Congress Kills Permanent Extension of E-Verify

A timely article from www.fair.us about the E-verify bill!!

Congress Kills Permanent Extension of E-Verify
On Tuesday, October 7, the House and Senate conferees for the Homeland Security appropriations bill finalized the details of the conference report. According to a document prepared jointly by the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee, the conferees turned back the opportunity to permanently extend the E-Verify program and instead included only a three-year extension of the program. (See here, October 7, 2009).
True immigration reformers know E-Verify is the voluntary program that allows employers to verify the work status of new hires to ensure they are legally authorized to work in the U.S. and are not illegal aliens. Accordingly, E-Verify helps ensure that America has a legal workforce and to reduce the “jobs magnet” that helps bring illegal aliens to America.
When the House passed its version of the DHS spending bill, it contained a two-year extension of E-Verify and included $112 million in funding for the program. (See House Report 111-157). The Senate initially sought a three-year extension of E-Verify and a funding level of $118.5 million. During Senate floor debate over the bill, however, the Senate rejected, by a vote of 44 to 53 an effort to kill an amendment offered by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) that would have permanently extended the E-Verify program and would have codified the federal contractor rule that requires contractors who are paid with taxpayer funds to also use E-Verify. (See Amdt. 1371 and Roll Call Vote 219, note that a “yea” vote was a vote to kill the Sessions Amendment and a “nay” vote is a vote against killing the amendment). After the effort to kill the Sessions amendment failed, the Senate adopted the amendment and it was included in the Senate passed version of the DHS spending bill.
House and Senate appropriators had a perfect opportunity before them to permanently extend E-Verify. Instead, they turned their back on this opportunity and, in doing so, turned their back on the American people who strongly support immigration enforcement and efforts to protect American jobs. In addition, the conferees also rejected three other immigration related amendments that were part of the Senate passed bills, including: (1) the DeMint amendment to improve the construction of the border fence by requiring fencing that will help eliminate illegal pedestrian border crossings instead of the fencing currently under construction that deters only vehicular crossings; (2) the Grassley amendment to clarify that employers can use E-Verify not only for new hires but also existing employees, this would help free up jobs currently held by illegal aliens in favor of Americans who are out of work; and (3) the Vitter amendment that would have prevented efforts by the Obama Administration to gut the “no-match” rule put in place in 2008 to notify employers when their employees are using a Social Security number that does not match their name. (See FAIR’s Action Alert on the amendments).
FAIR immediately responded to the conferees decision to reject common-sense amendments. (See FAIR’s Press Release, October 8, 2009 and SteinReport posting). Stay tuned for the timing on any Congressional action on the DHS appropriations spending bill.