Rep. Case (D-Hawaii) Cosponsors ‘Legal Workforce Act’, 1 of just 6 Dems to Ever Do So

Congressman Ed Case, a Democrat representing the first district of Hawaii, recently became the first Democrat to cosponsor the current version of the Legal Workforce Act, which mandates the free and easy-to-use online E-Verify authorization program for all employers in the United States.

In fact, Congressman Case is the first Democrat to cosponsor the Legal Workforce Act since 2013 and is one of just six Democrats ever to do so.

Serving on the Defense and Homeland Security subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee and Investigations and Oversight ad Indigenous Peoples of the United States subcommittees of the House Natural Resources Committee, Congressman Case knows firsthand the importance of maintaining a legal workforce and understands that removing the illegal jobs magnet would be a crucial step in securing the southern border and thus providing for the common defense of the nation.

NumbersUSA applauds Congressman Case’s courage to stand apart from his Democratic peers, his commitment to his constituents, and his protection of all working Americans’ access to fair employment, free from the undue competition created by illegal aliens entering the labor force.

The “Legal Workforce Act” was first introduced by former Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in 2013; however, for the past several congresses, including the current, the bill has been introduced by Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.). In this current 118th Congress, the “Legal Workforce Act” is numbered H.R. 319.

As the bill is currently written, the “Legal Workforce Act” would direct DHS to create an electronic employment eligibility confirmation system modeled after E-Verify and mandate the use of such a system by all employers in the U.S. It would also increase the penalties related to hiring illegal aliens, and requires the verification of employees whose employment status has not been checked against the E-Verify system yet.

In addition, H.R. 319 would also permanently reauthorize the E-Verify substitute, increase the minimum fines for employers not using E-Verify by upwards of 900%, allow for businesses who repeatedly fail to use E-Verify to be debarred, and require the SSA to annually notify employers of any employees’ Social Security numbers that are used multiple times.

For context, as of summer 2019, 871,720 companies and 2,892,154 hiring sites have enrolled in E-Verify. Because of this, 29,275,549 individual identities and employment statuses were verified through E-Verify during FY2019.

From data released in 2017, 85% of E-Verify users and 86% of new enrollees were satisfied with the online verification system. In addition, 82% of users were satisfied with the tentative non-confirmation process, 43% of users were prompted to use the effective photo matching tool over the second half of the year, and E-Verify scores well above the customer satisfaction average for all services provided by the federal government (70%).

You can visit Rep. Case’s website here.

You can read the “Legal Workforce Act” text here.

You can learn more about E-Verify here.