Lamar Smith’s Mandatory E-Verify Push Runs into Array of Opposition
Despite publicly expressing confidence over the legislation’s prospects, leading anti-immigrant lawmaker Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) had a difficult week promoting his mandatory E-Verify bill. Opponents from a range of industries and ideologies raised their voices, highlighting the facts that mandating E-Verify would cripple the U.S. agriculture industry, burden businesses with new bureaucratic mandates and high costs, and harm American job seekers and workers. Moreover, they argued, with a failure rate of over 50%, E-Verify doesn’t even work.
According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice Education Fund: “After getting some in the business community to tepidly endorse his bill, Lamar Smith clearly thought that mandatory E-Verify would enjoy smooth legislative sailing – something he desperately needs if he is to convince Speaker Boehner to put this bill on the House floor. But now he’s facing splits in conservative circles and strong opposition from Democrats. So much for smooth sailing.”
Among the key developments:
- Conservatives Speak Out Against E-Verify: From the Wall Street Journal editorial page to Tea Partiers, conservatives rallied against Smith and his mandatory E-Verify bill this past week. As Elise Foley of Huffington Post reported, “Tea Party groups, including Take Back Washington, Tea Party Nation and Liberty Coalition, bought a full-page ad in Politico on Thursday criticizing the mandatory E-Verify bill. They also sent an open letter to members of Congress asking them to oppose the bill to avoid disastrous consequences for American citizens.” Additionally, the influential Wall Street Journal editorialized earlier this week against the bill, labeling mandatory E-Verify a project “to harass American business into becoming the enforcement agent for U.S. immigration laws.”
- Opposition from 2012 Contenders: Despite his otherwise extreme and anti-Latino views on immigration, the GOP’s leading contender for the presidency is opposed to E-Verify. Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) has said mandatory E-Verify “would not make a hill-of-beans difference” in stopping illegal immigration. Other Republican contenders have similarly been unable to swallow Smith’s mandatory E-Verify push. For example, Rep. Ron Paul, a favorite of libertarians and limited government conservatives, has noted, “I don’t like putting the burden on our business people to be the policemen.”
- Seeing the True Intentions in Smith’s Guest Worker Bill – Cover for E-Verify Push: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) rightfully panned another Smith-backed bill, a hurriedly developed proposal that would establish a new guest worker program for the agriculture industry. She called it a “smoke and mirrors” maneuver designed to provide cover for mandatory E-Verify. Lofgren rightly noted that Smith’s guest worker bill doesn’t stand a chance of becoming law, and is a transparent – and largely ineffective – attempt to placate the agriculture community, which continues to express outrage over the devastation that mandatory E-Verify would inflict on their industry.
- Rifts with Supposed Republican Allies: During yesterday’s preliminary mark-up of the legislation, Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) said, “I just can’t abide with what we’re doing to my state in terms of the temporary need for temporary workers…It would devastate agriculture…If we do not recognize the demonstrated need for foreign workers, and I’m talking about temporary foreign workers in the agriculture field, we’re kidding ourselves.” While no guest worker bill will “fix” what is wrong with Smith’s E-Verify bill, the fact that the Smith and Lungren have competing proposals to deal with agriculture and a supposed ally is publicly chiding Smith cannot be good news for proponents of his approach.
- Far From a United Front Among Anti-Immigrant Organizations: Leading anti-immigrant organizations seem to be splitting on tactics and amendments. While all support mandatory E-Verify, FAIR put out a statement attacking Smith’s guest worker bill and also announced its support for a poison pill amendment sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-IA). The amendment would enable states to pass and enforce their own versions of E-Verify and override the federal preemption of such state laws that Smith put in his bill in exchange for support from business associations. In doing so, FAIR and King are lining up with immigration hawks such as Rep. Lou Barletta and Kris Kobach who oppose the preemption of state E-Verify laws, arguing that only the states and not the feds are serious about enforcement. Meanwhile, Numbers USA has been mute on the guest worker bill – it’s not even listed on their bill tracking page for “Foreign Worker Visas” – despite the fact that it proposes to expand immigration by 500,000 a year and they claim their number one priority is lowering numbers. And they seem to be supporting Smith, not FAIR, on the preemption issue.
- This is the GOP Jobs Bill?: Do Republicans really want the debate over jobs to be between President Obama’s jobs plan, which experts have concluded would create 1.9 million jobs, and Lamar Smith’s bill, which would cost at least 800,000 jobs?
Said Sharry, “We haven’t gotten past opening statements in Committee and the wheels are already wobbling. Assuming Smith does muscle his bill out of his own committee, the real question is, what will Speaker Boehner do? Does he really want to bring forward legislation that divides the right, hurts small business, decimates agriculture, and embarrasses the party’s leading Presidential candidate? Does he really want a bill to move forward that dramatically expands federal control, doesn’t work as advertised and is likely to lead to howls of protest from across the political spectrum should it become law as 2012 approaches?”
America’s Voice Education Fund — Harnessing the power of American voices and American values to win common sense immigration reform.
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