President Trump and the White House released a detailed set of immigration principles on October 8, 2017. The principles reflect many of the campaign promises Pres. Trump made on the campaign trail and suggest implementing many of the reforms recommended by the last bipartisan Congressional commission on immigration reform chaired by Barbara Jordan.
The single best action Congress can take to significantly reduce illegal immigration is to require all businesses to use E-Verify.
E-Verify is an electronic verification system, maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that allows employers to ensure that they are hiring a legal workforce.
The Legal Workforce Act, H.R. 3711, was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and would require all employers to use E-Verify within two years.
Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) are original cosponsors of the bill.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, otherwise known as DACA, was announced by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. The executive action granted qualifying illegal aliens a postponement of any potential immigration action and a 2-year renewable court date. To date, more than 793,000 illegal aliens have received a temporary amnesty through the program.
In order to qualify for the amnesty, illegal aliens had to meet the following conditions:
Missouri Survey of 1,000 Likely Midterm Voters
Conducted April 19-20, 2017
By Pulse Opinion Research
RAISE Act Summary
A map of states that have taken action against the hiring of illegal aliens by requiring some (or all) businesses to use E-Verify. States in red or orange have taken no steps to curb the hiring of illegal workers who wish to compete for jobs with American workers. States with all other colors have taken some steps to curb illegal hiring.
The immigration issue and Pres. Obama's threats to act alone on immigration contributed to his party suffering massive losses in the 2014 mid-term elections. Three-quarters of those who voted this year (74%) say President Obama should work with Congress rather than around Congress on immigration and separately, 80% want new jobs created by the economy to go to American workers and legal immigrants already in the country.
Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, dove into the world of political activism last year by launching the pro-amnesty group FWD.us. Investing millions of his own personal fortune, Zuckerberg joined dozens of other leaders in the tech industry who have a vested interest in suppressing wages for tech workers through increased legal immigration and granting legalization and work permits to millions of illegal aliens.
Section 401 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA - Public Law 104-208) required the federal government to establish pilot programs to verify the employment eligibility of new hires.
Participation in E-Verify is voluntary and has been available for every business in the country since late 2004.
The purpose of this glossary, which is the product of significant research, study and polling, is to equip opponents of the immigration bill passed by the U.S. Senate in 2013 (as well as the ongoing legislative maneuvering to get the entire Congress to pass the same bill or something similar) with a common vocabulary to advocate a unified policy position.
The policy position is most succinctly expressed as follows: