The Fight to Save E-Verify
The American worker—especially the unemployed American worker—was sold out when President Obama signed an economic and job stimulus bill that did not include basic protections to ensure that they would get the jobs being created. They were not sold out without a fight and those of us who have been working for their interests are not giving up the effort to protect the interests of legal U.S. workers.
FAIR was intensely involved in the effort to ensure that the jobs created by the economic stimulus bill would be protected by E-Verify. Early in the process, Representatives Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), the authors of the House provisions reauthorizing E-Verify and requiring stimulus fund recipients to use the system, reached out to FAIR to build public support for the amendments.
Through the efforts of our government relations staff, our media department, and our field representatives, we worked with members of Congress to educate other elected officials and the public about the need to ensure that the jobs being created would go to legal American workers. These provisions were accepted by the House by unanimous consent.
From the start, we knew there was trouble brewing in the Senate. Over the first two weeks of February we intensified our efforts on all fronts. FAIR’s government relations department worked around the clock to get similar amendments added to the Senate bill. FAIR’s media department appeared on some two dozen radio talk programs to speak directly to the public. FAIR’s field program organized a massive public awareness campaign and generated countless phone calls and emails to members of Congress, congressional leaders and the White House.
In the end, the will of the public and the will of the vast majority of the members of both Houses of Congress were overridden by a handful of congressional leaders who blatantly ignored the interests of millions of unemployed or struggling American workers.
WHAT'S NEXT?
The E-Verify protections are not part of the bill President Obama signed. But that does not mean that these protections cannot be approved on their own. FAIR will continue its intense efforts to inform the public about the lack of safeguards to assure that $800 billion of their money actually creates jobs that will be filled by U.S. workers. Over the next several months, FAIR will continue to work to educate the public about the need for:
- Permanent reauthorization of E-Verify. The system that allows employers to verify Social Security numbers with a 99.6 percent accuracy rate is supported by an overwhelming majority of the public and members of Congress. (A stand-alone reauthorization bill passed the House by a vote of 407-2 in September 2008, but died because the Senate failed to act.) It is unimaginable that E-Verify will not be reauthorized and it is unacceptable that it is apparently being used as a bargaining chip to extract benefits for illegal aliens.
- Mandatory use of E-Verify by all government contractors. Last summer, President Bush issued an executive order requiring that any company doing business with the federal government use E-Verify. Implementation of that order has been postponed twice (once by Bush and once by Obama) and is now scheduled to take effect in May.
The American people can help by keeping up the pressure on their elected representatives and President Obama. Even under the best case scenario, economic recovery will be a long-term process and there will be millions of Americans who desperately need jobs. Americans (who will be paying for the stimulus spending) must continue to insist that the government act responsibly and protect U.S. jobs using E-Verify.
March 2009
