Anti-Immigrant Legislation Introduced in the House: E-Verify

There is an action tomorrow to show opposition to E-Verify. Meet at 6 pm, Friday (June 17th) at the Doubletree Hotel (10 Brickyard Drive, off Veterans next to TGIF restaurant). There is also a carpool leaving the L.U.C. offices (510 E. Washington, Bloomington) at 5:30 pm. For more information, read below and see the Facebook page for the L.U.C. action.

Extreme Anti-Immigrant Legislation Threatens Business, Workers and Families
Statement by Latinos United for Change and Illinois People’s Action

This week, US Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) plans to introduce legislation to mandate that all American businesses screen their employees’ authorization to work through the Department of Homeland Security E-Verify system. The following is a statement of the Illinois People’s Action and Latinos United for Change:

Rather than pursuing real solutions for our broken immigration system, Congressman Smith and his colleagues are pushing a radical enforcement agenda that attacks businesses and workers without making our nation any more secure or prosperous.The deeply flawed E-Verify program will add $2.7 billion in costs to American businesses struggling through the current economic climate. Small businesses will bear the overwhelming majority of this burden.

The inaccuracies in E-Verify will hinder businesses and workers alike. As many as 3.6 million workers will be required to miss work time as they try to confirm that they are indeed lawfully authorized to work, and 770,000 will lose their jobs. Such disruption would result from E-Verify’s ongoing inaccuracy and its vulnerability to name mismatches due to multiple or hyphenated names, identity theft, and employer fraud. Mismatches in the E-Verify databases also leave employers still vulnerable to immigration enforcement even if they rely on the program to sort out whether their employees are authorized to work.

Immigrant workers who lose their jobs because of E-Verify, many with US citizen family members, will be forced to find other means of providing for their families. Many of these workers will resort to the underground cash economy, where they will be even more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Arizona, which enacted a mandatory E-Verify law in 2008, saw a large growth in its cash economy and a 13% drop in its income tax revenues that year. Requiring E-Verify nationwide will drive even more workers underground and further drive down wages and tax revenues.

Disrupting businesses, firing workers, driving immigrants underground, and tearing apart families will only worsen our nation’s economic and immigration difficulties. Still more enforcement makes no sense without a sensible way for undocumented immigrant workers and families to gain legal status so they can work, pay taxes, and contribute to our economy. Our country needs real solutions to get all workers onto the tax rolls, restore the rule of law, and fix our broken immigration system. E-Verify will only make the situation worse for all Americans.

Illinois People’s Action (IPA) is an ecumenical, faith-based community organization.  It encompasses 12 counties in central Illinois and includes the communities of Springfield, East Saint Louis, Bloomington-Normal, Decatur, Champaign-Urbana, Danville, Peoria, and rural counties of central Illinois. The mission of IPA is to help its membership work collectively for justice in local communities and throughout Illinois’ urban and rural communities.

For more information on the E-Verify bill, contact Sonny Garcia sonnypgarcia71@gmail.com