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93–081 PDF 2015

HEARING ON THE LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 4, 2015 

Serial No. 114–11 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

DAVE TROTT, Michigan 

MIKE BISHOP, Michigan 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina, Chairman 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice-Chairman 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

DAVE TROTT, Michigan 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

GEORGE FISHMAN, Chief Counsel 

TOM JAWETZ, Minority Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

FEBRUARY 4, 2015 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Lamar S. Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security . 1 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 3 

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 4 

The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border 

Security ................................................................................................................. 5 

WITNESSES 

Randel K. Johnson, Senior Vice President, Labor, Immigration and Employee 

Benefits, U.S. Chamber of Commerce 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 15 

Jill G. Blitstein, Esq., International Employment Manager, Human Resources, North Carolina State University 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 23 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 25 

Angelo I. Amador, Esq., Senior Vice President & Regulatory Counsel, National Restaurant Association 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 32 

Charles F. Conner, President and CEO, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 43 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 45 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Material submitted by the Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Congress from the State of South Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Immigration and Border Security ....................................................................... 8 

Material submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security ................................................................................ 55 

Material submitted by the Honorable Pedro R. Pierlusi, a Representative 

in Congress from Puerto Rico, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration 

and Border Security ............................................................................................. 63 

Material submitted by the Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Congress from the State of South Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Immigration and Border Security ....................................................................... 119 
Page

IV 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee 

on Immigration and Border Security ................................................................. 128 
(1) 

HEARING ON THE LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable Trey Gowdy, (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Gowdy, Goodlatte, Labrador, Smith, 

King, Buck, Ratcliffe, Trott, Conyers, Jackson Lee, and Pierluisi. 

Staff Present: (Majority) George Fishman, Subcommittee Chief 

Counsel; Andrea Loving, Counsel; Graham Owens, Clerk; and (Minority) Tom Jawetz, Minority Counsel. 

Mr. GOWDY. Good morning. This is the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. This is a hearing on H.R. 1772, the 

‘‘Legal Workforce Act.’’ 

The Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the 

Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any 

time. 

We welcome everyone to today’s hearing on the Legal Workforce 

Act. I will introduce the witnesses. 

And we thank you for your presence and your expertise. I will 

introduce you later, but for now, I will recognize the gentleman 

from the great State of Texas, Mr. Lamar Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you yielding 

me time and giving me the opportunity to talk about this piece of 

legislation, which I introduced in the last Congress and hope to introduce in the next few days in this Congress. 

Mr. Chairman, almost 20 million Americans are unemployed or 

underemployed. Meanwhile, 7 million people are working in the 

United States illegally. These jobs should go to American citizens 

and legal workers who need these jobs. 

The Legal Workforce Act turns off the jobs magnet that attracts 

so many illegal immigrants to the United States. The bill expands 

the E-Verify system and applies it to all U.S. employers. 

Illegal workers cost Americans jobs or depress their wages, according to nearly all studies on the subject. For example, a Center 

for Immigration Studies report found that illegal immigration reduces the wages of American workers by approximately $650 per 

worker. We need to do all we can to protect the jobs and wages of 

American workers. 
2 

The Legal Workforce Act also would open up millions of jobs for 

unemployed Americans by requiring employers to use E-Verify. The 

E-Verify system is quick and effective, confirming 99.7 percent of 

work-eligible employees. 

Recent data shows that approximately 575,000 American employers voluntarily use E-Verify already, and an average of 1,400 new 

businesses sign up each week for E-Verify. One third of American 

jobs are now covered by E-Verify. 

The program is free, quick, and easy to use. In fact, E-Verify will 

soon be available for use on smart phones. It will take about 1 

minute per potential employee. 

Individuals provide their Social Security number when they visit 

a doctor, open a bank account, or buy a home. It makes sense that 

other businesses should check the status of prospective employees 

to ensure that they have a legal workforce. 

The Legal Workforce Act requires that U.S. employers use EVerify to check the work eligibility of new hires in the U.S. The 

verification period is phased-in and depends on the size of the employer’s business. Smaller businesses have up to 2 years to implement E-Verify. 

The legislation balances immigration enforcement priorities and 

legitimate employer concerns. It gives employers a workable system under which they cannot be held liable if they use the system 

in good faith. The bill prevents a patchwork of State E-Verify laws, 

but retains the ability of States and localities to condition business 

licenses on the use of E-Verify. It also allows States to enforce the 

Federal E-Verify requirement, if the Federal Government fails to 

do so. 

The Legal Workforce Act increases penalties on employers who 

knowingly violate the requirements of E-Verify and imposes criminal penalties on employers and employees who engage in or facilitate identity theft. 

The bill creates a fully electronic employment eligibility verification system, and it allows employers to voluntarily check their current workforce if done in a nondiscriminatory manner. 

Furthermore, the Legal Workforce Act gives U.S. Citizenship and 

Immigration Services the ability to prevent identity theft. The bill 

allows individuals to lock their own Social Security number so that 

it cannot be used by others to verify work eligibility. The legislation 

also allows parents to lock the Social Security number of a minor 

child to prevent identity theft. 

If a Social Security number shows unusual multiple uses, the Social Security Administration locks the number for employment 

verification purposes and notifies the owner that their personal information may be compromised. 

A report by Westat in 2009 on error rates and the cost of EVerify is clearly outdated. That study utilized old data and failed 

to consider the provisions aimed at preventing identity theft mentioned above and that are in the bill today. 

In regard to cost, one study showed that three quarters of employers stated the cost of using E-Verify is zero. 

Equally important, the American people support E-Verify. Last 

month, a Paragon Insights poll showed that 71 percent of voters 

‘‘support Congress passing new legislation that strengthens the 
3 

rules making it illegal for businesses in the U.S. to hire illegal immigrants.’’ 

In fact, E-Verify receives the most public support of any immigration reform provision. 

Unfortunately, many States do not enforce their own E-Verify 

laws, and others only apply E-Verify in a very limited way. The 

Legal Workforce Act helps ensure that employers from every State 

have the same standard when it comes to hiring employees. 

This bill is a common-sense approach that will reduce illegal immigration and save jobs for American workers and legal workers. 

It deserves the support of everyone who wants to put the interests 

of U.S. workers first. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Texas. 

The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Michigan, the 

Ranking Member, former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, 

Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Gowdy. This is a subject, 

that of today’s hearing, that is very familiar to us because over the 

past 4 years, this same Subcommittee has held six hearings on EVerify, the government’s electronic employment verification system. 

Each time that we have looked at it, each time we have considered the Legal Workforce Act, I have also said that E-Verify is an 

important tool. But I have also said, and the witnesses appearing 

before us have agreed, that E-Verify cannot be made mandatory for 

all employers without comprehensive reforms to our Nation’s broken immigration system. That is a very important point, that EVerify cannot be made mandatory for all employers without comprehensive reform to our Nation’s immigration system. 

For years, some have argued that to fix the broken system, we 

need only enforce the laws on the books, but we know that is not 

a real and viable solution. We cannot rely solely upon enforcement 

of our broken laws. 

The truth is that enforcement without reform will actually hurt 

the American worker. But if we fix our broken immigration system, 

we can help American workers and grow our economy, or to put it 

another way, the Congressional Budget Office told us in December 

that enacting this bill into law would increase the deficit by $30 

billion over 10 years. But enacting the Senate-passed immigration 

reform bill, S. 744, would in fact reduce the budget deficit by $158 

billion over the first 10 years and by about $680 billion over the 

next 10 years. I want to get into that in the hearing. 

Whenever we talked about E-Verify, it is important that we 

think about how the world really works. I have heard people say 

that E-Verify will help American workers because every time an 

undocumented immigrant is denied a job, an unemployed American 

gets hired. It is a pretty simple idea, and I can see how it could 

be appealing. But the problem is that it is false. 

Immigrants often fill gaps in our own workforce, where there are 

not enough Americans willing to do the work. Because 50 percent 

to 70 percent of the Nation’s farmworkers are undocumented, mandatory E-Verify would be especially devastating to that industry. 

No one would pick the fruits and vegetables in the fields, and they 

would probably be left to rot. American farms would go under, and 
4 

jobs would be moved overseas, including the millions of upstream 

and downstream American jobs supported by agriculture. 

Now when we first considered this bill in the 112th Congress, the 

Legal Workforce Act contained a simple solution for the agriculture 

industry. It created a special carve-out in the law to exempt farmers from the requirement to use E-Verify. And in the final days of 

the 113th Congress, this Committee reported to the floor this bill 

and an agricultural guestworker bill. But in part because the 

guestworker proposal did not have much support, neither bill went 

anywhere. 

Finally, E-Verify could already be required for employers around 

the country. Had my conservative friends in the House taken up 

the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill passed by 

the Senate way back in 2006, mandatory E-Verify would be the law 

today. And had House Republicans taken up S. 744, the bipartisan 

comprehensive immigration reform that passed the Senate with a 

supermajority in the last Congress, or H.R. 15, the bipartisan bill 

in the House, mandatory E-Verify, again, would be the law of the 

day. 

So instead, our Republican leaders in the House chose not to act 

on either of these proposals. They withered on the vine and died, 

just as crops would go unpicked if this bill were to become law 

without broader changes to our immigration system. 

So I look forward to the hearing, and I want to welcome all of 

the witnesses to today’s hearing. I thank the Chairman and yield 

back any time remaining. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Michigan. 

The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, the 

Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Goodlatte. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for 

holding this hearing, and I thank the gentleman from Texas to my 

immediate right here for once again championing the Legal Workforce Act. It will play an integral role in the enforcement of U.S. 

immigration laws and the discontinuation of the jobs magnet responsible for so much illegal immigration. 

Americans have long been promised tougher immigration enforcement in exchange for the legalization of those unlawfully in 

the U.S. But Administrations never kept these promises, and 

today, we are left with a broken immigration system. 

One way to make sure we discourage illegal immigration in the 

future is to prevent unlawful immigrants from getting jobs in the 

U.S. Requiring the use of E-Verify by all employers across the 

country will help do just that. 

The Web-based program is a reliable and quick way for employers to electronically check the work eligibility of newly hired employees. 

The Legal Workforce Act, as reported out of this Committee last 

Congress, builds on E-Verify’s success and helps ensure the strong 

enforcement that was promised to the American people many years 

ago. But the bill does not simply leave enforcement up to the Federal Government. 

In fact, it actually empowers States to help enforce the law, ensuring that we do not continue the situation we have currently 
5 

where a President can turn off Federal enforcement efforts unilaterally. 

Nearly 575,000 employers are currently signed up to use EVerify. It is easy for employers to use and is effective. In fact, as 

USCIS testified in front of this Subcommittee last Congress, EVerify immediately confirms the work eligibility of persons eligible 

to work 99.7 percent of the time. 

But the system is not perfect. For instance, in cases of identity 

theft, when an individual submits stolen identity documents and 

information, E-Verify may confirm the work eligibility of that individual. 

This happens because E-Verify uses a Social Security number or 

alien identification number and certain other corresponding identifying information, such as the name and date of birth of an individual, to determine if the SSN or alien identification number associated with that corresponding information is work eligible. Thus, 

if an individual uses a stolen Social Security number and the real 

name corresponding with that Social Security number, a false positive result could occur. 

The Legal Workforce Act addresses identity theft in several 

ways. 

First, it requires notification to employees who submit for EVerify an SSN that shows a pattern of unusual multiple use. In 

this way, the rightful owner of the SSN will know that their SSN 

may have been compromised. And once they confirm this, DHS and 

the Social Security Administration must lock that SSN so no one 

else can use it for employment eligibility purposes. 

The bill also creates a program through which parents or legal 

guardians can lock the Social Security numbers of their minor children for work eligibility purposes. This is to combat the rise in the 

number of thefts of children’s identities. 

The bill also phases in E-Verify use in 6-month increments beginning with the largest U.S. businesses, raises penalties for employers who do not use E-Verify according to the requirements, allows employers to use E-Verify prior to the date they hire an employee, and provides meaningful safe harbors for employers who 

use the system in good faith. 

The witness testimony and other support proffered today will 

show that the Legal Workforce Act balances the needs of the American people regarding immigration enforcement with the needs of 

the business community regarding a fair and workable electronic 

employment verification system. 

I will continue to work with my colleagues and other stakeholders to address any additional concerns with the bill as we move 

it through the Committee. 

I look forward to the witness testimony and welcome all of you 

here. 

I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the Chairman. 

The Chair will recognize the gentlelady from the great State of 

Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Chairman very much, and I acknowledge the indication that the Ranking Member of this Committee had to be called away today, and I thank you and her for 
6 

this hearing and offer this statement on behalf of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. 

Let me be clear at the outset that E-Verify is an important tool 

for the future, but it needs to be made mandatory at the right time 

and in the right way. The bill that we marked up in the summer 

of 2013 had many good features to it, but it did not meet those two 

important requirements. 

Let me also say that I do this and make this statement in the 

backdrop of the need for comprehensive immigration reform and 

would simply ask the question, wouldn’t this be a better approach 

if we did have a comprehensive approach? 

Let me state it plainly: E-Verify cannot be made mandatory for 

all employers until having first enacted comprehensive immigration 

reform, because E-Verify without that would have devastating 

though unintended consequences. 

One possibility is that it would essentially drive 8 million undocumented workers out of the workforce, which would devastate 

many industries that depend upon on that workforce, especially in 

agriculture. And I would venture to say that it would be an uncertainty as to whether or not there would be enough buses to bus 8 

million individuals back to their home country. 

Another possibility is that it would drive those 8 million undocumented workers even further under the radar and off of the books, 

and that is what led CBO to find that enacting this bill into law 

would raise the deficit by $30 billion over 10 years. 

Mr. Chairman, if we are going to do E-Verify the right way, we 

agree with much of what is in the law, but there are deficiencies 

in this bill that we highlighted during the markup last Congress, 

and that we detail in our dissenting views: the lack of due process 

for workers who are harmed by erroneous nonconfirmations, provisions that will facilitate discrimination and inappropriate bars to 

proper judicial relief, and unnecessary and inappropriate ban on 

class action lawsuits, for instance. 

E-Verify has the potential to be an important tool in the effort 

to address unauthorized employment, but if done in isolation as the 

Legal Workforce does, it would inflict tremendous harm on American workers, businesses, and the economy. 

I am also concerned that requiring the use of E-Verify will cause 

many Texas workers to lose their jobs. The rush to implement a 

flawed E-Verify program across-the-board is guaranteed to hurt 

thousands of authorized U.S. workers like people in the 18th Congressional District, my district, who need good jobs but will be erroneously denied employment authorization by errors in the system. 

The system is heavily overburdened and can be, if it is not a sophisticated system. 

The bill would also hit small businesses particularly hard, imposing significant burdens on very small firms that may not even have 

human resource departments, but would still have to use the new 

system, even those with only a single employee. 

But I also think of small mom-and-pop restaurants, which would 

face that. And I notice that the National Restaurant Association is 

here, and I hope that they would consider that, as they represent 

their large restaurateurs, about the mom-and-pop restaurants. 
7 

E-Verify would actually exacerbate Texas unemployment, according to estimates based on government sources. If the entire U.S. 

workforce were required to have its employment eligibility verified 

through E-Verify, a conservative estimate is that between 1.2 million and 3.5 million U.S. citizens and authorized immigrants would 

either have to correct their records or lose their jobs. Extrapolating 

from these estimates approximately, 101,000 to 291,000 citizens 

and authorized immigrant workers in Texas would have to correct 

their records in order to avoid being fired. 

In Texas, approximately 19.3 percent of the labor force is comprised of foreign-born workers. Foreign-born workers authorized for 

employment have encountered a disparate disproportionate EVerify error rate 20 times greater than U.S.-born employees. If we 

were to use a rough estimate, this would affect up to 63,495 legal 

workers in Texas. 

I would note that in yesterday’s Rules Committee, a number of 

bills were considered relevant on this very issue. 

Lastly, we consider how E-Verify would decimate the agriculture 

industry. We have heard a lot of that from Mr. Conyers. So I would 

simply say that, in joining on his point, I conclude by reiterating 

that we need a larger system to deal with E-Verify. 

And I hope, as the witnesses present their testimony, they will, 

with good intentions, tell us if they believe in comprehensive immigration reform. That should be put on the table because I know 

there are several groups at that table who represented to me that 

they support comprehensive immigration reform. 

With that, I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady. 

Without objection, additional Members’ opening statements will 

be made a part of the record. 

