An open letter from leaders of the groups Take Back Washington, Tea Party Nation, Downsize DC, GOProud, the D.C. Tea Party and other conservative groups calls on members of Congress to reject the Legal Workforce Act, a bill sponsored by U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) that would mandate the use of the electronic identification system E-Verify by all businesses nationwide.

The letter, which identifies its signatories as “pro-freedom, limited government, and Constitutional government organizations,” lists five reasons for opposing E-Verify:

We are alarmed that E-Verify poses a threat to both the Constitution and every law-abiding citizen of this country because it:

1. Creates a de facto national I.D. System – even for citizens;

2. Violates individual civil liberties such as the right to work and free speech;

3. Mandates a costly job-killing regulatory burden that cripples small business

4. Requires employers to become enforcement agents of the federal government;

5. Encourages identify theft of law-abiding citizens

While the letter reflects fears of an overreaching federal government typical of modern conservative ideology, many of the points raised in the letter are echoed by liberal Democrats and immigrant rights activists who have consistently opposed mandatory implementation of E-Verify.

Smith’s Judiciary Committee began markup of the bill Thursday. The Huffington Post reports that at least one Republican on the committee expressed worry that mandating E-Verify would be particularly damaging to the farmers in his district:

“I just can’t abide with what we’re doing to my state in terms of the temporary need for temporary workers,” Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) said. “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.”

Laws requiring E-Verify have passed in multiple states and were found to be constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, as was penalizing employers that knowingly hired undocumented workers by revoking their business licenses. Already there have been multiple reports of immigrant workers fleeing states which have recently enacted similar enforcement laws, leading to labor shortages that confirm Lungren’s fears.

The Center for American Progress estimates in a recent report (PDF) that setting up E-Verify could cost small businesses anywhere from $1,254 to $24,422. The report also predicts that 0.5 percent of legal American workers will be mistakenly identified as undocumented workers and fired if E-Verify is implemented nationwide, a proportion that may seem relatively small but would amount to 770,000 people unjustly losing their jobs.

According to the Agriculture Coalition (which represents more than 300 national, regional and state groups representing the fruit, vegetable, dairy, livestock, nursery, greenhouse and Christmas tree industries), about 75 percent of farmworkers are unauthorized, and virtually the entire applicant pool is not authorized to work in the U.S.

Craig Regelbrugge, cochairman of the Agriculture Coalition, said in a press release issued Thursday that E-Verify without true solutions for the agricultural sector will destroy U.S. jobs.

The release added that “if Congress makes mandatory use of the E-Verify program, crops will rot, farms will fail, much U.S. farm production and many farm-dependent U.S. jobs will simply leave the country.”

The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives — an Agriculture Coalition member — writes that the economic damage will not be limited to farms and ranches. “Each of the 1.6 million hired farm employees support 2 to 3 fulltime American jobs in the food processing, transportation, farm equipment, marketing, retail and other sectors.”

Mike Stuart, president of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, described the worsening situation developing across the border in Georgia, where Gov. Nathan Deal recently signed a state immigration bill that includes E-Verify.

Stuart said that migrant farm workers who would normally harvest onions and vegetables in Georgia are not doing so, adding that “labor shortages of 30 to 50 percent are resulting in rotting crops, and they are desperately grasping for solutions.” He concluded that Florida agriculture, which has been a pillar of the economy, is even more vulnerable.

National Agriculture Statistics Service (pdf.) data indicate that the market value of Florida agriculture products sold in 2007 was more than $7.7 billion, an amount that ranks Florida 11th in the U.S.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said in a speech delivered Thursday that agriculture in Florida and the U.S. needs a practical temporary guest worker program.

In the House subcommittee hearing held this week on the mandatory E-Verify bill, Tyler Moran, policy director for the National Immigration Law Center, said that if mandatory E-verify is implemented without broader immigration reform it will force some workers into the cash economy outside of our tax system, ship agricultural jobs overseas and force millions of American workers to stand in a government line to correct their records or lose their jobs, and that hundreds of thousands will likely lose their jobs because of government database errors in E-Verify.

