Emergency: E-Verify Opponents Trying To Undermine Its Reauthorization

Efforts to reauthorize E-Verify are under attack in the House and the Senate. In the House, business and open-borders groups who oppose E-Verify are trying to persuade Representatives to limit the term of its reauthorization to three years. In the Senate, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), also an E-Verify opponent, has placed a hold on reauthorization legislation until Congress submits to his demand to drastically increase the number of permanent, employment-based visas for foreign workers (see Roy Beck's blog on Menendez).

House Action

Business and open-borders groups now recognize it will be difficult to stop the reauthorization effort in the House, so they are seeking to limit its impact by limiting its term. These groups are trying to persuade House members to limit the term of its reauthorization to three years so they will have an early chance to weaken E-Verify in a political climate they hope is better for them.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) have suggested the possibility of moving a bill to the House floor next week that would reauthorize E-Verify for 10 years. It is not known whether they will move a “clean” bill, i.e., one that reauthorizes E-Verify without making other changes, or attempt to incorporate measures that would weaken the program’s effectiveness.

NumbersUSA is seeking a permanent reauthorization of E-Verify, which is now set to expire in November, but could agree to a minimum renewal period of ten years for now. We also are pushing for a phased-in mandate for all employers to use E-Verify, as embodied in the SAVE Act.

The short-term extension proposed by business and open-borders groups is little more than a ploy to buy time to further weaken E-Verify and continue efforts behind the scenes to enact an amnesty during the next Congress. The best solution for Congress, and for the nation, is to pass a “clean” reauthorization before members break for their August recess, and then resume efforts to enact the SAVE Act in September.

Please call your U.S. Representative today (202-224-3121) to ask for a “clean” reauthorization of E-Verify, preferably with no sunset but for a minimum of ten years. NumbersUSA members can go to their Action Buffet corkboard to pick up additional instructions.

Senate Action

Senator Menendez has announced that he intends to hold reauthorization of E-Verify hostage until Congress submits to his demand to drastically increase the number of permanent, employment-based visas to be made available to US employers seeking to import foreign workers to permanently take American Jobs. He claims that he would do this by “recapturing unused” employment-based visas from as far back as 1991 and then add them to the current numerical cap of 140,000 employment-based visas that are available each year.

The State Department estimates that the Menendez plan would add 550,000 additional employment-based visas, which would remain available until they are all used. Current law, however, clearly states that any employment-based visas not used in one year are allocated to the family-preference categories in the following year. That means that there are no “unused” visas from past years to “recapture.” Sen. Menendez ignores this provision of law, though it is safe to say he would not ignore the part of the law that says that any family-based visas not used in one year are allocated to the employment-based category for the following year.

The fact is that current law ensures that all visas are used by transferring them between the two major categories of legal, permanent visas: family-based and employment-based. Senator Menendez needs to understand that the only way to "recapture" 550,000 "unused" employment-based visas is to "recapture" them from the family-based category to which they were reallocated.

We urge those of you in New Jersey to call Sen. Menendez (202-224-3121) and tell him to stop blocking the reauthorization of the E-Verify program, immediately! There are no “unused” visas so his proposal will not do what he says it will do. NumbersUSA members can go to their Action Buffet corkboard to pick up additional instructions.