Before I recognize our witnesses, I would ask unanimous consent 

to put in the record letters of support from the International Franchise Association, National Association of Homebuilders, and 

NumbersUSA. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
8 
9 
10 
11 
12 

Mr. GOWDY. With that, I welcome our distinguished panel. I will 

begin by asking you to please rise so I can administer an oath to 

you. 

Do you swear the testimony you are about to give shall be the 

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 

Let the record reflect everyone answered in the affirmative. 

I will introduce you en bloc, and then I will recognize you individually for your 5-minute opening statements. Despite the fact 

that we do not always honor them, the lights mean what they traditionally mean in life. Yellow means you have about a minute left, 

and red means if you would conclude whatever remarks you are in 

the middle of. 

Randel K. Johnson is a senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber 

of Commerce for labor, immigration, and employment benefits. Before joining the Chamber, he served as counsel to the U.S. House 

of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce. He 

is a graduate of Denison University, the University of Maryland 

School of Law, and earned his masters of law and labor relations 

from Georgetown. 

Ms. Jill Blitstein is here on behalf of the College and University 

Professional Association for Human Resources. She is currently the 

international employment manager at N.C. State University. In 

this position, she oversees the employment eligibility verification 

process and compliance procedures at N.C. State. Prior to joining 

N.C. State, she was senior associate with a Chicago law firm that 

I cannot pronounce most of the names for, but I am sure is very 

distinguished, from 1997 to 2007. Ms. Blitstein received her law degree from DePaul University College of Law in 1995. 

Mr. Angelo Amador is senior vice president and regulatory counsel for the National Restaurant Association. He advocates on behalf 

of the National Restaurant Association and its members before the 

U.S. Congress and the executive branch. Prior to enjoying the 

NRA—not that NRA, the National Restaurant Association—he 

served as executive director in the labor immigration reform and 

benefits division of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and as an adjunct professor of law at the George Mason University School of 

Law. He is a graduate of the Robert H. Smith School of Business 

at the University of Maryland. He obtained a master’s of arts in 

international transactions from George Mason and a J.D. from 

George Mason, graduating with honors. 

Lastly, Mr. Chuck Conner is president and chief executive officer 

of the National Council of Farm Cooperatives, a D.C.-based trade 

association representing the interests of U.S. agricultural cooperatives. He has more than 25 years of national and State government 

agriculture and trade association experience. Prior to joining the 

NCFC, he served as acting director and deputy director for the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture. He is a graduate of Purdue University 

with a bachelor’s of science and a recipient of Purdue’s Distinguished Alumni Award. 

Welcome each and every one of you. 

Mr. Johnson, we will recognize you for your opening statement. 
13 

TESTIMONY OF RANDEL K. JOHNSON, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, LABOR, IMMIGRATION AND EMPLOYEE BENEFITS, 

U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Chairman Gowdy. 

As Mr. Conyers suggested, we have been at this for some time. 

In the earlier days, when the Chamber has testified, I think at this 

same table, we in fact, as Mr. Smith knows, opposed mandatory EVerify, of course, for a lot of good reasons back then. But the 

Chamber can change as times change. As the years went by, and 

more of our members engaged in the system voluntarily, and, 

frankly, while we were watching things on Capitol Hill and in the 

courts and in the States, we decided to re-evaluate our position. 

We put together an extensive task force back in January 2011, 

almost 5 years ago now, comprised of a cross-section of our members. We drew that from our immigration policy subcommittee with 

input from our small business council and said, well, we need to 

take a look at E-Verify. What do we need to sort of buy into a mandate, if we can? 

Obviously, at the Chamber, and I have been there now 16 years, 

I think there has been only one other time I have testified agreeing 

to a new mandate on our members. We take that very seriously 

and very carefully, for one reason, I love my job, and I am not 

going to agree to a mandate for the Chamber unless our members 

are behind me. And in this case, they were. That ranges from the 

larger businesses and the smaller businesses. 

So I am pleased to say today that we do support a mandatory 

E-Verify system and the act that we worked together principally 

with Mr. Smith on. 

Let me just kind of go through the sort of variations or the issues 

that we talked about. First of all, and I think this is important to 

note, it is, certainly, in my written testimony, but it was suggested 

by further speakers, there have been a lot of technical improvements on E-Verify over the years. 

Every system, not every system, this system certainly has gotten 

better as the kinks have been worked out. There are errors, but 

there are less errors than before. It would be better if there were 

no errors but when you are down to an approximately 0.3 percent 

error rate, I think that is something to be bragged about. And we 

are never going to get down to a zero rate unless we start rolling 

this out to more people and continue to work out the costs. 

With regard to costs, I know there are some, and Mr. Smith, he 

talked about this, there are a lot of misinformation out there. A lot 

of economists have looked at this. I can tell you our economists 

have looked at the studies out there that talk about something like 

2.7 billion. Economists can come up with lots of studies. We all 

know that. The bottom line is that, for my members, we hear they 

can adapt to this system quite easily, and the costs are quite minimal. If anything, they are principally concerned about costs of 

reverification, if in fact the law went that direction, which, fortunately, it doesn’t. 

Third, preemption, Mr. Goodlatte touched on this, preemption of 

State laws. Look, we have mostly multinational companies, but we 

also have small businesses that work across State lines. We had to 

have in a bill that we could support a preemption of State law, 
14 

State and local laws. The language in the bill is a balance of various interests in this. Would we have rather had blanket preemptions such as under ERISA or the National Labor Relations Act? 

Sure. But we have to understand that compromises have to be 

made and that compromises are reflected in this act. 

Fourth, we cannot support a blanket reverification of an existing 

workforce. One doesn’t have to be a genius to think about the burdens and obligations that would accrue to, say, an IBM that had 

to reverify its 10,000 workers, et cetera. And in reality, because we 

have such high turnover in this day and age, essentially, the workforce often will recycle through anyway through a new E-Verify 

system. 

Fifth, we also need to have sorts of safe harbors, which are reflected in the act. I do want to mention that the act does protect 

the contractor and subcontractor relationship. And, Chairman 

Gowdy, in a time when the National Labor Relations Board is revisiting the whole area of joint employer liability, we are pleased 

that the act in front of the Committee today isolates contract and 

subcontractor liability from each other. 

Lastly, I want to close with saying that I think the 800-pound 

gorilla in the room here is what we do about agriculture industry. 

I know everyone on the dais is attuned to this. But surely, I think 

before an E-Verify bill goes to the floor, you all have to figure out 

what we do about the agriculture industry, whether it is a fix in 

the guestworker program or legalization, I am not smart enough to 

say. That, certainly, is in their world, but something has to be done 

in the area. 

And with that, let me just say that we still remain committed to 

immigration reform in other areas, Mrs. Lee. And I am sure that 

will come up in the Q&A. The Legal Workforce Act is a key aspect, 

a key underpinning of other reforms. But, certainly, it is one important aspect of those reforms. Whether it proceeds to the floor jointly with other bills or separately, I am not here to say. But we are, 

certainly, committed to other parts of immigration reform. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:] 
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Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Ms. Blitstein? 

TESTIMONY OF JILL G. BLITSTEIN, ESQ., INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYMENT MANAGER, HUMAN RESOURCES, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY 

Ms. BLITSTEIN. Chairman Gowdy, honorable Members of the 

Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you 

today to express support for the Legal Workforce Act. I am the 

international employment manager at North Carolina State University. N.C. State is an active member of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. 

CUPA-HR represents more than 1,900 educational institutions, 

44 percent of which are public. And I am speaking to you today on 

behalf of CUPA-HR. 

My institution has been using E-Verify since January 1, 2007, 

when it was mandated by the State of North Carolina for all public 

agencies and for the university system. 

I have responsibility for N.C. State’s I-9 and E-Verify processes. 

With more than 8,000 regular employees and almost 8,000 more 

students and temporary workers, including foreign nationals, our 

use of the I-9 and E-Verify process is constant. 

I will speak to you today as someone who has experienced the 

favorable effects of this program, as well as someone who can offer 

a few informed suggestions as to its implementation. 

CUPA-HR supports the majority of positions within the act as 

being positive both for employers and employees, including the reduction in the number of acceptable documents to prove identity 

and employment authorization. Many documents on the current 

list are confusing or rarely used, so streamlining them will add 

much needed clarity to the process, facilitating faster and easier 

compliance for everyone involved. 