The House Subcommittee on Immigration and Policy Enforcement will address Smith’s “Legal Workforce Act,” which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to make the use of E-verify mandatory and permanent.

In an op-ed published today by The Los Angeles Times, Smith writes:

While 26 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, 7 million individuals work illegally in the United States. On top of all the challenges Americans face today, it is inexcusable that Americans and legal workers have to compete with illegal immigrants for scarce jobs.

Fortunately, there is a tool available to preserve jobs for legal workers: E-Verify. But the program is voluntary. Congress has the opportunity to expand E-Verify — including making it mandatory — so more job opportunities are made available to unemployed Americans.

Participants in a recent conference call hosted by the National Immigration Forum said mandatory E-Verify without immigration reform would harm the U.S. economy.

Tyler Moran, policy director for the National Immigration Law Center, said that if mandatory E-verify is implemented without broader immigration reform it will force some workers into the cash economy outside of our tax system, ship agricultural jobs overseas and force between 3 and 4 million American workers to stand in a government line to correct their records or lose their jobs, and that 770, 000 people will likely lose their jobs because of government database errors in E-Verify.

Craig J. Regelbrugge, vice president for government relations and research at the American Nursery & Landscape Association said that mandatory E-Verify without broader solutions would have the largest impact on the agriculture and seasonal employment sectors of the economy, resulting in economic dislocation, production declines, fewer jobs and more imports.

Moran added that Arizona is the best forecast of what mandatory E-Verify would look like without a legalization program. Implemented in January 2008, there are three significant outcomes from that Arizona law: Undocumented workers did not go home and most have moved into the cash economy; employers are coaching workers about how to get around the photo screening tool, the only mechanism to address ID theft; and half of employers are not using E-Verify for new hires despite penalties that could result in the loss of their business license.

Late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, a decision that deepens the debate between between supporters and detractors of mandatory state and federal E-Verify programs.

And, in Colorado, the annual round-up of illegal farm workers has begun.

Says BusinessWeek:

The agriculture industry fears a disaster is on the horizon if the one bit of new immigration policy that Congress seems to agree on becomes law.

It’s a plan to require that all American businesses run their employees through a program that confirms each worker is legally entitled to work in the U.S.

The program, known as E-Verify, could wreak havoc on an industry where 80 percent of the field workers are illegal immigrants. So could the increased paperwork audits already under way by the Obama administration.

The BusinessWeek story was excerpted from a much more in-depth Associated Press piece, which says farm businesses in the United States need to be able to hire lots of people on short notice and for short-term work that is both skilled and difficult.

“Few citizens express interest, in large part because this is hard, tough work,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak said this past week. “Our broken immigration system offers little hope for producers to do the right thing.”

Arturo S. Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers, said migrant farm workers are exposed to blistering heat with little or no shade and few water breaks. It’s skilled work, he said, requiring produce pickers to be exact and quick. While the best mushroom pickers can earn about $35,000 to $40,000 a year for piece work, there’s little chance for a good living and American workers don’t seem interested in farm jobs.

…

Manuel Cunha, president of Nisei Farmers League, a group representing growers in central California, said farmers don’t have the wherewithal to verify a worker’s status when their labor force is often hired on the spot and in a hurry to pick ripe crops. Forcing them to verify a worker’s legal status, he said, would prove disastrous.

“If we were to use E-Verify now, we’d shut down, either that or farmers would go to prison,” said Cunha, a Fresno-based citrus farmer. “We’ve admitted many workers are not legal and if you have to get rid of everybody, where do I go to get my labor? Nowhere. We have to have a work force that we can put in the system.”

Last year, the AP reports, the UFW conducted a campaign to interest Americans in seasonal agricultural work. They received more than 86,000 inquiries but only 11 American citizens ended up accepting employment.

