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Amendments that Matter: E-Verify

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If you think the Senate Judiciary Committee’s markup of the Gang of 8 bill has been intense so far, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. As the SJC moves into Titles II and III of the bill—which cover everything from E-Verify to detention policy to family immigration to agricultural workers, not to mention the path to citizenship itself—we’re highlighting some of the major areas we expect to see addressed, and the amendments we’re particularly hopeful about or upset by within each one. That’s why we’re starting this “Amendments that Matter” blog series today. Below is a guest post from Emily Tulli of the National Immigration Law Center, writing about E-Verify provisions in the bill’s Title III.

Also view our list of key amendments filed in the Senate Judiciary Committee to S. 744

This title includes one provision that will affect every worker in America: mandatory E-Verify. By mandating that every employer – large and small – run each new hire through an electronic database, we risk pushing hundreds of thousands of citizens out of a job. Protections to ensure that small businesses aren’t burdened by a system that has an unacceptably high error rate, and to protect workers from being fired simply due to an error in the systems database, are the least we can do to keep E-Verify from hurting countless American workers. The two amendments we’re watching are :

  • Franken 1: The amendment delays implementation of E-Verify’s mandate  for small businesses (14 or few employees) from 4 years to up to 8 years after the bill’s regulations are published if E-Verify’s error rates for citizen and work authorized individuals is higher than .26 percent. This amendment is crucial for small business owners, many of whom don’t have HR departments to handle the additional red tape E-Verify creates, and helps ensure greater accuracy rates in the system.
  • Franken 6: Makes real the protections to prevent US workers’ from losing their jobs due to E-Verify errors. This fix is critical to ensure that US workers who must wade through miles of governmental red tape are able to maintain their jobs while they correct their records.

The two amendments we’re worried about:

  • Grassley 28: The Amendment allows employees to consent to verification before they are “hired, recruited, or referred”.    The amendment opens the door to discriminatory behavior, where immigrants and citizens would be forced to provide additional verification, simply because they may “appear” foreign.
  • Grassley 29: The Amendment requires all employers to use E-Verify within 18 months.This timeline is both unreasonable and could wreak havoc on immigrant workers and US born workers alike.