Additionally, CUPA-HR strongly supports the recognition of a 

good faith defense based on compliance with the processes of the 

act. As an example, N.C. State has relied on E-Verify final nonconfirmations to justify the termination of employment of some of our 

employees. 

CUPA-HR especially supports the act’s clear preemption of State 

and local law on unemployment verification. Having a single national verification process is extremely important not only from a 

national policy perspective but also from a practical standpoint for 

an employer with employees across the U.S. 

As a collaborative research institution, N.C. State has employees 

in over 40 States. The current patchwork of policies and laws 

around the country make it incredibly difficult for employers like 

us to know and comply with each jurisdiction’s rules regarding employment eligibility verification. 

N.C. State never experienced the worst-case scenarios that circulated several years ago regarding fears of excessive final nonconfirmation results. And in the 8 years that we have used E-Verify, 

we have received almost instantaneous employment verification results for the majority of our employees. We believe the employment 

verification process works as intended. 
24 

That said, based on direct experience, we do have a few suggestions regarding the current act. It would require that within 6 

months after enactment, all Federal, State and local government 

employers verify employment eligibility for any employees not already in the E-Verify system. Having verified the entire workforce 

at N.C. State University, I can tell you with confidence that that 

is not a realistic timeframe in which to achieve full compliance for 

large employers. 

Based on an amended executive order in 2009, N.C. State was 

required to either verify employees constantly as they came and 

went on certain Federal contracts or to verify all employees. We 

quickly realized that our best option was to verify our entire workforce, meaning every active employee hired before January 1, 2007. 

We had to enter data from approximately 12,000 I-9 forms into EVerify within 6 months to achieve compliance, and it took us 7 

months to accomplish that goal. 

The time and effort required was significant. And since then, we 

have invested in an electronic system to help manage our process. 

CUPA-HR would encourage consideration of a 24-month phased 

rollout compliance timeframe, particularly for the largest public 

employers. 

CUPA-HR would also like to recommend that the timeframe for 

verifying foreign national employees who have applied for a Social 

Security account number be extended beyond the proposed 3 days 

after the actual receipt of their new number. As an employer with 

approximately 1,000 foreign national workers and employees every 

year, it is impossible for N.C. State as the employer to know exactly when a new employee receives his or her new number. Consequently, we have no realistic way to know when this 3-day requirement to finish E-Verify would begin or end. 

Lastly, CUPA-HR also suggests that the verification process, 

which is currently 3 business days after the hire date, be extended 

to at least 5 business days after the hire date. Any large employer 

can tell you that performing the required identity and employment 

authorization verification check within the 3 business days is incredibly labor-intensive. Despite best efforts, meeting this deadline 

is a constant source of frustration even for those employers most 

committed to compliance. 

In closing, the Legal Workforce Act as a balanced approach to 

creating a more secure and flexible employment verification system. CUPA-HR respectfully encourages the Committee to consider 

the suggestions we have offered today, and we are grateful for your 

time and attention. And I personally thank you for this opportunity 

to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Blitstein follows:] 
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Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Ms. Blitstein. 

Mr. Amador, I want to congratulate you on that beautiful tie you 

have on with the seal from the State of South Carolina. It did not 

go unnoticed. I will direct no questions toward you today, but you 

are recognized for 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF ANGELO I. AMADOR, ESQ., SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT & REGULATORY COUNSEL, NATIONAL RESTAURANT 

ASSOCIATION 

Mr. AMADOR. I knew I wore it for good reason. 

Good morning, Chairman Gowdy, Congressman Conyers, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Special greetings to our 

Congressmen Pierluisi, who actually broke me into doing policy 

here in Washington, D.C. I am always glad to see you here. 

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to represent the National Restaurant Association. My name is Angelo Amador, and I 

am the senior vice president and regulatory counsel for the National Restaurant Association. 

The National Restaurant Association believes that the Legal 

Workforce Act is a thoughtful, balanced approach to implementing 

a major change related to workplace hiring for employers. We appreciate the bill’s sponsors and the Subcommittee’s efforts to think 

through the real-world implementation a universal E-Verify mandate. 

Put in context, the mandate once implemented will be the final 

hurdle that every U.S. employer must clear for each and every hiring decision made in the United States. In our industry, with naturally high turnover rates and one that is so reliant on a robust 

workforce, the details of how the system is implemented is incredibly important. 

While I touch on a number of other areas in my written statement, I would like to address four key areas of concern in the implementation of a mandatory E-Verify program. Before I go into 

those four, I will reiterate as well that we oppose reverification of 

the entire workforce, which is one of the reasons, not the only reason, that we supported the King amendment during the last Congress, the last markup, that allows reverification of certain workers 

for good cause. 

But the four that I want to talk about today, the first one is Federal preemption. We believe that designing an employment authorization verification system is, without question, a Federal law role. 

Action by 50 different States and numerous local governments in 

passing a patchwork quilt of employment verification laws creates 

an untenable system for employers and prospective employees. 

Under the Legal Workforce Act, States and localities are preempted from legislating different requirements or imposing additional penalties. However, they may enforce the Federal law and 

also revoke a business license for failure to participate in the program. 

As the Chamber stated, we also would prefer a blanket preemption, but we understand the need to reach a balance. 

Second safe harbor, full and fair enforcement of an improved EVerify system should protect employers that act in good faith. Piling on fines and other penalties for even small paperwork errors, 
31 

punishing the people who are trying to do the right thing, is not 

the answer. The Legal Workforce Act states that an employer cannot be held liable for good-faith reliance on information provided 

through the E-Verify system. We strongly support this provision 

and believe that no employer who is using the system in good faith 

should be held liable by the government for relying on information 

provided by the government’s database that turns out to be incorrect. 

Likewise, we also strongly believe that employers should not be 

held liable by an employee or worker they chose not to hire as a 

result of faulty information provided by the government’s database. 

Now we are not saying they should not have recourse, but the recourse should not be on the employer. 

Third, early verification, we support the provision in the bill that 

allows verification when an offer of employment is extended and 

making that offer conditioned on final verification of identity and 

employment eligibility of the employee. Employers should be given 

authority to check work authorization when an offer of employment 

is made. In those cases where a temporary nonconfirmation is 

issued, it allows the employee to start working with the government as soon as possible to fix any discrepancies before they show 

up for the first day of work. After all, you can do all of the other 

background checks beforehand, as well. 

Finally, employment laws, there are already existing laws governing wage requirements, pensions, health benefits, the interaction between employers and unions, safety and health requirements, hiring and firing practices, and discrimination status. 

Verifying employment authorization, not expansion of a Christmas tree wish list of employment protections, should be the sole 

emphasis of an E-Verify mandate. That is one of the reasons we 

did not support the employment verification title in the Senate bill, 

and in the Q&A, I will be happy to address that in more detail. 

The association is very encouraged by the Legal Workforce Act’s 

emphasis on keeping it simple, a workable national E-Verify system. 

In summary, it would be easy to ignore the real concerns of the 

business community with a national E-Verify mandate simply passing a law requiring its use. It is harder to pass a responsible EVerify mandate that accommodates different needs of the close to 

8 million employers in the U.S. 

In the National Restaurant Association’s opinion, the Legal 

Workforce Act reaches the right balance, a broad Federal E-Verify 

mandate that is both fast and workable for businesses of every size 

under the practical, real-world working conditions. 

Thank you again for this opportunity to share my testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Amador follows:] 
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Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Amador. 

Mr. Conner? 

TESTIMONY OF CHARLES F. CONNER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF FARMER COOPERATIVES 

Mr. CONNER. Chairman Gowdy, Congressman Conyers, and 

Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify today. I am Chuck Conner, president and CEO of the National 

Council of Farmer Cooperatives. I am also here on behalf of the Agriculture Workforce Coalition. The AWC brings together nearly 70 

organizations representing the diverse needs of farmers and agricultural employees and serves as the unified voice for agriculture 

on immigration issues. 

While labor situation in agriculture has been a concern for many 

years, Mr. Chairman, it has now reached a breaking point. Today, 

large segments of American agriculture face a critical lack of workers. 

Specific to the topic at hand today, mandatory E-Verify, without 

addressing agriculture’s broader labor crisis, would be devastating. 

As an industry, we recognize the need for interior enforcement. It 

just cannot be decoupled from addressing agriculture’s workforce 

concerns. 

