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Congress let another week pass without any effort to reauthorize E-Verify. With House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) sticking to his target adjournment date of September 26th and Congress also set to recess for most of August and part of September, less than 25 legislative days remain to conduct business. If both houses of Congress do not reauthorize E-Verify before adjourning, the program will expire in November.

On Thursday, Senate staffers reported to FAIR that Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is blocking the reauthorization of E-Verify in the Senate because he considers it to be a pro-business program that gives businesses a safe harbor. Therefore, he wants to amend any reauthorization of E-Verify with language to "recapture" unused worker and family visas dating back to 1992. The U.S. State Department estimates that over 326,000 employment visas and more than 231,000 family visas would be available. (U.S. State Department, Unused Family and Employment Preferences Numbers Available for Recapture, Fiscal Years 1992-2007)

Since its inception in 1996, E-Verify has proven to be an effective and useful tool in protecting legal workers and the individuals who hire them. In fact, in the last few years the number of employers registered for E-Verify has risen to over 75,000, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently reported that over 1,000 new employers are registering each week. (Testimony of Secretary Michael Chertoff, July 17, 2008.)  Additionally, DHS reports that E-Verify is accurate with 94.2% of queries to the system automatically verified. The remaining 5.8% of queries result in mismatched social security numbers, and of those, only 0.5% of the mismatches are challenged with the employee having to correct records with the SSA, usually because a person has not updated their personal information such as a name change or immigration status change to SSA.  The remaining employees never contest the mismatch. (DHS, Debunking the "E-Verify Error Rate," May 16, 2008) 

E-Verify has grown so significantly that last month President Bush issued an executive order requiring all federal contractors to use the program for new and existing hires. (White House Press Release, June 9, 2008) In addition to federal contractors, eleven states have also enacted laws encouraging or requiring use of E-Verify for state contractors, state employees, and, in some cases, for all employees. (National Conference of State Legislatures, May 5, 2008) States included are Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, and, most recently, South Carolina. (Id.) These programs will all be in jeopardy if E-Verify is allowed to expire.

House Immigration Subcommittee Scrutinizes ICE Raids

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held an oversight hearing on Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raids. The hearing was held largely to address allegations of misconduct and due process violations by ICE and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials with respect to several recent workplace enforcement operations.

Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) called special attention to ICE's May 12 raid of the Agriprocessors meat packing plant in Postville, IA. (San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2008) Lofgren questioned the legality of the raid, citing allegations that the workers were treated inhumanly. The Chairwoman also stated that the defendants were "coerced" into pleading guilty to identity fraud. (Id.) 297 criminal convictions resulted from the raid, which ICE officials called "the largest criminal worksite enforcement operation" in the history of the United States. (ICE News Release, May 22, 2008)

Representatives from DOJ and ICE responded to the accusations of misconduct. Marcy Forman, Director of Investigations for ICE, focused her testimony primarily on dispelling the allegations of inhumane treatment. Forman asserted that ICE takes "extraordinary steps to identify, document, and appropriately address humanitarian concerns of all those we encounter...during our worksite enforcement operations." (Statement of Marcy M. Forman, July 24, 2008) Testifying on behalf of DOJ, Senior Associate Deputy Attorney General Deborah Rhodes dismissed claims of due process violations against the individuals apprehended at Agriprocessors. "The [Postville] defendants' constitutional rights were carefully protected and exercised," Rhodes said. She explained their rights were "safeguarded by defense counsel, immigration lawyers, consulate officials, magistrate judges, and district judges." (Statement of Deborah J. Rhodes, July 24, 2008)

Lofgren's contentions drew the ire of the Ranking Member of the Full Committee Lamar Smith (R-TX), who asserted: "just because someone does not agree with the prosecutions...doesn't mean that such prosecutions are inhumane," adding that the defendants at Postville "were in fact treated fairly." (Statement of Lamar Smith before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, July 24, 2008) Smith also argued that the subcommittee's time would be better spent addressing the issue of how to protect American workers from losing their jobs to illegal immigrants. (Id.) Committee Member Dan Lungren (R-CA) supported Smith's claims, pointing to the presence of undocumented workers in the construction industry as proof illegal immigrants are taking jobs from American citizens. (San Francisco Chronicle, July 24, 2008)