The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday upheld (pdf.) the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, a decision that deepens the debate between between supporters and detractors of mandatory state and federal E-Verify programs.

According to the Arizona attorney general’s office, the Legal Arizona Workers Act prohibits businesses from knowingly or intentionally hiring an “alien who does not have the legal right or authorization under federal law to work in the United States.” The law also requires employers in Arizona to use E-Verify (a free web-based service offered by the Department of Homeland Security) to verify the employment eligibility of all new employees.

Attorney Bill Flynn, head of the Florida-based immigration practice Fowler White Boggs, tells The Florida Independent that the highlight in the ruling is its decision on “whether the states have any say in immigration law.”

Many argue immigration matters are solely a responsibility of the federal government. “The decision here is that where it is a local or state licensing situation it does not fall under preemption,” Flynn says. ”The thrust of the court opinion is that Arizona can pull your business license if you knowingly employ unauthorized aliens.”

Flynn agrees that this decision indicates that Arizona’s law does not infringe on federal immigration oversight and that this ruling will open the way for other states to require E-Verify.

“The federal government will not enact comprehensive immigration reform. Congress is simply too politicized to do anything statesman like [that],” Flynn says. “It is not a good thing that 50 different states have slightly different laws, but if you’re sitting in the state and you want to regulate undocumented workers, the states need to step up.”

“A lot of what gets put forth is for politicians who are ambitious to say, ‘Look, I was tough on immigration,’” Flynn says. “The part that they miss is that if they get real tough then it hurts the state’s economy.”

Several studies have shown that Arizona businesses (.pdf) lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to reactions against S.B. 1070, the state’s controversial immigration-enforcement law.

Flynn says the Supreme Court decision will impact Florida, where an immigration bill almost passed an this year, failing in the last few days. “I would be surprised if they didn’t pass a bill that has E-Verify in it,” he says, adding that Florida, with an estimated 800,000 undocumented people, wold suffer a huge detrimental effect on the economy if they all leave.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (aka FAIR) says it is “proud to have shaped this landmark legislation,” saying that, with this court ruling, “other states considering mandatory E-Verify laws now have a green light to proceed and can do so with the confidence that they are working within a legal framework on behalf of their citizens.”

Somos Republicans — a conservative Republican Hispanic organization — stated: “Under this ruling, the federal government, no longer, needs to create a federal E-verify mandatory programs because states have the right to pass this law if they see it fit to their economic benefits, or politician motivations. Thus, Congressman Lamar Smith does not have to seek passing a mandatory federal E-verify that has been already granted to states by this Supreme Court ruling. ”

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, announced recently that he will propose a bill to mandate the use of E-Verify at the federal level.

Participants in a Tuesday conference call hosted by the National Immigration Forum said mandatory E-Verify, whether at the state or federal level, without immigration reform, would harm the U.S. economy.

The National Immigration Law Center stated:

We’re deeply disappointed that the Court has allowed this law, which has proven to have serious economic ramifications for Arizona’s workers and employers, to remain in effect. However, the ruling does not grant states the right to enforce immigration law — the issue at the heart of current legal challenges to SB 1070, Arizona’s racial profiling law. State legislators considering this decision a free pass to enact and implement legislation targeting immigrants are gravely mistaken.

The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee axed three Republican immigration bills Monday. Like many times this session, the committee, on a party-line vote, turned down legislation that targeted voting accessibility and immigration concerns. Also killed was a bill ridiculed by some as a  “birther bill.” That legislation would have required elected officials to present proof of citizenship upon taking office.

“A lot of people come down here to work on making good government and building a better society,”  Rob DuRay of the progressive leaning New Era Colorado, told the Colorado Independent. “So, to bring forward a ‘birther’ bill is offensive and cynical. We have people working very hard and it is distracting from other problems.”

SCR 003, requiring proof of citizenship

Sen. Kent Lambert

“This will not affect any federal candidates,” Lambert said.

