America's Voice Blog

Posted 02/08/12 at 02:19pm By Frank Sharry

The Incredible Shrinking Rep. Lamar Smith

Lamar SmithDoes anyone (besides Mitt Romney) listen to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee anymore?

This week, Rep. Lamar Smith is looking especially desperate. He's taken to the pages of Roll Call and National Review Online to try to garner some attention on one of his favorite subjects: immigrant bashing. In Roll Call, Smith launched what amounts to another fact-free attack on President Obama.  Smith claims the President is ignoring immigration laws.  In reality, as immigrant communities and advocates are painfully aware, the Obama Administration has deported more undocumented immigrants than any other in history.

Smith is upset because last year Obama ordered the Department of Homeland Security to do what every local, state and federal law enforcement agency in the nation does: establish priorities and focus resources on dangerous criminals.  Coming from Smith, the criticism is sheer hypocrisy.  Back in 1999 Smith asked then-Attorney General Janet Reno to use the same kind of prosecutorial discretion he's now railing about. But Lamar isn't deterred by consistency or reality. 

Nor is his political judgment so sharp.  Last summer, Smith's leading witness at a hearing to denounce the prosecutorial discretion policy was Senator David Vitter.  Yes, the same Senator who has his, um, own unique history with prosecutorial discretion. It didn't work out so well.  

You know time are tough for Lamar when he has to resort to that right-wing bastion, National Review’s "The Corner,"  to whine about -- can you guess? Yep, the liberal media.  The first line of his screed is so outlandish, it's laughable:

"It’s hard to imagine a worse example of media bias than the national coverage of illegal immigration."

Really?  Just because reporters require you to have actual facts behind your arguments, and just because most have come to realize that the nativist case has been propped up for years by junk science peddled by faux think tanks such as the Center for Immigration Studies and Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) doesn’t mean they are biased.  It means that most have figured out that your rants aren’t anchored in reality.  

Of course, somebody has to take the blame for Chairman Smith’s less than stellar legislative record this Congress. Besides the Vitter debacle on discretion, Smith's signature piece of anti-immigrant legislation is a bill called mandatory E-Verify.  According to Smith and his running buddies Steve King (R-IA) and Elton Gallegly (R-CA), the bill would free up good-paying jobs for Americans.  It tanked after small businesses complained the bill would create an unworkable and expensive bureaucracy; tea party types and libertarians complained the bill would grant the federal government the authority to approve or disapprove every new hire in America; agricultural growers predicted crops would rot on the vine; and the labor movement pointed out that it would actually cost Americans jobs. It would also force vulnerable workers further into the hands of unscrupulous employers. 

So, why the sudden uptick on immigration by Smith?  Perhaps he is looking to change the subject after he suffered a huge loss on another of his signature pieces of legislation, SOPA. That stinging defeat further damaged his already diminished status. 

Bottom line: the notoriously thin-skinned Lamar Smith is flailing. But he shouldn’t get so down.  There is one person who is listening to Smith these days: Mitt Romney.  Just like Lamar, Mitt wants to stop comprehensive immigration reform proposals at every turn, ramp up deportations even further, put in place a federally-run E-Verify system, fight off the DREAM Act (a popular bill that enables undocumented youth who came to the U.S. as children to attend college or serve in the military) and have states pass laws like Arizona’s SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56 that purge Latinos from their states.  They call it “attrition through enforcement”  or “self-deportation,”  presumably in hopes of making it sound humane. 

But attempting to make life in the U.S. so unbearable that 11 million undocumented immigrants – a population the size of the state of Ohio – are harassed into leaving the country is not only inhumane, it’s insane. First, it wouldn’t work. But if it did somehow, it would undermine our recovering economy, our global reputation, and our moral compass. 

Lamar and Mitt don’t seem to care.  Both are catering to the far-right nativist wing of the Republican Party, Lamar for ideological reasons and Mitt for political reasons.  And that slice of the GOP electorate doesn’t much like immigrants and doesn’t much care for facts.  Well, here’s a fact that might give them all pause: the GOP presidential candidate needs 40% of the Latino vote to win in key swing states like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and even Arizona. But with Romney talking up self-deportation, promising to veto the popular DREAM Act and embracing anti-immigrant zealots like Pete Wilson, Lamar Smith, and Arizona and Alabama law author Kris Kobach, no wonder in head-to-head match ups with Obama he draws no more than the 25% of Latinos who reliably vote Republican. 

