Illegal Immigrant Foreman’s Meth Lab Raises Public Contracting Issues In Ohio

Police discovery that an out of state subcontractor’s carpentry foreman on a Kent, Ohio student housing complex construction project was operating a meth lab in his motel room led to discovery that 23 of the 25 construction workers in the foreman’s crew were illegal immigrants. Although building inspectors said the work on the project was up to code, the subcontractor was remoived from the project, the foreman was jailed, and the 23 undocumented crew members were detained for deportation.

Citing a need to “keep the jobs local,” Laborers Union Local 894 spokesman Bill Orr pointed out that, though the project was a private development,  use of minimum wage labor by the subcontractors, rather than union workers, could cost the City of Kent $30,000.00 of income tax revenues each year the job was staffed by undocumented workers. “Where’s the due diligence?” asked Kent City Councilman Robin Turner.

E-Verify Fate Hanging In The Balance

Alejandro Mayorkas, the naturalized Cuban immigrant citizen confirmed by the Senate last month as Director of U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security, said at a news conference today at DHS headquarters that he expects Congress to pass a timely renewal of authority for the DHS E-Verify program: "E-Verify is a tool to ensure a legal workforce. It assists employers in abiding by the law and it also protects the workforce. If E-Verify is not renewed, in my opinion we will need a different vehicle to accomplish those very fundamental objectives."

The E-Verify program will expire at the end of September if there is no Congressional reauthorization. Both houses of Congress have passed differing versions of the FY 10 Homeland Security appropriations bill, with the House reauthorizing the E-Verify program for two years in its measure, while the Senate enacted a permanent authorization of the program. It is not clear whether a conference committee can convene and deliver a report to the floor of both houses before the end of the month, but temporary reauthorization language could be included in the continuing resolution Congress will have to pass before the end of the month in order to keep paychecks flowing to federal government workers.

At the DHS press conference, Director Mayorkas noted DHS is evaluating the use of fingerprints, or other "biometrics," to verify citizenship for employment purposes, and the Department is preparing for a monumental onslaught of inquiries expected when anticipated comprehensive immigration reform legislation gives legal status to millions of currently undocumented workers in the U. S.

In response to a direct question whether it was possible E-Verify could cease to operate in a couple weeks, Director Mayorkas said, "We expect that Congress will provide the necessary authority to continue the program," which is now mandatory for all contractors doing federal government work.

E-Verify Challenges Are Not Over

Despite the ruling by U. S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. last week rejecting a last minute bid for injunctive relief against the Department of Homeland Security's rules requiring all companies contracting with the federal government to clear all present and future employees through the federal E-verify system to see if it is legal for them to work in this country, the legal, political and practical challenges to E-verify will continue for a long time. The system is expected to falsely label as illegal workers about 38,000 people who are actually legally employed here, requiring their employers to spend money, time and effort to get admittedly mistaken government information databases corrected. Furthermore, E-verify does nothing at all to detect the illegal alien working here who has presented false identity documents of a citizen to his or her employer.

What's even more complicated, the E-verify program will expire at the end of this month unless both houses of Congress pass the Homeland Security appropriations bill before September 30, and House and Senate versions of the bill will have to be reconciled in conference committee, because the House version extends E-verify for only two years, while the Senate reauthorization is permanent. It seems silly to require compliance with a system which could expire in three weeks.

Even under the rules which go into force today, employers with government contracts have 30 days to sign up for E-Verify, and 90 days after that to actually check the legal status of people on their payrolls. Why would a company begin that process without waiting to see whether the program will survive beyond the end of this month?

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced today that Congress will need a short term continuing resolution to keep the doors of the federal government open for business after September 30, because neither house will complete all of next year's appropriation bills before the end of this fiscal year. Conference committee work on the four appropriation measures already passed through both chambers is slated to start in a week or two, but with the contentious health care reform debate taking up a lot more time than anyone expected at the beginning of the session, there is no guarantee that E-verify will get formally reauthorized before it expires.

E-Verify: Tempest In A Teapot?

The ongoing litigation over Homeland Security rules requiring all contractors on federal government projects to submit existing employees as well as new hires to E-Verify may be just a tempest in a teapot if Congress does not reauthorize the E-Verify program, which is set to expire at the end of this month. Some argue that Homeland Security could continue requiring participation in the E-Verify program by rule, even without Congressional authorization, but since the program was initiated by an act of Congress, the prudent thing to do would be for both houses to pass bills reauthorizing the program. Surely President Obama would sign reauthorization legislation.

