E-Verify legislation harms U.S. Jobs, puts Agriculture at risk

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House Judiciary Committee is debating a bill today that – if passed – would "devastate the American agricultural economy, resulting in closed farms, a less-secure America, and the mass off-shoring of millions of U.S. jobs," said U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security.

The Legal Workforce Act, which mandates E-Verify for all employers in the United States, is strongly opposed by a wide array of interests, including agricultural associations and growers, organized labor, members of the small business community, civil liberties groups, religious organizations, privacy advocates, and immigration reform groups.

While every serious comprehensive immigration reform proposal since 2006 has mandated the use of E-Verify by all employers, it is in the absence of broader reforms to fix our broken immigration system that this legislation will result in billions of dollars in lost government revenue, harm American workers, and stifle economic growth.

Lofgren went on to note that expanding E-Verify absent meaningful immigration reform will also increase the deficit and decrease tax revenues by an estimated net revenue loss of $39 billion over ten years, and provides no protections for authorized workers who lose their jobs in error, or meaningful penalties for employers who do not allow employees to correct such errors.

Despite having introduced the Legal Workforce Act in the past two Congresses, House Republicans have failed to advance the legislation due to opposition by a broad cross-section of organizations and Members of Congress.

Lofgren's full opening statement as delivered is below:

"The bill that we are considering today is not unfamiliar to many of us on the Committee. The Immigration Subcommittee has held many hearings over the years about E-Verify and the Committee has marked up the "Legal Workforce Act" in the last two Congresses.

"Each time we mark this bill up it changes a little bit. When we marked up the Legal Workforce Act in the 112th Congress, the bill exempted returning seasonal farmworkers from having to be verified upon hire. This giant loophole came under attack from all sides. From the right, it was attacked as amnesty and from the left it was attacked as an admission that E-Verify alone would destroy our agricultural industry and the millions of jobs held by U.S. workers that are supported by that industry. The Committee struck this provision from the bill during markup. It continues to be omitted from the bill.

"The version that we considered in the 112th Congress also created new criminal penalties for unlawful conduct that were both excessive and wasteful. In addition to imposing multiple mandatory minimum prison terms, the bill made it a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison for a person to use a social security number that did not belong to him or her during the employment verification process. The version of the bill that we reported during the last Congress changed several of the criminal provisions pertaining to fraud and misuse of documents and contained no mandatory minimum prison terms.

"The version that we considered in the 113th Congress contained changes to make E-Verify more workable for the Social Security Administration, which serves a number of other critically important functions, and the version that we are considering today contains two new provisions to relieve some of the burdens that small businesses are expected to face disproportionately once they are required to use E-Verify. I am sure that we will discuss small businesses more today, since they have been the heart of our economy and job recovery in recent years, but I did want to recognize the steps taken to address concerns that we raised during the last Congress.

"Having said that, today's bill still contains several of the greatest flaws of the bill that we have addressed in past markups.

"First, the bill continues to provide no meaningful due process protections for authorized workers who lose their jobs because of erroneous final non-confirmations. The idea that Americans and authorized immigrants will lose their jobs as a result of this bill is not simply theoretical Although we know that the government continues to work hard to reduce error rates in E-Verify, errors absolutely still exist.
"USCIS testified before the Immigration Subcommittee last Congress that an estimated 0.3 percent of the authorized workers—that's U.S. citizens and others—receive tentative non-confirmations through the system and must follow up with DHS or the Social Security Administration in order to avoid losing their jobs. Now, a 0.3 percent error rate sounds very small, but the real-world impact on new and existing hires could be quite dramatic. By requiring verification of all newly hired workers (approximately 54 million people each year) and permitting reverification of all current workers (approximately 155 million), a 0.3 percent error rate would place between 162,000 to 465,000 American citizens and authorized non-citizens at risk of losing their jobs or job opportunities due to errors.

"And while the error rate for U.S. citizens continues to improve, the error rate for non-citizens has been constant and disproportionately high. Westat Corporation reported in 2012 that the error rate for U.S. citizens in FY09 was 0.2 percent. For permanent residents the error rate was 0.7 percent and for all other work authorized non-citizens it was 4.2 percent.

"Of course many of these people will be able to correct the erroneous tentative non-confirmation, but many will not. Without adequate due process protections, people will lose their jobs incorrectly and be without meaningful recourse.

"The bill also provides no penalties at all for employers who violate the requirement that they inform an employee about a tentative non-confirmation so that the employee can correct the error. Although USCIS now provides direct notice of such non-confirmations to persons who provide an email address on their Form I-9s, only 12 percent of all tentative non-confirmations issued in FY14 were provided to employees via email. The vast majority were provided only to employers, which means the ability of an employee who receives an erroneous tentative non-confirmation to correct the error and avoid termination rests solely in the hands of those employers. The absence of any consequences for an employer who fails to provide notice to a worker renders that notice requirement completely toothless.

"Finally, the point that I hope every Member understands is that we can only advance a bill like this together with other necessary reforms to our broken immigration system. We could design the best E-Verify system imaginable—a system that is easy to use, 100% accurate, and available at virtually no cost to big and small businesses alike. But if we imposed that system nationwide and did nothing to fix our broken immigration system the consequences would be disastrous.

"This point is most easily demonstrated when we consider that 50 to 70% of farm workers are undocumented. Without reform, expanding E-Verify would devastate the agricultural economy, resulting in closed farms, a less-secure America, and the mass off-shoring of millions and millions of U.S. jobs, including all of the upstream and downstream jobs created and supported by agriculture.

"Expanding E-Verify alone would also increase the deficit and decrease tax revenues. Last Congress, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation concluded that the Legal Workforce Act would have resulted in a net revenue loss of $39 billion over ten years.

So I will ask unanimous consent to place the rest of my statement in the record, Mr. Chairman. But I would just note that when it comes to Agriculture, - If you do E-Verify, you're going to find something out we already know- the workers are undocumented and we need them, and if they are forced to leave, Agriculture will collapse. And I yield back."

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