Immigration system must be fixed
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March 2, 2013 |
By U.S. Congressman Raul Labrador
Our immigration system is broken and until it is
fixed there will be continued threats to our
economic and national security. The time has
finally come to act; we have a bipartisan
consensus that something has to be done now to
modernize our immigration system.
But before any legislation is crafted, we are
holding in the House Judiciary Committee a
series of public hearings to examine different
parts of our immigration system. I wanted to
take this opportunity to update you about what's
going on during the immigration debate in
Congress.
This week the Judiciary Committee held two very
informative hearings on immigration. The first
hearing looked at our agricultural guest worker
program while the second hearing examined the
use of E-Verify by employers to check the legal
status of prospective employees.
My time questioning key experts on the guest
worker program revealed the vast majority of
businesses and industries agree that the current
system needs to be fixed. For instance, it's too
cumbersome and unresponsive to the needs of our
agricultural industries. One particular striking
part of the discussion is that the labor unions
want to create an unaccountable board of
government bureaucrats who will determine the
number of guest workers allowed in the United
States. I think the free market should decide
the number of guest workers. I will not support
a new government bureaucracy surrounding a guest
worker program – it's less efficient and
responsive than the free market.
The second hearing was to learn more about E-Verify's
success as a tool to check the legal status of
newly hired employees. Right now E-Verify is
used by employers on a state-by-state basis and
requirements vary greatly. Some witnesses
testified that a more uniform use of the
E-Verify system would provide an effective
enforcement mechanism to virtually stop the
hiring of illegal immigrants. An employment
verification system like E-Verify is absolutely
critical to ending our country’s position as a
job magnet for illegal immigrants.
The good news here is that the problems of our
broken immigration system are being identified
and Congress is looking for solutions through
the hearing process. We want to pass immigration
reform that works. I am determined to do all I
can to ensure we finally get it right. I
appreciate your thoughts and concerns about this
issue. I will continue to keep you informed as
immigration policy takes shape in the House. |
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