Republican State Sen. Julian Garrett ushered his bill to require the use of E-Verify by Iowa businesses when they make a hire through a subcommittee on Wednesday. Garrett gave his stamp of approval despite strong opposition from the business lobby.
Businesses already submit certain information when they hire an individual for tax purposes, so this wouldn’t require much additional work, Garrett said.
The business community spoke out against the bill, claiming E-Verify is a system rife with errors and anything but reliable.
Eric Goranson with the Iowa Restaurant Association and Hotel and Lodging Association said both groups oppose the effort.
“We are not opposed to the bill because we want to hire undocumented workers or people who are not here and able to work legally,” he said. “The system doesn’t work. A lot of the people who declared against the bill are people who have actually used it or tried to use it or their members have tried to use it. That’s why we’re opposed to it.”
Dustin Miller of the Iowa Chamber Alliance and Iowa Grocery Industry Asso ciation echoed Goranson’s concerns. He said the CATO Institute estimates there are 70,000 false positives per year. In addition, the program often impacts people under 18 and it takes 10 days to clear it up.
Chuck Hurley testified in support of the bill because of personal interest. Hurley said America is at a “crisis point.”
“We basically have an invasion and everybody is going to have to do their part,” he said. “Hopefully states such as Texas and perhaps now Iowa and others will be able to raise the hue and the cry to the point where we actually get the federal government’s attention and we can get this invasion of our country dealt with.”
Erica Johnson with Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice said the bill will worsen the worker shortage in the state. And, despite claims from the business lobby to the contrary regarding the want or need for illegal immigrant labor, the Iowa economy relies on it.
Johnson said it is the fault of the federal government since it refuses to “fix” immigration laws.
“Until we fix the federal system that reality is going to be true,” she said. “We can say that we don’t like it all we want…the fact is our economy relies on undocumented workers.”
JD Davis, who represents the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, said the bill attempts to “criminalize employers” to solve the “failure of government.”
Peter Hird with the Iowa Federation of Labor said the union doesn’t always agree with employers, but when they do it’s about E-Verify.
“We feel it’s an unreliable system,” he said.
Hird said he is worried good workers would be treated unfairly because of the system.
Republican State Sen. Sandy Salmon spoke in support of the bill. Salmon shared stories from the Border Patrol about illegal immigrants who enter America and paid the cartels. Upon arrival, they still owe the cartels money and if they don’t pay it back their families at home are threatened.
“I think this is a step forward,” Salmon said. “It’s not a perfect step, but it is a step forward to help do our part to alleviate the humanitarian crisis on the border.”
Democrat State Sen. Tony Bisignano said he has been involved in the E-Verify debate for a number of years and voted in support of the bill the first time it surfaced. He intended to have the program serve as a mechanism to hold employers accountable and ensure they wouldn’t abuse undocumented immigrants.
But he wasn’t willing to support it on Wednesday.
“To use terms of ‘invasion,’ I mean, ‘invasion’ is something like Normandy,” Bisignano said. “Invasion is some nefarious idea. This is not an invasion. This is a human tragedy that we are seeing in real time and we are seeing it in what the poverty and the crime has done in South America, in Latin America. It’s driven these people up here.”
Bisignano added America’s involvement in the governments of other countries is partially to blame.
“But these are people. These are kids. I see them every night on the news,” he said. “Iowa is not going to resolve (the border issue). Iowa is not going to resolve it with E-Verify. The nation hasn’t been able to resolve it period.”
Republican State Sen. Tom Shipley said he was willing to move the bill to committee but said it needs a lot of work.
Garrett closed by saying much of what the lobby said about the bill is incorrect.
“It’s just flat-out wrong,” he said.
Garrett said the error rate is minuscule and somewhere between 5,000-6,000 Iowa businesses voluntarily use the system now.
“They want to comply with the law. They don’t want to be illegally hiring people,” he said. “You all know I’ve worked on this for a long, long time. I have talked to many, many people that use E-Verify and I don’t hear (these problems) from them. The people I have talked to that use E-Verify tell me it’s just the simplest thing in the world.”
Garrett added average citizens tell him all the time something must be done at the border as well.
“Almost 100 percent of them say we need to stop this illegal immigration,” he said. “’We need to stop people undercutting our wages. We need to stop my competitor down the street from lowering his costs by hiring cheap labor. That’s tough for me. I want to comply with the law, but that’s tough for me to compete with.’ That’s what I hear from just average citizens out and about.”
Garrett said anyone employing illegal aliens could go to federal prison and be fined if the federal government enforced the current law.
“There’s so much more I could say,” he said. “I know people who are using the program and they’re not complaining. It’s fine. They don’t have to use it. If it was as bad as you folks are all saying it is, they wouldn’t use it. Why would they? But they are because they want to comply with the law.”