Well, if he loses, Mitt can always take another page from his friend Lamar.  He can blame the media.

Cross-Posted at Huffington Post and Daily Kos.    

Posted 01/20/12 at 03:15pm By Mahwish Khan

First E-Verify, Now SOPA: Lamar Smith Has Been Trampling on Basic Freedoms For Years

lamar smith memeOver the past few weeks, we've noticed a lot of attention focused on Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. See, Smith is the sponsor of  the Stop Online Piracy Act,  a.k.a. SOPA, which has caused a huge backlash among online companies, activists and organizations. They see Smith as an evil Big Brother figure. And they're right. Smith has become a reviled figure on Twitter. Firedoglake's John Walker asked, "Is Lamar Smith trying to make himself the super villain on the internet?"

Now that so many others have figured out that Lamar Smith is a "super villain," welcome to our world.

In addition to leading the effort to thwart online freedom, Smith is one of the leading anti-immigrant voices in Congress.

With his equally anti-immigrant sidekicks, Representatives Elton Gallegly (R-CA) and Steve King (R-IA), Smith held numerous immigration-related hearings last year. He attempted to demonize immigrants and to "pit minority communities against each other." Fortunately, his efforts have largely failed. The denouement was when Smith brought in Senator David Vitter to testify at a hearing on prosecutorial discretion. As America's Voice noted at the time, "Vitter certainly is an “expert witness”: he’s intimately familiar with the application of prosecutorial discretion.  But apparently Vitter thinks he should be the only one to get a break." And Rep. Zoe Lofgren really let Vitter and Smith have it.

In his quest to rid the U.S. of undocumented immigrants, Smith was pushing legislation called E-Verify, a massive bureaucratic quagmire, which would impact all U.S. workers. It doesn't work.  Sorta SOPA-like. So far, E-Verify hasn't moved to the House floor because of backlash from Smith's GOP peers.

One other thing about Smith, he's got a really thin skin. He does not take well to criticism. In May, columnist Ruben Navarrette wrote:

You would think that the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee would have better things to do than respond to every column that mentions him.

Navarrette wrote that on immigration, Smith is trying to "create his own reality." That's what Smith does...regularly.

Smith also tried to engage Markos Moulitsas last summer over a column about E-Verify titled, "A failed 
experiment," which Markos wrote in The Hill. Markos blasted back in a post titled, E-Verify: Lamar Smith's fact-free defense.

We're just glad that others are cluing in to just how dangerous Lamar Smith is to basic freedoms. Immigrants and minorities know it all too well.

Posted 12/19/11 at 02:28pm By Van Le

Surprise, Surprise: Steve King, Rick Perry, and the Anti-Immigrant Crowd Defend Sheriff Arpaio

arpaio and kingBirds of a feather truly flock together.

Last week, the Department of Justice announced the results of their years-long investigation of Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio, saying Arpaio had “engage[d] in a pattern of unconstitutional policing” and practiced “a chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations.”  The Department of Homeland Security followed by revoking its remaining 287(g) agreement with Arpaio’s office, breaking off many means of local law enforcement / immigration enforcement coordination.  The news was a huge step forward in the fight against the man we’ve repeatedly called the “Bull Connor" of the immigration world and a starting point to checking his excesses of power.

While immigration advocates and immigrant communities across the nation celebrated, however, members of the anti-immigrant crowd were quick to circle the wagons and align themselves with the wrong side of the law.  Anti-immigrant “leader” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) released no less than a video proclaiming his steadfast support of the Sheriff, in which he denied that Arpaio could be involved in any unconstitutional profiling and accused the DOJ of playing a political game.

As King says in his video:

I think it's a shame that the Department of Justice has targeted Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  I've been to visit his operation, I've gone out to visit his tent city, I've seen what kind of job he does.  He takes great pains to make sure that he doesn't discriminate against people based on race.  There is not a profiling operation going on down there that I can see.

King is not Arpaio’s only defender.  Texas Governor Rick Perry, whom Arpaio had recently endorsed for the Republican presidential nomination (Rick, didn’t we tell you that one would only bring you trouble?) also suggested that the DOJ had an agenda:

As CBS News quotes Perry:  

I would suggest to you that these people are out after Sheriff Joe.  He is tough.  And again, when I’m the president of the United States, you’re not going to see me going after states like Arizona or Alabama, suing sovereign states for making decisions.

