Mar. 22—Although E Verify has bipartisan support nationwide, it has not been mandated, according to Jeremy Beck, a vice president and deputy director for NumbersUSA.
E Verify has been around since 1996. The bill was passed in response to the Barbara Jordan Bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, but it's never been mandated nationwide.
"There have been lots of attempts to do so, but it has failed despite it being one of the most popular immigration reforms that is out there," Beck said.
If you put employment information into E Verify it will tell you whether someone is authorized to work in the U.S. or not, Beck said.
It's basically an 80-20 issue with 80 percent of Americans saying businesses should verify that their workers are authorized to work in the United States and that holds true in Texas as well, he said.
"It holds true across the political spectrum; across race and ethnic lines. The numbers vary a little bit, but you have strong majorities of Democrats, Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Republicans. Republicans in Texas are highly supportive of it. There was proposition 4, I think, about four or five years ago in a Texas republican primary and by 9-1 Texas Republicans voted in favor of E Verify. But there is no nationwide bill," Beck said.
There are bills in the U.S. House and Senate currently. In the House, it's called the Legal Workforce Act and in the Senate it is S156, the Accountability Through Electronic Verification Act.
Beck said there are some efforts around the country to mandate E Verify. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he wants a stronger E Verify bill.
"Florida has an E Verify for state contract agencies and Texas has something similar along those lines. But for most employers around the state and around the country, it's a trust but don't verify system," Beck said.
The E Verify system has been around for over 25 years.
"You just have to use it. You just have to type in the exact same information into that system and (it will) let you know within seconds whether that person is authorized or not. That's really the name of the game right there," Beck said.
When people come to the U.S. from around the world, they do a cost-benefit analysis to determine if it is worth breaking American laws and giving their money to a human smuggler or into the hands of a coyote who might be working for the cartels.
"They're going to do that if they think there's going to be some kind of benefit to them at the other end of the line ... The benefit is you get to work in the United States, and even if you're accepting wages and working conditions far below what the average American would accept that still might be a pretty significant improvement in your own economic situation. ... So word gets around pretty fast, hey, America has this law that you can't work in the United States if you're here unlawfully, but they don't check and that message goes around the world and that's why people come here," Beck said.
"Most people are not terrible people, but they're coming because they see that as an opportunity to be taken advantage of and that opportunity has created this $20 billion human smuggling business."
NumbersUSA encourages people to contact their elected representatives and the state legislature to get E Verify mandated.
Arizona, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina have E Verify and Georgia has a partial version of it, Beck said.
"The number of illegal immigrant workers dropped 57 percent below what the population would have otherwise been without the E Verify law in Alabama; 33 percent in Arizona; 83 percent in Mississippi; and 34 percent in Utah, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
NumbersUSA was formed in 1996 in response partially to the recommendations of the Barbara Jordan Commission. "That was the commission that was created by the 1990 Immigration Act. What the 1990 Immigration Act did was it increased the numbers of immigration ...," Beck said.
A commission was set up to study it for a few years and they came back and said it was hurting vulnerable American workers.
"Barbara Jordan, the late Texas Congresswoman, she said very strongly the workplace is the key to illegal immigration. That's why people come (here). When you remove the jobs magnet then you disincentivize illegal immigration because that's really the big reward. At first her recommendations were endorsed by President Clinton and then Barbara Jordan died tragically, too soon, and Clinton partially withdrew his support. Congress passed kind of a watered down version of it, so they created the E Verify system but they didn't require people to use it. We were formed around the same time, 1996, and E Verify is also one of our top recommendations as well so we've been fighting for it ever since the Jordan Commission recommended it," Beck said.
Republicans eked out a majority victory in the House and they ran pretty hard on the border crisis saying "we are not going to let this happen under our watch. We're going to fix this and they promised to fix it quickly. It was going to be a top priority," Beck said.
"E Verify is not a silver bullet, but you are not going to fix it without E Verify. It's necessary. It may not be sufficient by itself, but it's absolutely necessary."
He added that he thinks House Republicans are going to be under a great deal of pressure to fulfill their campaign promise.
"As I said it has some bipartisan support and I also think the Biden Administration and Democrats may want to show that they are taking this situation seriously. This is the worst border crisis in U.S. history ... Democrats have got to be feeling some pressure to make this a less of a hot potato in the upcoming presidential election and E Verify has bipartisan support among the electorate, so this seems like the sweet spot for both parties. It doesn't involve creating anything new and it doesn't involve putting more boots on the ground, or doing raids or anything like that. You just have to say we have this system; you have to use it. You just have to verify the information that you are already getting and I think that if the House passes it there will be a great deal of pressure on the Senate to pass it. If the Senate passes it, I will go on record as saying I predict that President Biden would sign it," Beck said.