Despite the employer’s best efforts, many if not most of the agriculture workforce does not have proper paperwork authority. Based 

on the study conducted by the American Farm Bureau Federation 

in 2014, an enforcement-only approach would cause American agriculture output to fall by $30 billion to $60 billion. It would decrease 

fruit production by 30 percent to 61 percent and vegetable production by 15 percent to 31 percent. The livestock sector would also 

see losses of up to 27 percent. 

American dairy farmers in particular would be impacted by an 

enforcement-only approach. For dairy farmers, their harvest comes 

twice a day, every single day. The dairy industry with year-round 

needs cannot use the current H-2A program as currently interpreted. Dairy farmers are left without any legal channel to find 

workers, if U.S. workers are simply not available or not interested. 

Mr. Chairman, American agriculture’s biggest challenge in the 

future is to increase our food output in order to meet the dramatic 

rise in food needs for a growing planet. A large decrease in our food 

production in the U.S. would have significant humanitarian consequences in the future. 

For agriculture, the ideal approach to solving the labor problem 

would be to provide a solution for the experienced workforce and 

a redesigned guestworker program. This then could be followed by 

a phased-in E-Verify program. 

Mr. Chairman, I doubt anyone on this Subcommittee would question the integrity of America’s law-abiding farmers and ranchers. 

The vast, vast majority of American farmers fully comply with the 

law. But the paper-based system created by Congress in 1986 is 

vulnerable to use of false documents. Employers, including farmers, 

are not experts at spotting false documents. So long as a solution 

is in place to ensure access to a legal and stable workforce, farmers 

would welcome a system that is simple, efficient, effective, and certain. 
44 

Bills in recent years would have phased-in E-Verify with agriculture generally being last in line. These bills recognize agriculture’s demographic challenges and its need for foreign labor. 

This is a bold thing for us to suggest, Mr. Chairman, but if this 

Congress were to pass reform legislation that truly addresses agriculture’s workforce challenges, the industry could pursue a phasein of E-Verify sooner rather than later. 

But in closing, let me just be very clear. The agriculture industry 

would be forced to oppose any E-Verify legislation that does not address the agriculture workforce crisis. E-Verify legislation without 

provisions to address the unique labor needs of agriculture will 

drive more of our farmers out of business and move more of our 

food production abroad, where there is, indeed, abundant labor. I 

have never encountered anyone, a Member of Congress or in the 

general public, who believes that would be a positive outcome, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Conner follows:] 
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Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Conner. 

The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, the 

Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Goodlatte. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me direct my first question to Mr. Johnson with the Chamber. You mentioned in your statement, and I wonder if you would 

elaborate, in recent years, several States and localities have enacted their own E-Verify requirements. What is the concern of the 

business community if more and more States continue to enact 

their own requirements as opposed to the Federal Government enacting a nationwide requirement? 

Mr. JOHNSON. It is one of practicality and human resource compliance, which is, it is obviously easier to administer and instruct 

your H.R. people if you have one standard to tell them they need 

to comply with. And if that is the Federal standard, that is the one 

they need to be taught toward, as distinguished from multiple 

standards across State lines. 

Is it possible? Sure. Lots of things are possible. But it is extremely difficult. 

Further, Congressman, it is not just a question of the law on the 

books as they are written, because if you have State and localities 

enforcing those different laws, that enforcement itself has a different patina on it, which then your compliance people and your 

companies have to be trained on. So it is an extremely complex 

area, and we think it is simply one that is unworkable. 

I do note that, of course, the preemption language in Mr. Smith’s 

bill does allow for some State enforcement with regard to when an 

employer is not using the Federal E-Verify system, so the language 

in there seems to strike a balance. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Enforcement but not having a separate method 

by which you verify. In other words, they can participate in enforcement but not set up their own—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Right. Exactly. They cannot set up their own 

mechanism. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Let me ask Mr. Amador, you mentioned in your 

testimony concerns about some of the requirements in the Senate 

bill. The employment eligibility verification process set out in the 

Legal Workforce Act, Mr. Smith’s bill, and the last Congress’ Senate immigration reform bill were quite different. What are some of 

the problems with the Senate bill’s employment eligibility 

verification process? 

Mr. AMADOR. I think the Senate version, by the time it was done 

with amendments, it became something other than an employment 

verification system. It ended up becoming more like a labor law, 

employment law, and it created new causes of action, and created 

an awkward incentive for undocumented workers to either file 

grievances against employers or to be able to stay, once they were 

in proceedings, by filing claims. Before they even decided whether 

there were bogus claims or not, they would get a visa. 

There were a number of other things in the bill. It made it easier 

to fine, discrimination provisions and labor provisions. It became 

another labor law as opposed to an employment verification bill. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Ms. Blitstein, do you agree that the Legal Workforce Act adequately restricts the number of documents that can be 
50 

used to prove identity and work authorization in order to help prevent fraud while at the same time allowing enough documents, understanding that not every person has every document? 

Ms. BLITSTEIN. I do believe that the Legal Workforce Act does an 

adequate job of restricting those documents. As I mentioned, a lot 

of them are—I have been doing this for almost 17 years and some 

of them I have never seen. There is kind of a small percentage of 

documents that are seen 90 percent of the time. So I think having 

more clarity, having a more brief list would be very, very helpful 

and would help streamline the process for the employer and employee. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Mr. Amador, Mr. Conner expressed some concerns regarding the 

safe harbor provision. Can you discuss the current safe harbor provision in the Legal Workforce Act and how, as drafted, it is workable? 

Mr. AMADOR. I must say, I guess you can take any language, and 

I have gotten calls from people who think they can make it stronger. My view is that I haven’t seen stronger safe harbors in immigration law than the one that is currently in the bill. So could it 

be changed? I mean, everything can be changed. But the way I 

read it, and the way I continue to read it, I haven’t found anything 

that is stronger. We support it, so we don’t want that amended as 

it is right now. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Got it. 

And, Mr. Conner, you support employment verification. You want 

to see a legal temporary worker program for agriculture that would 

meet the needs of not just seasonal production but also processing 

plants and dairies that are year-round. And we have provisions in 

this bill, unlike current law and unlike the Senate bill and unlike 

other provisions that address more of those concerns than any that 

I have seen before, in terms of what I anticipate will follow. 

I don’t disagree with you that we are going to have to have a better system to determine who is lawfully here in the country and 

who is lawfully eligible to accept employment. When we do, it is 

going to create a problem in agriculture, and we need to be prepared to address that, so I, certainly, look forward to working with 

you on that. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Virginia. 

The Chair will now recognize the Ranking Member from Michigan, Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Gowdy. 

I want to put forward a proposition to you and have everyone 

give me their view. I think E-Verify is perfectly okay, but bringing 

in an electronic employment verification system to agriculture presents some unusual problems, and that until we begin to deal with 

those first, as Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee pointed out, it 

is how we go about doing this. 

So I am in the position of being for the measure, if we can take 

care of some of the problems. It is a cart before the horse type situation. E-Verify is the cart, and we can’t get there first. 

So do you agree with me that there are some big problems? We 

talk about the immigration system being broken, et cetera, but do 
51 

you see some difficulties in the agricultural sector that could be a 

negative, that would not make E-Verify successful? 

What do you think, Mr. Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, it is a conundrum. There is no question about 

it. 

Mr. CONYERS. Right. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think the agricultural community or field is the 

poster child of this problem. It exists in other industries, but they 

clearly would be the most adversely affected with E-Verify being 

signed into law by the President. There is a lot of space between 

the lip and the cup here, and nothing else either right behind it 

or preceding it. 

The order of how things proceed in the House is something you 

all will have to figure out and the Rules Committee. I should note 

that, just for the record, that while we supported the Senate bill, 

we never said the House should take up the Senate bill, by the 

way. We always thought the House should do its own thing and figure out how to do it. As a former House staffer, I would never support a Senate bill and say the House should just take up a Senate 

bill. 

Mr. CONYERS. Of course not. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And I told the Senate staff over there they were 

crazy. 

But these things are linked, but so far, we are in a period of gridlock and not moving on anything, except perhaps border security. 

But even that got pulled from the floor. 

Mr. CONYERS. Right. 

Let me go to attorney Blitstein and see if she shares the view 

that it is the order that we proceed in that is critical and that could 

determine, in agriculture, the ultimate success of E-Verify. 