The House included E-Verify reauthorization in its 2010 DHS appropriations bill, but the Senate may not act on that package before the end of the month. The Senate, in a separate bill, permanently reauthorized the program, and included a requirement that all federal contractors and subcontractors participate. In order to assure continuation of E-Verify, a conference committee must reconcile these different measures so both houses can pass identical measures before the end of the month and get a bill to the Oval Office. If health care reform and climate change burn up the September agenda in either the House or the Senate, E-Verify may just become a lawyers' nightmare in the Department of Homeland Security.

Construction Coalition Seeks Injunction Against E-verify Requirements

The U. S. Chamber of Commerce, the Associated Builders and Contractors, and the Society for Human Resource Management today filed court papers seeking an injunction against enforcement of the Homeland Security Department's rule requiring all federal government contractors to check the legal status of both current workers and new hires in order to be eligible to work on federal construction projects, as well as state and local projects paid for with federal money. Last week the court rejected the coalition lawsuit challenging the rule, and now the contractor associations want to prohibit enforcement of the new requirement while they appeal that ruling. Some contractors fear that they will be responsible for violations of the rule by their subcontractors and suppliers under Homeland Security interpretations.

E-Verify "Must Play, Must Pay" Proposed

Congressman Mark Shuler of North Carolina and Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas are proposing legislation to require all employers in the country, not just those doing business with the federal government, to check the citizenship and work authorization status of every employee through the Homeland Security Department's E-Verify system. At the same time, during hearings by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Representative Jackie Speier of California proposed the imposition of a fee for each employer use of the system to check a prospective or current employee's authorization to work in the United States. The Social Security Administration estimates that a mandate to use E-Verify for checking up on everyone working in the country would cause the annual need for another 450,000 people to visit Social Security field offices to correct mistaken information now lodged in the system.

Fingerprint Bill Due By Labor Day, Schumer Says

Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Charles Schumer announced yesterday at his panel's hearing on immigration reform that he expects to introduce legislation by Labor Day which would require every citizen and immigrant working in the United States to have fingerprint information on file with the government, associated with either a new identification number or a plastic ID card identifying the person as someone legally authorized to work in this country. Akin to a social security card, passport, driver's license and company identification cards at many places of employment, the card could eventually substitute for all of those things if the computer information now associated with each different form of identification were to be linked by computer to the new identification number or card.

The Homeland Security Department estimates it would cost more than $200 million annually to operate such a system once it is up and running. Extrapolation from that figure indicates the initial cost of setting up the system and fingerprinting all working citizens and resident aliens authorized to work here would cost between $2 billion and $5 billion. Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus strongly favors the proposal, saying, "As Congress examines biometrics as part of a new and better system, I want to encourage you to ignore the naysayers, those who claim this can't be done. Incorporating an effective employment verification system is our only hope for truly ending illegal immigration."

Welcome to Gattaca, ladies and gentlemen. Form a line here, roll up your sleeves and ink your fingertips.

Mandatory E-Verify Proposed

Yesterday Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions offered an amendment to the fiscal year 2010 Homeland Security appropriations bill which would permanently authorize the Homeland Security Department's E-verify program for checking on line to see whether employees and prospective employees are legally authorized to work in the United States, and to make it mandatory for all businesses contracting with the federal government to use the E-verify system to validate the legality of all their workers. The Obama administration has twice delayed a federal rulemaking which would impose the same requirement, which is now supposed to take effect by rule on September 8.

Following an announcement this afternoon by Homeland Security that the mandatory E-verify rule will in fact be enforced by them after September 8, the Sessions amendment was adopted by voice vote on the Senate floor.

E-Verify Funding Extension Through 2011 Proposed

The House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee unanimously approved a spending bill for the Homeland Security Department yesterday including reauthorization of the cost of the employer on-line work authorization program E-Verify for checking prospective employee eligibility to work in the United States. The reauthorization was requested by the Obama administration through 2012, but the Committee extended the program only 2 years amid hopes for enactment of comprehensive immigration law reform before the 2011 expiration.

Mandatory Contractor E-Verify Regulation Delayed

The Department of Homeland Security told Congress yesterday that it is delaying the June 30 deadline for requiring federal contractors to submit all employees through E-Verify until September 8. No reason was given for the delay. House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Harold Rogers and House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith both criticized the delay as inexcusable.

Rogers said the E-Verify requirement for federal contractors should be implemented immediately, "so that taxpayer money isn't funding illegitimate employment and hard working citizens aren't pushed to the back of the employment line." Smith added, "American workers should not have to compete with illegal immigrants for employment, especially taxpayer-funded federal contract jobs."

The tenor of Congressional response to this delay suggests it is probably the last one, and every contractor, subcontractor and supplier on federally funded projects should get ready to fully participate in the E-Verify system on or before September 8, 2009.