Immigration Bills

H.R. 3160, the Improving Methods to Promote Regular Occurrences of the Verification of Employability Status Act of 2011, would make the E-Verify program permanent, allow employers to verify existing employees after 14 days in the program, allow employers to wait for an individual's work eligibility verification before hiring them, and would impose sanctions on an employer who knowingly accepts a fraudulent document during the verification process.

H.R. 2670, the Jobs for Americans Act, would authorize state and local governments to 'enact and enforce laws' within the limits of federal statute that help identify illegal aliens, deter illegal entry, apprehend illegal aliens, and reduce rewards that encourage illegal aliens to remain in the United States. In addition, this legislation would avert the federal preemption of state and local laws against individuals who knowingly employ, recruit, or refer (for a fee) an illegal alien for employment.

H.R. 2164, the Legal Workforce Act of 2011, would replace the current I-9 system by making E-Verify (currently the basic pilot federal employment verification program) permanent and mandatory for all employees via a gradual phase-in process. Specifically, an employer with 10,000 or more employees has 6 months to become compliant after the bill's enactment, while employers with 500 to 10,000 employees have 12 months, employers with 20 to 500 employees have 18 months, employers with 1 to 20 employees have 24 months, and agriculture service employers have 36 months.

H.R. 2000, SAVE Act of 2011, would help reduce illegal immigration by requiring every employer in the United States to eventually use the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system to verify that every employee has the legal right to work in the United States. As well, H.R. 4088 contains other interior enforcement measures such as increasing the number of ICE agents and training at least 250 State and local law enforcement officers on how to perform federal immigration enforcement procedures.

The bill would require each state and their local law enforcement agencies to collect and report all immigration and DWI-related information as a prerequisite for receiving State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP, a program that provides assistance to states for the incarceration of illegal aliens) funding. DWI-related information would then appear as a flag on the wants/warrants page of the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database.