Ms. BLITSTEIN. Representative Conyers, I would have to say that 

CUPA-HR is not very familiar with the particular issues as related 

to the agricultural industry. So we would have to put that under 

more consideration before we would be able to offer an opinion on 

that. 

Mr. CONYERS. All right. 

And, Mr. Amador, attorney Amador, you raised some of this 

question yourself in your commentary and in your written statement. Do you see the problem that I am presenting, and is it a fair 

one? 

Mr. AMADOR. On agriculture, our board, when they decided our 

position, we were clear that we did not want any exemptions for 

restaurants. We did not touch on the issue of agriculture, and we 

think Mr. Conner is in a better position to talk about his industry. 

Mr. CONYERS. Right. 

Chuck Conner, you can finish up your observations on this point. 

Mr. CONNER. Let me make two points, if I could, Mr. Conyers. 

I think you are right. Our problem with E-Verify is kind of twofold. 

The first is more fundamental, and that is we know we have a 

workforce that constitutes, as you have noted, 50 percent to 70 percent of our hired workforce in agriculture that is not here with 

proper paperwork. So to go to an e-verification system, as I have 

noted in my testimony, you would be removing large chunks of our 

workforce in place that is responsible for providing the food and 
52 

feed for America today. I do not think anybody wants that consequence. 

The second one is more specific to agriculture, and that is just 

in terms of how you go forward with E-Verify. We do have the 

unique needs. 

Just an anecdotal point and that is my wife and I both have 

farms in Indiana. Not the most remote part of the world, by any 

means, but when we go out there, sir, iPhones don’t work. I am 

sorry, but they don’t. And there are a lot more remote agricultural 

regions in the country that are dependent on this. 

There are just a lot of structural issues that may sound good sitting here. But when you get out there in the field and you have 

peaches to harvest and the storm is coming and you have 12 hours 

to get them down, there are some practical—— 

Mr. CONYERS. In the real world, problems arise. 

And I thank you very much. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from the great State 

of Texas, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the Vice-Chairman of the Subcommittee, Mr. 

Labrador, for letting me precede him with questions. Although 

coming third when talking about a specific bill usually means that 

a lot of your questions have already been asked, and Mr. Goodlatte 

did a good job of that a few minutes ago. I have a couple left. 

Mr. Johnson, let me address my first question to you. That is, 

I know you all have polled your members. How do you respond to 

the occasional charge that I think is unsubstantiated that E-Verify 

is costly or burdensome? Have you found that to be the case? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, as I said, the study that is quoted by some 

we had our economists go through, and it is amazing, Mr. Smith, 

the analysis is in my written testimony about how the people who 

put that study together actually carved out from their conclusions 

the employers who reported zero costs and they just calculated in 

the employers who reported costs. There is also a weird way that 

they hired people moving, so the so-called JOLTS study where they 

included people as new hires who were really promotions and promotions within a company. 

But look, the bottom line, Mr. Smith, is, we have a great policy 

committee at the Chamber. I have 200 people on my labor committee. I have 60 or 70 on my immigration policy subcommittee. 

They are from all levels of the economy and companies. Those are 

the people I go out and ask. They are out there where the rubber 

meets the road, and they are saying we can handle this. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. Amador, I know you have lots of members. I meet them on 

a regular basis. I am really appreciative of their support. 

I should say I thank you all for your support of this legislation, 

and for your constructive criticism, Mr. Conner, as well. You have 

made some good suggestions. 

Mr. Amador, do you find that your members find E-Verify to be 

accurate, and to what extent? According to your survey, do they 

find E-Verify to be accurate? And why do they like it? 
53 

Mr. AMADOR. Yes. We conducted a survey in 2012. We were able 

to crank the numbers by 2013. We introduced it as part of a statement for the record, back in April 2013. The vast majority of the 

people that were using it, 80 percent, said they would recommend 

it to others. 

The ones that did not recommend it, they said that the issues 

were initially getting into claiming, but once they were using it, it 

was fine. Across all of the demographics, they said, actually 80 percent, that they had 100 percent accuracy. 

We allowed for comments in the survey. Again, it was about 800. 

The one comment that they said was that we would rather know 

earlier whether the person is tentative nonconfirm, because when 

they show up to work and they come tentatively nonconfirm, at 

least in our industry what happens is they do not show up the next 

day when confronted with, hey, you need to go and—— 

Mr. SMITH. You actually anticipated my next question, which is 

what is the advantage of knowing prior to someone actually being 

hired, and having that E-Verify conducted ahead of time? 

Mr. AMADOR. I think it is twofold. There is an advantage to the 

employee that they would not have to take time off from work to 

go to the Social Security Administration, or wherever they need to 

go to fix this problem. And it is an advantage to the employer, because if there is any problem with the employee that he is not 

work-authorized, if they are going to disappear, you rather that 

they disappear before they already have a shift and they already 

started working. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Amador. 

Mr. Conner, I understood you to say, and I just want to make 

sure this the case, because it will be helpful, that you would support E-Verify if it was used in conjunction with a new guestworker 

program. Is that generally correct? 

Mr. CONNER. That is half of the story, Mr. Smith. In addition to 

obviously needing a viable guestworker program, which we currently do not have with H2-A, we need a solution for our existing 

trained workforce that has been estimated to be about 1.2 million 

to 1.4 million people who are already working full time on our 

farms and ranches. 

So our solution is twofold, a guestworker program, a solution for 

existing workforce. And with that, we are willing to talk to you, 

still acknowledging agriculture has some unique interests, as I 

have identified, in an E-Verify program. But we would be willing 

to try to resolve those. 

Mr. SMITH. As you are aware, in the last Congress, this Committee did pass and approve a very robust guestworker program. 

So I was trying to see, and it sounds like while you may not be 

able to commit until you see the details and the language, and I 

understand that, but generally speaking, if there was a new 

guestworker program, you would understand why we would need 

to have E-Verify apply to it. 

Mr. CONNER. Well, again, I do not want to downplay the importance of a guestworker program. We appreciate your effort to try 

to make that program workable. It is very unworkable, provides 

less than 7 percent of our labor population in agriculture right 

now. 
54 

But for us, again, we have trained people, in some cases, employees on our farms and ranches who have been there for a very, very 

long time, years, if not over 10 years. 

Mr. SMITH. I understand all that. 

Mr. CONNER. We have to keep those. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

Mr. CONNER. And under the current E-Verify plan, we would lose 

those workers. 

Mr. SMITH. I see. So you are concerned about the ones who are 

working now. If we could address that, then that would clear the 

way for you. 

Mr. CONNER. Those two points, yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Conner. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Texas. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. 

Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Conner, I don’t know if we can piecemeal 

repair some aspects of what you have spoken about, but we all 

know that the agriculture industry is tantamount to a major contributor to the economy. But it is also the breadbasket of the 

United States, of course, but around the world. So we are concerned and very interested in making sure that we take the right 

pathway. 

As you well know, although you have been discussed over the 

years, agricultural workers, special carveouts in legislation, you 

were quite well responded to in a comprehensive approach when 

we were talking about comprehensive immigration reform. Do you 

remember that? 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And you remember that those efforts were 

made quite strongly on your behalf? 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So I want to just ask the question of where 

we are today. Yesterday, we held our first hearing for the House 

Judiciary Committee in the 114th Congress. It was interesting to 

me that out of all people in the world, the majority asked two people from the Center for Immigration Studies to testify. 

Earlier this week, a policy analyst from the same Center for Immigration Studies wrote an opinion piece in The Hill that characterizes people who employ undocumented workers as lawbreaking 

employers who want their illegal labor to get work permits. 

I ask unanimous consent to enter that article into the record. 

Mr. GOWDY. Without objection. 

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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. 

To you, Mr. Conner, considering that a large majority of farmworkers are unauthorized to work, 50 percent to 70 percent, do you 

think that the more than 1 million farmers who you represent are 

lawbreakers? Is that a fair characterization of the situation they 

find themselves in? If you would just take this other and give me 

an answer, please. 

One thing about that characterization is that it makes the employers seem greedy, purely self-interested. And as much work as 

we have done to improve the quality of life of ag workers, I take 

issue with that assessment. 

Can you talk a little bit about the work that undocumented farmworkers do and how farmers think about their workers? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, Congresswoman, thank you for the question. 

It is great question. 