Rounding out this trio of misguidedness is Arizona State Rep. John Kavanaugh (R), who is calling DOJ’s investigation a political “smear job” and “a sneak attack on Arpaio.”

In response, we have to ask: are we talking about the same Sheriff Joe Arpaio?  Are these tough-on-crime Republicans really trying to defend a man who has been so obsessed with stamping out immigration that he’s allowed 400 sex crimes cases to go uninvestigated, who has seen violent crime rise 58% in his county while the rest of Arizona has seen a 12% decline, who has been accused of re-routing $100 million in taxpayer dollars so that he could fund his own anti-immigrant mania?  Does Steve King know racial profiling when he sees it, or know that Arpaio once settled a racial profiling case (in which he zip-tied a legal permanent resident suffering from diabetes for three hours) for $200,000?  Do Arpaio's defenders want to read some of the facts first, before they make more videos?

What is it about illegal that Sheriff Arpaio's defenders just don't seem to understand?

Posted 12/02/11 at 06:23pm By Web Team

Rep. Steve King Thinks Racial Profiling Is Legal in the United States

Steve KingNothing should surprise us about Rep. Steve King. The Iowa Republican is proudly one of the leading anti-immigrant legislators in Congress. 

Yesterday, we posted about King's attack on Art Venegas, the Army Vet who served as Chief of Police in Sacramento, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Venegas is also a naturalized U.S. citizen.  King basically asked Venegas to see his papers. 

The hearing was on Secure Communities and one issue discussed repeatedly was on racial profiling. In fact, Huffington Post's article on the hearing was titled, Democrats Say Secure Communities Needs More Safeguards Against Racial Profiling.

But, guess who doesn't think there need to be safeguards against racial profiling? Rep. Steve King.

Why?

King apparently think racial profiling is perfectly legal in the United States. As we tweeted from the hearing:

Steve King bravely comes out in favor of racial profiling. "Is there a federal law prohibiting racial profiling?"

Yes, you read that right: King actually asked the witnesses whether any federal law prohibits racial profiling. And he insisted that Congress actually hasn’t enacted a law on this subject. Art Venegas challenged King's assertion, noting the Civil Rights Act and the US Constitution, specifically the 4th and 14th amendments. 

King was unimpressed by the answer from Venegas. When King asked Gary Mead, Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations
for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that same question about racial profiling, Mead replied, "I can't answer that question." Yeah, couldn't answer it.

Congress didn't pass a specific law relating to racial profiling and that's all that matters to him. Pretty clear that King wouldn't want such a law either.

 

Posted 12/01/11 at 04:21pm By Web Team

Rep. Steve King to Former Police Chief and US Army Vet Art Venegas: Show Me Your Papers

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee held yet another hearing on immigration. Titled, "Is Secure Communities Keeping Our Communities Secure?," the hearing provided another opportunity for Republicans on the Committee to burnish their ugly anti-immigrant credentials. And, true to form, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), the leading anti-immigrant voice in the GOP, exhibited egregious behavior during his questioning of former Sacramento Police Chief Art Venegas, a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Huffington Post's Elise Foley reported on the stunning interaction:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) took a moment on Wednesday to question a congressional witness about how he moved to the United States from Mexico, after the former police chief mentioned in his testimony that he is an immigrant. At the same hearing, Democrats on the House immigration subcommittee pushed for immigration officials to add safeguards against racial profiling in immigration enforcement.

"You said you're likely the only immigrant on the panel," King said to Arturo Venegas, who was testifying in front of the House immigration subcommittee. "I wonder if you could tell us how was it you were inspired to come to the United States."

Venegas, a former Sacramento police chief, responded by telling King that his U.S.-born mother brought him to the country after he was born in Mexico. "Can you just tell us what year and what visa, then, Mr. Venegas?" King asked.

King never followed up with a reason for his questions, which came after Venegas testified about his experiences as Sacramento, Calif., police chief and his service on a task force to reform Secure Communities, a key immigration enforcement program.

One of our colleagues who attended the hearing, "To witness it was just surreal."

We caught up with Venegas today to talk to him about his interaction with King. He told us:

It took me by surprise. Why did he even ask the question? What kind of a visa I came on? After serving as a police chief and in the Vietnam war, it was insulting to have my legality, my legitimacy questioned.  After my 40 years of public service, I never assumed I’d have to worry about that. I’ve probably been in public service longer than he has.  When he asked me what intention my parents and grandparents had in coming here, I wish I had said they were the same interests as his ancestors had.