One issue that drew widespread endorsement from both sides of the aisle was the need for employer sanctions. Bruce Braley (D-IA) - one of four Representatives who testified at the hearing - voiced his support for employer sanctions, saying "We need to ensure...that employers like Agriprocessors who break our immigration laws are thoroughly investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law." (Statement of Bruce Braley, July 24, 2008) Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve King (R-IA) agreed with Braley, adding that enforcement operations like the one carried out in Postville "put those employers...on notice that if they choose to violate the law, they are subject to prosecution." (Des Moines Register, July 24, 2008)

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Defends E-Verify

This week, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Stewart Baker created a bit of a stir on Capitol Hill with his blunt statements about the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM) efforts to replace E-Verify. His views were posted on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Leadership Journal. He wrote, "SHRM lobbies for the HR execs who do corporate hiring. It also opposes E-Verify. I suppose corporate hiring is easier if you can hire illegal workers, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that SHRM wants to kill a program that makes it harder to hire illegal workers....SHRM says it doesn't want to kill E-Verify. SHRM says it wants to replace E-Verify with a new, better program to prevent illegal hiring. A closer look shows that the SHRM alternative is doomed to fail - and will take years to do so. So for a decade, while the SHRM alternative is failing, no one will have a good tool to actually prevent illegal hires. Which may be precisely what SHRM wants." (DHS Leadership Journal, July 11, 2008)

Baker's statements were reported in the July 23rd edition of the Capitol Hill newspaper Politico. The bill to which Baker was referring is H.R. 5515, the New Employee Verification Act of 2008. This legislation is sponsored by Representatives Sam Johnson (R-TX) and Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). Johnson responded to Baker's statement by telling Politico, "Clearly this agency has decided that American employers are the enemy when it comes to immigration law and the hiring of a legal work force." (Politico, July 23, 2008)

Baker told Politico that he posted the comments because DHS is "very proud of E-Verify. We think it works, and we don't believe that the alternatives that some of the lobbying groups are proposing are practical or realistic. And I wanted to make sure that point of view got out widely." (Id.)

Family Murdered by Illegal Alien; San Francisco Sanctuary Policy Once Again Under Fire

The illegal immigration status of a triple-murder suspect has once again thrust San Francisco's sanctuary city policy into the media spotlight. After a father and his two sons were gunned down in their car last month, fury arose when it was revealed that the suspect - Edwin Ramos - had been protected from deportation by the city on at least two previous occasions. Tony Bologna, 48, Michael Bologna, 20, and Matthew Bologna, 16, were shot and killed with an AK-47 on their way home from a family picnic when they inadvertently blocked Ramos from completing a left turn on a San Francisco street. (San Francisco Chronicle, June 27, 2008) Ramos, an El Salvadoran native and a member of the notorious MS-13 street gang, has been charged with three counts of murder, to which he plead 'not guilty' last week. (The Mercury News, July 23, 2008)

These allegations do not mark Ramos' first run-ins with San Francisco law enforcement. Ramos was arrested in 2003 for assaulting a passenger on a bus, then again in 2004 for robbing a pregnant woman. (San Francisco Chronicle, July 22, 2008) Both the assault and robbery were felony offenses, which, under the law, should have resulted in deportation. However, because San Francisco's sanctuary city policy prevents city officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, the city failed to turn Ramos over to ICE in both cases. (The Mercury News, July 23, 2008) Ramos was arrested again in March for traffic-related offenses, and the city claims it attempted to report him to ICE at that time, though ICE maintains it received no communication until after Ramos had been released by San Francisco authorities. (Id.) ICE officials also note they had already ordered Ramos deportable after his application for legal permanent residence status was denied. (Id.)

Responding to both the Bologna tragedy and sanctuary city policies in general, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) wrote a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking the Attorney General to investigate San Francisco's policy and to prosecute the Ramos case. (Tancredo Letter to Mukasey, July 22, 2008) Tancredo charges that "this tragedy could have been prevented if current immigration laws were being enforced." (Id.) He added, "Federal silence in the face of this shameful practice makes the federal government complicit in the crimes committed by persons who should have been deported." (Id.) Tancredo also requested that the Attorney General take over prosecution of the case, explaining, "Because San Francisco's political leaders have already demonstrated their willingness to act in flagrant violation of federal law, I do not believe that local judicial institutions can be trusted to fairly try the case or mete out an appropriate punishment." (Id.)