I will just tell you, I have spent my entire career, 36 years, working on agricultural policy in this town. I am just passionate about 

the fact that our farmers absolutely want a solution to this problem. 

Are they lawbreakers? Absolutely not. They are collecting the 

proper paperwork from these workers. They are prohibited from 

questioning any information on the paperwork by law, with sharp 

penalties if they do. They are proceeding forward and following the 

intent of the law. 

Now, again, we all acknowledge that paperwork is prone to be 

wrong, at times. That is not the fault of the farmer and the people 

doing the employing in this case. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So clearly, you would need some major, if you 

will, accommodations for any law that would put more burdens on 

farmers. 

Let me ask another question. You say that the farm jobs are not 

meant for the unskilled. That is my understanding, too. I have 

heard that farmworkers must have proper understanding of soil 

quality, fertilizers, irrigation, and cultivating techniques. For example, they need to know how to prune an apple tree without damaging it, or how to determine which berries are ripe enough to pick, 

or oranges, or how to pick a cucumber before it is too large to be 

marketable. That looks like a lot of skills that are needed. 

Can you provide more information about the necessary skills that 

farmworkers must have? Is this a job that anyone can do? And 

then follow-up, is that why you support legislative reform that includes an eventual path to a green card for current experienced, 

unauthorized agricultural workers, which is, certainly, a concept of 

comprehensive immigration reform, Mr. Conner? 

Mr. CONNER. Again, Congresswoman, thanks for the question. It 

is good. I will just say that, in our view, these workers are skilled 

workers. The work is very, very difficult, sometimes involving very, 

very long days, hot sun, working around animals. Working around 

animals is not something for the unskilled. You just do not pull 

somebody in and throw them amongst dairy animals and expect 

safety and proper care of the animals. 

These are skilled workers. We pay them accordingly, as is demonstrated by wage rates for average workers that we can submit 

for the record, as well. 
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would appreciate if you would do that. 

Thank you for your answer. 

I would like to ask Mr. Johnson, if I might, Mr. Johnson, first 

of all, I appreciate your accommodation in being interested in this 

legislation and offering suggestions. I do recall working very closely 

with the Chamber over a number of years on the idea of comprehensive immigration reform. 

You testified that before being subject to E-Verify, agriculture 

employers must have access to a workable program to sponsor lawful workers. This bill contains no provisions pertaining to an agricultural visa program, nor does it provide an opportunity for current farmworkers to earn legal status. It does, however, require 

that all agricultural employers to use E-Verify within 24 months. 

If the Legal Workforce Act is not paired with an agricultural visa 

reform, and you have heard Mr. Conner, the kind of reform reflected in S. 744, H.R. 15, or the old ag job compromise, which I 

have been on this Committee long enough to know that plan, will 

the Chamber still be in a position to support it, given the 

crucialness of those provisions for our agricultural industry? 

Mr. GOWDY. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Mr. Johnson, you may answer the question. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think there are several levels in the legislative 

process. If E-Verify went to the floor without an ag fix before that 

or at the same time, what would our position be? I am not sure. 

I think it is incredulous to think that would happen. 

But, certainly, I would think, subject to further review at the 

Chamber, that before an E-Verify bill went to the President for signature, the ag issue would have to be solved. The Chamber would 

reevaluate its position at that time, if that was not going to occur. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you for noting the defect of the legislation and the importance of moving forward on comprehensive immigration reform. 

Thank you all for your testimony. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady from Texas. 

The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Idaho, the 

Vice-Chairman of the Subcommittee, Mr. Labrador. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Conner, for being here today. As you know, I 

come from an agriculture State. I understand the need that we 

have. I do find it, just as a point of interest, that it seems like the 

Democrats on this panel have no problem with EPA regulations 

when it affects agriculture, have no problem with the Waters of the 

U.S. legislation when it affects agriculture. The only time they ever 

have a problem with regulation and agriculture is when we are trying to stop the hiring of illegal and undocumented workers. 

I just want to put that out there for the record, because all the 

other stuff that is affecting your industry, they have absolutely no 

concern about it. In fact, they are pushing for that kind of legislation and that kind of regulation that has an ill and deleterious effect on your industry. But that is not what you are here to testify 

about. 

Are you aware that we passed in the 113th Congress a bill out 

of this Committee that dealt with your needs in agriculture, that 
58 

dealt with hiring the people who are here undocumented right 

now? It added the dairy industry to the H-2 program, and it created a new system for agriculture to deal with their guestworker 

needs. 

Mr. CONNER. Congressman, I am assuming you are referring to 

the guestworker legislation that was considered. As I noted with 

Mr. Smith’s comments as well, we appreciate the effort to improve 

the current guestworker program, because it is in great need of improvement. It is not used by very many producers out there, particularly small producers. They do not have H.R. personnel. They 

do not have lawyers. They cannot afford them. They cannot navigate the current system. So we appreciate that work. 

But it is not close to being the solution to the problem. 

Mr. LABRADOR. I understand that you do not think it is close, but 

it was a beginning. It was a first step in trying to fix the problem 

we have with immigration system, especially with regard to agriculture. 

Mr. CONNER. We appreciate the acknowledgment that the 

guestworker program is in need of improvement. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay. And do you realize that not a single Democrat in this Committee voted for that bill? 

Mr. CONNER. I was not aware that. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay. So when I sit here and I listen to the pontification about how we are not willing to do anything with regard 

to immigration, I want the people to understand that the Democrats were not willing to work with us on a step-by-step approach. 

This is not your industry, but are you aware that we actually 

passed in the 112th Congress the STEM visa bill that would have 

dealt a lot with the problems that we have with the high-tech immigration? Are you aware of that? 

Mr. CONNER. Yes, I am aware, sir. Again, I add that we have to 

deal with this in its totality, that is guestworkers, that is our—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. So what you are here to testify is that unless we 

do the Senate bill, then it is unacceptable? Is that what you are 

saying? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, one without the other really doesn’t work for 

American agriculture. We do need a complete solution. 

Mr. LABRADOR. I agree with you, agree with you a 100 percent 

that we need a complete solution. 

Mr. Johnson, are you aware that we in the 112th and 113th Congress tried to pass immigration legislation that would have dealt 

with the high-tech immigration needs of the United States? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, out of this Committee, you did pass that. 

Mr. LABRADOR. And actually, out of the 112th Congress, we 

passed it out of the House, and the Senate would not even take it 

up. And we were told that the President would not accept that legislation, because the President believed that it was either everything or nothing. 

I think that is the frustration that I have. I agree with Mr. 

Conner that we have to fix entire immigration system. I agree that 

agriculture has some needs that are unique to the agricultural industry. But to sit here and pontificate about how we have not done 

anything about immigration is just plain false. It is absolutely 

false. 
59 

We have tried to do a step-by-step approach where we have tried 

to fix the immigration system, and we have been held hostage by 

the President and his party because they are unwilling to work on 

a step-by-step approach. All we are doing today, starting with the 

E-Verify legislation, is fix one of the problems that we have in the 

immigration system. 

I think all of you have testified that it improves the current EVerify system that I have had some problems with in the past, as 

a former immigration practitioner. But I think we need to understand that unless we work together, unless we realize that we have 

to do this in a step-by-step way, what we are doing is we are allowing the people on the other side of the aisle to hold this issue hostage. 

We have not fixed this problem for 30 years, and we have not 

fixed it because it has been an all or nothing approach. In fact, the 

President of the United States, when he was a Senator, he promised the Bush administration that he would support comprehensive 

immigration reform. And guess what he did? He went to the Senate 

floor and he voted for poison pill amendments that killed the entire 

Bush immigration process. 

We would have had this problem solved many, many years ago, 

if it were not for this President when he was a Senator. He promised the American people that the first thing he would do as President was to do comprehensive immigration reform, and neither he 

nor his party did anything to fix the problem. 

So let us just start fixing the problem and let us move on with 

the solutions that Americans are craving. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Idaho. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Puerto Rico, 

the former attorney general, Mr. Pierluisi. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Thank you. Welcome, all. I am particularly 

pleased to see Angelo Amador here. You make me feel proud as a 

fellow Puerto Rican-American. That is great. 

Mr. Conner, I understand that the council didn’t endorse the ag 

guestworker bill in the 113th Congress. Is that right? 

Mr. CONNER. I am sorry, which bill, sir? 