King doesn't even try to hide his anti-immigrant views. They were on full display yesterday. There's a painful pattern here. Just this week, King authored a "Dear Colleague" letter, which outlined his opposition to HR 3012, Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act, a (rare) bipartisan immigration bill. The bill passed by an astounding margin of 389 -15. King, one of the 15 nay votes, wrote:

H.R 3012 moves our American culture in a direction away from assimilation and grows ethnic enclaves among the nationalities of the largest immigrant populations who are the slowest to assimilate. Open borders proponents of the bill have demanded and received an expansion of family-based visas which do nothing for skill shortages and instead consume visas that highly skilled immigrants could otherwise use....H.R. 3012 increases the number of immigrants coming to the United States from a handful of countries such as China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines and will exacerbate the problem of chain migration. 

"Ethnic enclaves" and "chain migration" are classic code words among the anti-immigrant crowd -- and just what we'd expect from one of their leaders: Steve King. Again, the bill passed 389 - 15. 

Also, at yesterday's Judiciary Committee hearing, King appeared to intimate that racial profiling is legal.  He asked the witnesses whether any federal law prohibits racial profiling, noting that Congress actually hasn’t enacted a law on this subject. Art Venegas reminded King about the Civil Rights Act and the US Constitution, specifically the 4th and 14th amendments.. 

Every time we think King has reached a new low, he outdoes himself. Attacking former police chief and vet Art Venegas was another embarrassing and despicable action from the GOP's leading messenger on immigration.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Posted 09/02/11 at 10:01am By Mahwish Khan

Will Mass Deportation Advocates, Sen. Jim DeMint & Rep Steve King, Control GOP’s Immigration Agenda?

Jim DeMint and Steve KingThe GOP presidential nomination battle is heating up. There's a lot of politicking underway this Labor Day weekend for the candidates. As we noted in our report, Why Do Elephants Put their Heads in the Sand?, "the Party’s stance on immigration and ability to compete for Latino voters will be a major storyline."

The immigration storyline could further develop this weekend. On the immigration issue, there's a battle underway between the pragmatists in the GOP, led by Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, Utah's Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, and the founder of FreedomWorks, Dick Armey. They understand that the Republican Party can't win national elections if its leaders continue to alienate the fastest growing voting demographics: Latinos.

On the other side are the mass deportation advocates.  Two notoriously anti-immigrant leaders of that crowd, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and Iowa Representative Steve King, will be questioning the candidates at a Tea Party event in South Carolina on Monday. At The New Republic, Ed Kilgore notes that it could be a pivotal weekend for Rick Perry and his record on immigration.

It’s well known that Perry’s record and positions on immigration represent the one glaring area where he’s significantly out of step with conservative orthodoxy. He has, after all, consistently supported a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, both positions contemptuously dismissed as code for “amnesty” by many conservative activists. Worse yet, from their point of view, he signed and still defends a state version of the DREAM Act, which provides in-state tuition rates at state universities for illegal immigrants brought to this country as children. He opposes any modification of birthright citizenship. And he kept Texas off the bandwagon of states emulating Arizona’s SB 1070 law. Yes, he’s thundered a bit lately at the feds for their alleged failures in border enforcement. But by any measure, this is his Achilles heel when it comes to conservative ideological litmus tests, even if it is also a potential ace-in-the-hole in a general election, where the ability to avoid a calamitous loss among Hispanic voters could be the key to a GOP victory. Indeed, anti-immigrant demagogue Tom Tancredo published an op-ed on the eve of Perry’s announcement of his candidacy denouncing the governor’s record in terms normally reserved for Barack Obama.   

So it’s well worth noting that the co-inquisitor who will be sitting next to Jim DeMint (along with right-wing Princeton professor Robert George) at the Palmetto Freedom Forum event on Labor Day will be none other than Tancredo’s successor as Congress’ preeminent anti-immigration agitator, Representative Steve King of Iowa. King, whose views on the subject are so extreme that he was denied the chairmanship of a House subcommittee on immigration despite being its senior member, can hardly be expected to pass up an opportunity to bash Perry’s record in the forum’s one-on-one questioning format. And he may have an additional motive to highlight Perry’s heresies: His closest friend in Congress, now that Tancredo is gone, is Michele Bachmann. In fact, King has not made an endorsement in the presidential race up until now because he wanted to be able to participate in this weekend’s event. 

DeMint and King, along with Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), won't rest until all undocumented immigrants are deported. That's their mission. It's an extreme point of view that conflicts with the GOP's need to engage Latino voters. As Latino Decisions has documented, immigration is a top issue for Latino voters:

The most interesting trend from the June impreMedia/Latino Decisions (LD) poll is the personal relationship that the Latino community has with immigration policies. As reported here earlier, a majority of these voters (53%) said they know someone who is undocumented, while one-fourth (25%) said they know a person or family member who is facing deportation or who has been deported. These are striking numbers, particularly given that our sample for the poll is registered voters, who by definition are citizens of the United States. When we explore the percentage of respondents who know someone who is undocumented across key demographic indicators, factors like nativity and language use do not have any marked impact on personal experiences with undocumented immigrants. In fact, Latinos who were born in the United States and who are English speakers are more likely to know someone who has faced detention or deportation due to immigration reasons (see Figure Below) compared to Latinos who are closer to the immigration experience. We believe that this firsthand knowledge of the consequences of immigration policy has led to a significant change in the attitudes toward immigration among the Latino electorate.

The stakes are high. This weekend, we could see whether the DeMint-King wing of the party seize full control or if Perry can stand up to them. 

Posted 06/24/11 at 12:59pm By Mahwish Khan

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) Unveils GOP’s Jobs Plan, Also Known As “Grapes of Wrath: The Sequel”

grapes of wrathYes, "Grapes of Wrath: the Sequel" is now playing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. It's being directed by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Supported by GOP leadership, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is promoting his E-Verify program as a "jobs" bill that will ease unemployed Americans’ woes.  It’s telling that the first GOP “jobs plan” introduced this year would send unemployed manufacturing workers in Ohio or Michigan to the fields to pick fruit and vegetables. And who woulda thunk that the jobs bill would emanate from the Judiciary Committee? 

 

In The Hill, Smith tries to pass off his burdensome and ineffective E-Verify bill as a salve for American job seekers and economic growth, writing: 


E-Verify quickly identifies those working illegally in the United States.  Requiring it for all employers will open up more jobs for Americans and legal immigrants."  But if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Making E-Verify mandatory for all employers across the nation will make the situation worse, not better, for American businesses, workers, and taxpayers.  Not only will it fail to identify undocumented immigrants at least half the time, but it will jeopardize the jobs of millions of Americans, cost small businesses billions of dollars to implement, reduce tax revenues by at least $17 billion as workers and jobs move into the cash economy, and threaten the viability of the entire agriculture industry—as well as the jobs that depend on it. 


Smith’s piece was a thin-skinned response to an earlier op-ed from Eliseo Medina, International Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Medina, who knows a thing or two about jobs and working people, pointed out the laughable rationale behind the Smith proposal:

 

As damaging as the bill is, Rep. Smith's rationale is even more preposterous. He asserts that, if unauthorized immigrants are chased out, jobs will be available for America's unemployed. First, two-thirds of the workers who were disqualified after Arizona's E-Verify law became mandatory did not leave, but entered the cash economy. Second, laid off workers with graduate degrees are not lining up for stoop labor.  This bill is a jobs killer.

Click here to read more.
Posted 06/24/11 at 09:54am By Mahwish Khan

House Republicans—Led by Reps. Smith, Gallegly, and King—Declare Open Season on Immigrants

lamar smith House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), Immigration Subcommittee Chair Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and Immigration Subcommittee Vice Chair Steve King (R-IA) -- our "three amigos" on immigraton -- keep advancing their wish list of immigration “reforms” that would tighten the screws on immigrants of ALL statuses.

Yesterday, Smith’s House Judiciary Committee was scheduled to have marked-up one of the first in a series of anti-immigrant bills, H.R. 1932. If you heard Smith talk about it, you would think the bill is narrowly focused on dangerous criminals. It in fact does nothing of the sort. The bill would sweep up innocent asylum-seekers fleeing persecution and long-term lawful permanent residents who, because of Smith’s harsh 1996 laws, are facing deportation due to minor, non-violent crimes they may have committed decades ago. 

The Smith bill creates an immigration gulag of sorts, and gives the government the broad authority to lock people up forever, with no rights to demand release. 

