Representative refutes ag labor claim

modbee.com
Opinion - Letters to the Editor
Monday, Oct. 17, 2011

Ruben Navarrette twisted himself into a pretzel to reach his conclusions in his column "Politico tries an about-face on ag labor." (Oct. 10, Page A-9) Once again, he criticizes pro-enforcement immigration policies and gets the facts wrong.

E-Verify quickly identifies illegal immigrants working in the U.S. and protects jobs for legal workers by checking the Social Security numbers of new hires. It's free, quick and easy to use. Individuals eligible to work here are immediately confirmed 99.5 percent of the time.

We could open up millions of jobs for unemployed Americans by requiring all U.S. employers to use E-Verify.

Contrary to Navarrette's claims, I have long favored reforming our temporary agricultural guestworker program. The current program is dysfunctional and unresponsive to the needs of American growers. We need to dramatically reform this guestworker program to help growers hire a legal workforce, and my bill does just that.

Navarrette claims that my proposal to revamp our temporary agricultural guestworker program cancels out the need for a federal E-Verify requirement. But agriculture workers only account for 1 percent of the workforce. Why should we ignore the other 99 percent?

REP. LAMAR SMITH
chairman, House Judiciary Committee
Texas

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