Employee Verification Amendment Act Of 2008

Floor Speech

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Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, 99 percent plus efficiency. Where else in the Federal Government can we claim that we have a program that is over 99 percent effective, efficient, and gets the job done?

I am here to support this bill; and, sadly, I am here to support it at a 5-year extension rather than the 10-year originally proposed. And my big question is, those that did not want to extend it to 10 years, what don't you understand about 99.6 percent efficiency for the American citizens in the United States? Is it too efficient and that is why we are not today extending it 10 years? That is a question I think that every Member of Congress is going to have to answer to their constituency in the very near future.

Mr. Speaker, the employee verification system is not a pilot program anymore. For over 5 years, it has been a national program not restricted to the five original States but universal throughout the United States. It has been so effective that judiciaries across this country, judges, have required that anyone caught hiring illegal has been required to use this system to make sure it doesn't happen again.

The system is so effective that the executive branch and the legislative branch has made this the gold standard for hiring employees. Congress today does and has been required to make sure that Social Security numbers and names match before we hire them. The executive branch had asked for Congress themselves to do that. You haven't heard the horror stories and the end of the world because 99.6 percent is a number hard to argue with. The executive branch was confronted by this number, and now has mandated that any contractor and every government operation will use this system from now on. The question, Mr. Speaker, is why are we just maintaining the status quo for 5 more years?

Two years ago, the American voters were very upset with the fact that the then Republican majority refused to confront the issue that the number one source of illegal immigration was illegal employment, and that there was a simple, easy way to stop the problem if there was a will in Washington to get it done, and that system was E-Verification.

Today, we are confronted with a 5-year extension of what we have had for over 5 years rather than moving forward with a system that can address the number one source of illegal immigration, a simple system that can not only stop illegal immigration but stop a lot of problems related to that.

The SAVE Act was introduced by a Democrat named HEATH SHULER from the great State of North Carolina. It was supported by over 156 Members of the House of Representatives. It has actually received a discharge petition that is within less than 30 people to sign it to be able to bring it to a vote. That would make it a universal phase-in system to allow every employer and require every employer to not only use E-Verification before hiring somebody, but using E-Verification before--are you ready for this?--claiming a tax deduction for employing somebody who may be illegal.

I wish that Democrats and Republicans could have got together on that bill the way we did with this one. But sadly, the leadership of the Democratic Party in this House and Speaker Pelosi has blocked any legislation of substantive numbers that does not include an amnesty for the 20 million people illegally present.

Mr. Speaker, there are those who talk about compassion about those who are illegally here. Well, let me give you another number. Three hundred-plus illegals are sitting in prison today because an employer in Iowa did not use the E-Verification system before hiring them. And if you don't care about illegal immigration, and you say you care about immigrants coming to this country illegally, and you want to be humanitarian, then require the people that are exploiting them to check through E-Verification as a mandate, not a voluntary, so that future illegals that come into this country are not put in prison because their employer didn't check that the name and the Social Security Number matched.

I wish this town would act on its verbiage and its promises half as much as they expect the American people to respond to the responsibilities of citizenship.

As Members of Congress, we are now placed at having to vote for a 5-year extension rather than a 10, and we are denied the ability by the Speaker of the House to vote on a bill that is bipartisan, and able to address this issue. And I would ask that the SAVE Act be brought forward as soon as possible so we can back up this voluntary program with a mandatory one that will take care of the problem.

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