this!? I thought I was living in AMERICA?? England is now officially in a recession, as well as many other countries because of the crackpot people here. Do these corrupt cockroaches in the white house even care that they are bringing down the world at the same time they are bringing down the Americas? This has got to end!

Hiring illegals to work these construction projects is just a type of amnesty. Is that the real motivation for the Stimulus Bill? Secondly we don't really even need a Stimulus Bill. Just give the money to the citizens and legal residents. They will take the money and spend it, save it or invest it. That way the economy will get stimulated and not illegal aliens.

They are expected to vote on this tonight, Sen. Coburn from Oklahoma was blasting the stimulus as stealing from our grandchildren to build museums and golf courses because there is lots of special interest stuff in the stimulus that has nothing to do with helping struggling Americans.

Stimulus could supply illegals with 300,000 jobs
Positions for Americans may go to aliens if current Senate bill passes

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Posted: February 05, 2009
11:50 pm Eastern


By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


The Senate's stimulus bill could supply 300,000 construction jobs to illegal aliens, effectively sending those taxpayer funds to Mexico and other countries, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

The bill currently under consideration, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, provides $104 billion in government funding for new construction projects including highways, schools and restoration of public housing – to generate jobs for some of the 11.1 million unemployed Americans.

However, unlike the version introduced by Rep. Jack Kingston, R-GA, and approved by the House, HR 1, the Senate bill would not prohibit several hundred thousand illegal aliens from acquiring those jobs and sending the money back to their home countries.

The House of Representatives version strictly prohibits contractors from hiring employees without first checking the E-Verify system, which allows employers to verify whether potential employees are authorized to work in the U.S. The program compares employee information with more than 444 million records in the Social Security Administration database and more than 60 million records in the Department of Homeland Security immigration database.

Illegal immigration advocates blasted the House version. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent House leaders a letter urging representatives to remove the requirement from the final bill.

"Since a large portion of the stimulus is concentrated in Hispanic dominated industries, transportation and construction, this provision will have an enormous impact on our community," the letter stated. "Foreign-born American citizens are 30 times more likely than native born workers to be incorrectly identified as ineligible for work."

The Senate does not include the E-Verify stipulation to ensure only Americans receive the new jobs.

Last week, Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., sent a letter to the Senate leadership urging them to include E-Verify in the stimulus bill to guarantee that the new positions will be filled by U.S. citizens.

"The stimulus package is intended to help ease the pain of the current recession and restore growth to our economy," the letter stated." If passed, it will be paid for by the American taxpayers and we believe that Congress should do all it can to ensure that American taxpayers are the intended beneficiaries of its efforts."

The government has estimated that the $104 billion in new spending should produce as many as 2 million construction jobs. The Center for Immigration Studies claims 15 percent of workers in the construction industry are illegal aliens – and that 300,000 positions are likely to be filled by noncitizens.

Sessions plans to introduce an amendment soon to include E-Verify in the Senate bill.

"With so many Americans out of work today, this economic recovery package must focus on the creation and retention of jobs," Nelson said in a statement. "We must do our best to make sure that the jobs this package creates and supports go to the American people."

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