The bill was killed on a quick party-line vote with Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, jokingly saying it came about too late.

Two other pieces of legislation also died in the committee Monday. Each was a bill that had already been shot down earlier this year, but which crept back to life as Republican sponsored Senate concurrent resolutions.

Democrats re-buried legislation initially proposed by Secretary of State Scott Gessler.  The resolution would have required the secretary of state to check voter records with state and national databases to look for discrepancies in legal voting status. Those determined by the secretary of state to likely be on the voting roll illegally would have been asked to provide proof of citizenship within 90 days or lose the ability to vote.

Democrats then closed the coffin lid on SCR 4 but not quite as tightly as the other Lambert sponsored pieces of legislation. The bill would have required all employers to use the E-verify national database system in order to ensure that those applying for jobs were legally allowed to work in the United States. While Democrats voted solidly against the bill after raising concerns that E-verify has been shown to be inaccurate in some cases, some said once those problems were fixed they could be a ‘yes’ vote. Both Senators Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, and Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, expressed their interest in voting for a more accurate E-verify system later down the road.

“Maybe the time will come before I leave this legislature that I can vote yes on this bill, but not this time,” Boyd said.

After the legislation was killed Lambert charged that Democrats were against curtailing illegal immigration.

“Democrats claim we need to send a message to Washington to deal with illegal immigration, but their solution is to give in-state tuition to ‘undocumented’ aliens. They cannot even agree that voters and elected officials should provide proof of citizenship,” Lambert told the Senate minority office’s “news agency.”

“Senate Democrats continue to thwart the will of the people by refusing to stem the tide of illegal immigration while simultaneously rewarding illegal behavior,” said Lambert. “With 9.2 percent unemployment in Colorado, when will they understand they are killing jobs for American citizens and legal foreign workers?”

“This nation has over 15 million people who are here illegally, and yet I don’t hear one word about comprehensive immigration reform.”

Polis said the piecemeal approach lawmakers have taken so far, where the student path-to-citizenship DREAM Act, for example, was broken off for consideration while other areas languished, is no longer good enough.

“Comprehensive immigration reform has strong majority support in polls from Republican voters, from Independent voters, and from Democratic voters. Comprehensive immigration reform would finally establish real border security, real employment verification, and require that people who are here illegally register, pay a fine and get right with the law. It’s common sense for America, and it’s time for Congress to take action on this critical issue.”

Polis also steered his colleagues away from easy solutions. He singled out for consideration the E-Verify citizen-identification checking system being proposed as a simple first step. Some analysts have argued E-Verify causes more problems than it solves, that it more often misidentifies legal residents as illegal than it does properly identify scoflaws, who know how to game the system.

“Lately I’ve heard that we might be discussing mandatory E-Verify. That would make the problem worse. E-Verify encourages a black market in Social Security numbers. We need real employment verification with fingerprints or retinal IDs so we can identify who’s here and don’t simply contribute to a black market in Social Security numbers which can be bought and sold, only increasing crime in this country. My constituents are calling on Congress to take action on comprehensive immigration reform. I urge my colleagues to bring this important issue forward.”

In May of last year, fresh off his appointment to the House Judiciary Committee, Polis told members of Congress that it would be a mistake to let the heated politics of health care reform scare them off of immigration reform. On the contrary, he said, state lawmakers feeling pressure to take up local legislative solutions, as they did in Arizona, make it clear that it’s past time for federal action.

“I rise today to encourage my colleagues to live up to a challenge that has been put before us by the people of our country, by the people of Arizona, by the people of my state, and that is the challenge to replace our broken immigration system with one that works,” he said then.

The Judiciary Committee will likely be the place where any immigration reform legislation begins its journey through the lawmaking system.

During his freshman year in Congress, Polis visited Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in Colorado and decried their lack of transparency and cost ineffectiveness. He pointed out how people held in the facilities are often treated like criminals even though their only crime may be not having their working or residency papers in order or readily available. Often immigration applications are being reviewed when people are apprehended. Fathers and mothers, family breadwinners, are locked up without adequate representation, effectively disappearing and leaving dependents without resources.