Smith claims he is trying to address the problem that certain countries refuse to accept their own nationals who have been issued deportation orders. But Smith’s bill doesn't do that. He never addresses that particular issue, and he refuses to acknowledge workable ideas that do.  For example, the Obama Administration’s State Department and Department of Homeland Security have crafted a new strategy to compel better international cooperation by imposing stiffer sanctions on such countries.  He seems to have ignored their strategy entirely.

House Republicans, led by Rep. Smith, have declared open season on immigrants. Today it’s a bill to give government the power to lock up immigrants and throw away the key. Tomorrow it’s mandatory E-verify legislation that Smith thinks –wrongly— will drive millions of undocumented immigrants out of the country.

These are all bad ideas. Piled on top of the broken immigration system that he himself helped forge, his ideas will only make the situation worse. The Republicans seem to only be interested in political theatre and not in finding real solutions. They fail to realize that the audience is filled with Latino voters.

With Lamar Smith in the driver seat on immigration policy for the GOP, the Republicans’ already tainted image will only get worse. 

Click here to read more.
Posted 06/15/11 at 05:29am By Pili Tobar

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) Introduces Ineffective and Burdensome E-Verify Bill

immigrationYesterday, House Republicans, led by Reps. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and Steve King (R-IA), unveiled the top bill on their anti-immigration agenda: a plan to make all employers in America use the deeply flawed E-Verify program to check the immigration status of their workers.  There's going to be a hearing on it today (live-tweeted here). The "Three Amigos" (on immigration) mistakenly believe that if all employers use E-verify, undocumented workers will be unable to get jobs, will pack up their lives, and deport themselves.

In reality, the mass deportation dreams of Smith & Co. will have real-life consequences for American workers, businesses and tax payers, as well as undocumented workers. It will push immigrant workers deeper into the underground economy, fail to identify undocumented workers 50% of the time, and make the broken immigration system even worse. 

It’s clear that Smith, Gallegly, and King are playing politics with the issue. It’s already against the law for employers to hire undocumented workers. The Smith bill doesn’t change that; what it does is require all employers to use a flawed government system when evaluating who is legal to work.  But E-Verify is simply not ready for prime time, and making the program universal and mandatory will harm U.S. workers, businesses, and taxpayers without solving the problem. 

A real solution would be to require undocumented workers to register with the government, pay taxes, and work their way toward full U.S. citizenship.   

Here are the real-life consequences of Lamar Smith’s deportation fantasies:     

  • Mandatory E-Verify WILL keep hundreds of thousands of American workers from working, and WILL require millions to navigate an overburdened federal bureaucracy in order to prove eligibility. In fiscal year 2010, it’s estimated that over 80,000 workers lost their jobs due to E-Verify mistakes.  Nationwide, 770,000 legal Americans who are currently working could lose their jobs if employers put them through the E-Verify system.  Under the Smith proposal, up to 1.3 million people each year could be blocked from getting a new job because they were incorrectly marked as unauthorized.  To keep their jobs, they would be forced to navigate the Social Security Administration -- which is already overburdened and turning people away.

  • Mandatory E-Verify WILL burden small business owners who want to comply with the law. Small businesses have created 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years, but they would be hardest hit by E-Verify. According to Bloomberg Government, if E-Verify had been mandatory in 2010, it would have cost small businesses $2.6 billion.

Click here to read more.
Posted 06/08/11 at 01:43pm By Van Le

Georgia Agricultural Businesses Report Labor Shortages After Passage of State Anti-Immigration Law

abandoned field

Last month, Georgia passed one of the harshest new immigration laws in the country, despite vehement protests from interest groups all over the state political spectrum.  Faith groups rallied, immigrant students demonstrated, and businesses worried about the economic toll of such a law personally asked legislators to reconsider the measure.   

The law passed, and now—just a few weeks later—the Peach Tree state is already feeling some of the consequences. 

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today: 

Nearly half of the 132 Georgia businesses polled in a private survey this month say they are experiencing agricultural labor shortages. 

And of those who reported shortages to the Georgia Agribusiness Council, more than a third said immigrants are concerned about the state’s new anti-illegal immigration law.

The council started doing the survey after farmers complained the new law is scaring migrant farmworkers away from Georgia and putting hundreds of millions of dollars in crops at risk. [emphasis ours]

It certainly seems like Georgia has shot itself in the foot—just as the US appears to be entering another economic slowdown, and just as global food prices are rising.

Click here to read more.

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