Senators don’t want inmmigrants in stimulus jobs

Thu, January 29, 2009 - 3:22 PM

Two senators are urging their parties’ leadership to include guarantees that jobs created by the economic stimulus bill go to Americans.

Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, and Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, have written a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, arguing that the use of E-Verify, the government’s citizenship verification program, be mandatory for businesses benefiting from the stimulus package. The program is currently voluntary.

The full text of the letter is below:

The economic stimulus package is needed, in part, to spur the economic growth necessary to help create new jobs in America. With this in mind, we write to urge you to include provisions in the legislation that will help ensure that jobs created by the stimulus are for hardworking Americans.

Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate for December was 7.2 percent. That figure, the highest in 16 years, translates into roughly 11.1 million American workers without jobs. In this time of increased unemployment, our focus should be on creating jobs that will be filled by American citizens.

An important step toward guaranteeing that new and existing jobs are for U.S. citizens is to require businesses benefiting from the stimulus package to use the E-Verify program. Currently, E-Verify is a voluntary program that allows for the quick comparison of an employee’s personal information with over 444 million records in the SSA database and more than 60 million records in the DHS immigration database. Such an analysis is a useful and efficient tool to determine lawful citizenship. We are encouraged by the fact that close to 2,000 new businesses register to use the E-Verify system each week. And, with the implementation of Executive Order 12989 on January 15, 2009, all federal contractors and subcontractors are required to use the E-Verify system.

The stimulus package is intended to help ease the pain of the current recession and restore growth to our economy. If passed, it will be paid for by the American taxpayers and we believe that Congress should do all it can to ensure that American taxpayers are the intended beneficiaries of its efforts.

Although studies indicate that the illegal population in our country is decreasing, between 12 and 20 million illegal immigrants likely remain in the United States today. It is critical that the stimulus legislation include provisions to require the use of E-Verify when hiring workers to fill jobs created by the proposal. The inclusion of such a provision will be a key factor as we evaluate the merits of the stimulus package and gauge our support.

-- Amy Dominello