It would be cheaper and maybe more fair and efficient to put these people up in hotels, Polis said on a visit to the state’s main detention center in Aurora.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

As Colorado enters life with Secure Communities, Rhode Island exits stage left. Less than a day after taking office, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chaffee signed an order getting the state out of the federal 287 (g) program (which is similar to Secure Communities).

Just hours after his swearing-in as Rhode Island’s 58th Governor, Lincoln D. Chafee this week signed a repeal of the Executive Order on E-Verify, which former Governor Donald L. Carcieri signed into law in March 2008. Governor Chafee also directed the Rhode Island State Police (RISP) to withdraw from its memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal immigration enforcement body. RISP Superintendent Col. Brendan P. Doherty has agreed to support and uphold the Governor’s directive.

“This repeal of all parts of the Executive Order on E-Verify will effectively turn the clock back to March 26, 2007, the day before then-Governor Carcieri signed it into law,” Chafee said. “This re-set will allow us to engage in a comprehensive dialogue with our immigrant communities, law enforcement agencies, and all interested parties. This is an opportunity to reach a consensus on how best to enforce the law,” Chaffee said in a press release.

Governor Chafee signed the Executive Order before an audience of more than 150 at Providence’s International Institute, a non-profit institution that provides educational, legal, and social services to immigrants and refugees throughout Rhode Island and southeastern New England. Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth H. Roberts and Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis were among the observers.

(photo: Providence Journal)

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

They have their work cut out for them.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

Almost five weeks after the House passed legislation to extend insurance benefits to the growing rolls of the long-term unemployed, upper-chamber leaders continue to haggle over Republican amendments. Not only do GOP leaders want to alter the way the bill is funded, but they’re insisting that a handful of politically charged amendments also get consideration, including provisions to de-fund ACORN and keep illegal immigrants out of the workplace. Since the start of the deadlock, more than 125,000 Americans have lost their unemployment insurance benefits.

It’s a GOP version of the maneuvering that surrounded the new federal Hate Crimes Act, which passed last week as an amendment to a major defense appropriations bill. Republicans threatened a filibuster, but eventually some, including Maine’s Olympia Snowe, broke ranks. Democrats attached the hate crimes amendment to the defense bill after nearly a decade of frustrating unsuccessful attempts to pass it over shifting Republican objections.

Now the stalemate over unemployment funding is frustrating Democratic leaders, who twice this month have attempted to pass the extension, only to be rebuffed on the Senate floor. The GOP strategizing this time has left a growing number of jobless Americans and their advocates indignant that lawmakers would make political hay out of their misfortunes in the middle of the worst employment crisis in a generation.

“Unemployed workers across the country are devastated and dismayed by the failure of the U.S. Senate to extend their lifeline,” Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said in a statement. “It’s shameful and callous.”

The deadlock has been something of a surprise. When the House brought up an unemployment insurance extension bill last month — a proposal granting an additional 13 months of benefits to high-unemployment states — it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. The vote was 331 to 83.

Senate Democrats are pushing a more generous bill, extending benefits by 14 weeks nationwide, with an additional six weeks for those in states where unemployment rates have topped 8.5 percent. The bill applies only to the future, meaning those whose benefits expired before passage would not be eligible for backpay. The Senate is scheduled to vote Tuesday afternoon on a procedural move to begin consideration of the bill.

Standing in their way, however, are GOP leaders who want to attach a series of controversial — some say unrelated — amendments. Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), for example, are pushing separate provisions to ensure that ACORN doesn’t receive federal funds. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) have offered amendments related to the Wall Street bailout. And Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) wants to make permanent the controversial E-Verify program, which screens newly hired workers in order to weed out illegal immigrants.

Continue reading at the Washington Independent, the Colorado Independent’s sister site in D.C.

Got a tip? Freelance story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.