Mr. PIERLUISI. The guestworker bill that was just referred to by 

my colleague Mr. Labrador. 

Mr. CONNER. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. The council didn’t endorse that bill? 

Mr. CONNER. We did not endorse that bill because it really represents only part of the solution that is necessary out there, the big 

part of the solution being our existing workforce. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Do you know of any other group of growers or ag 

group that supported the bill? 

Mr. CONNER. Not that I am aware of. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Thank you. 

Mr. Amador, in your written statement, you say that you are 

committed to fixing the broken immigration system, which includes 

legalization of a portion of the undocumented workforce, and that 

simply changing the E-Verify system will not be enough to fix an 

immigration system that has been collapsing for almost 30 years. 

I agree with you on that point, but can you explain why you 

think that changing the E-Verify system itself is not enough to fix 
60 

our immigration system? Why is it important that any fix to our 

immigration system include provisions that would allow undocumented people to earn legal status? 

Mr. AMADOR. Well, I think one of the bigger issues for us is what 

happens moving forward. I know you have heard about the H-2A 

program, which is for agriculture. There is no such program available for low-skilled workers in our industry. 

The last time I saw a workable solution for the guestworker program, Senator Kennedy was still alive and George W. Bush was 

President. We cannot wait that long. We have been waiting, and 

we have not seen it from Democrats or Republicans to give us a 

guestworker program to be able to move forward. 

So what we have decided is, if there are good solutions to different pieces, we are going to support them. I mean, I didn’t hear 

from any Democrat calling my office complaining about the fact 

that we supported deferred action for childhood arrivals. That is 

just one piece. And we said even then, ‘‘Well, that is just one piece. 

It only takes care of a very small population, children and all that. 

For those reasons, we support it.’’ But E-Verify is another piece. 

As more and more of my employers and restaurants are using it, 

they are complaining that, ‘‘Look, I started using it. I find somebody. I try to work with this good employee. At the end of the day, 

there is a final nonconfirmation. I have to let them go, just to see 

them go work across the street at another restaurant that is not 

using the program.’’ That is just unfair competition. 

The government is mandating it. We are opposing the way the 

President mandated E-Verify for Federal contractors. It does not 

have safe harbors. It does not have a number of things. 

We are glad that several years ago, then-Chairman Lamar Smith 

sat with us and sat with others and said, what are the problems? 

So we shouldn’t wait another 20 years to fix one portion of immigration just because no one seems to be in agreement on a 

guestworker program right now. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Thank you. In your testimony, you also argue that 

employers should be allowed to run potential hires through EVerify and make the job offer conditioned on the final verification. 

Here is my concern about that. We already know some employers 

don’t notify employees when they receive a TNC. Instead, they just 

terminate employment, and the employee never has the opportunity to contest the TNC and demonstrate authorization to work. 

If people could be run through E-Verify before starting employment, isn’t it likely that even more people would never be informed 

of a TNC, which could be defective or false? They would simply be 

told that the company no longer needs the employee for that job. 

Doing this for a person who hasn’t even shown up for work seems 

much simpler than doing it for a person who has already joined 

your workforce. Couldn’t this kind of prescreening of employees before the date of hire mean many more U.S. citizens and work-authorized noncitizens will lose job opportunities? 

Mr. AMADOR. I think from a practical perspective, the feedback 

that we have gotten is you do all of the other background checks, 

even drug checks and all these other things you do before the person shows up to work. We are not saying that you prescreen before 

an offer is made. An offer has been made and you are being told, 
61 

we are now going to go do this number of things. We are going to 

check your references, we are going to a check E-Verify, whatever 

it is that you do. 

Being able to do all the other things, and we are not saying it 

shouldn’t be legal not to inform the worker. You should inform the 

worker, number one, that you are going to do an E-Verify check, 

and, number two, what comes back. The whole idea is to allow this 

employee to fix it before they show up to work. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Thank you so much. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Puerto Rico. 

The Chair would recognize the gentleman from Colorado, former 

district attorney, Mr. Buck. 

Mr. BUCK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Ms. Blitstein, I have a quick question for you about the safe harbor provisions. During a May 22, 2013, hearing before this Committee, former ICE Assistant Secretary Julie Myers Wood commented that ICE operates under the assumption that the existence 

of a high number of employees who circumvent the system through 

identity theft contradicts a company’s argument that it relied in 

good faith on its E-Verify confirmation. ICE’s position deprives the 

employer of the E-Verify safe harbor under current law, and exposes the company to legal liability for failing to detect and deter 

identity theft, notwithstanding its good faith use of E-Verify. 

I have heard these stories from many constituents in my district. 

I am wondering whether this bill fixes that, whether you are comfortable with the safe harbor provisions in this bill that will be introduced soon? 

Ms. BLITSTEIN. We are comfortable with the safe harbor provisions. We do think it will further protect employers. 

In my personal experience at N.C. State is that we have used the 

system to terminate some employees when we have gotten a final 

nonconfirmation. Fortunately, we never had those employees come 

back to us for any reason. But we were, certainly, relying on the 

fact that we were using the system as intended. We got that final 

nonconfirmation result and then relied on it to make our employment decision. 

So we do very much feel that the provision in this particular bill 

will be more helpful to employers to go about the business of 

verifying their workforce, making sure they are not employing people without authorization, at a more comfortable level. 

Mr. BUCK. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. Johnson, I have a question for you. The President has undermined the immigration system with his executive orders, prosecutorial discretion, and his excuse of resource allocation. My question 

is, what prevents the President from ignoring this law as he has 

so many others? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, that is an interesting question based on 

issues of standing and the natural fact that no matter how restrictively this body writes a law, there is always going to be some discretion written into anything you write. 

Look, you have the power of the purse to rein in the President. 

Of course, the Speaker has filed a case against the President under 

Obamacare. 
62 

Congressman, I am not going to pretend really. At some point, 

you can say we don’t trust the President, and do nothing, because 

you aren’t going to be able to write a law that doesn’t depend on 

some degree of the President exercising his discretion. But if you 

take the position, ‘‘We don’t trust the President,’’ well, the followon on that is, ‘‘Well, we may as well not do anything in this body.’’ 

Mr. BUCK. That is not what I am suggesting at all. I am suggesting there are pieces of this law that require executive action. 

There is a computer system that needs to be set up. There are various activities that need to be engaged in, in good faith. There are 

contracts that need to be let to the private sector to upgrade the 

system. 

My question is, in what way do we know that the President is 

going to do these things? 

Mr. JOHNSON. The only answer is you can’t write those more restrictively probably than they are already written, because they are 

very detailed administrative functions. Really, the answer is strong 

oversight through this Committee. Of course, you are in the majority now. 

Mr. BUCK. Would it help if we had timeframes and requirements 

that the Administration report back? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Administrations, Republican and Democrat, and I 

have been in both, often miss deadlines. Occasionally, they meet 

them. But the real answer to that is your oversight and calling the 

officers up here from the Administrations and saying, ‘‘What the 

heck is going on? You are in charge of this law, and you are in 

charge of the government, why aren’t you meeting these deadlines?’’ 

And frankly, you have the blunt instrument of trying to cut their 

budget in some ways to send the signal to them, or use Committee 

report language, which we often did when I was up on the Hill, to 

send a signal to them to get their act together. But there is no real 

clean answer to that. Sorry. 

Mr. BUCK. Okay. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. The gentleman from Colorado, before we go to the 

gentleman from Texas, we are going to briefly go to the gentleman 

from Puerto Rico. 

Mr. PIERLUISI. Mr. Chairman, if there is no objection, I would 

like to introduce in the record a statement from the American Immigration Lawyers Association, as well as a letter from the American Farm Bureau Federation. 

Mr. GOWDY. Without objection. 

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Mr. PIERLUISI. Thank you. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Puerto Rico. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Texas, the 

former United States Attorney, Mr. Ratcliffe. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is no secret that when ICE opens a worksite enforcement matter, it is usually based on information or intelligence that there is 

a workforce of illegal aliens at a particular company. One of things 

that a prosecutor wants to find out early in an investigation before 

making any charging decisions is whether the employer had knowledge or reason to believe that illegal aliens were, in fact, part of 

the company’s workforce. 

When I was a prosecutor in such cases, and the employer was 

relying solely on the I-9 process, whether an employer was subjected to penalties and fines ultimately hinged on prosecutorial discretion, namely whether I was persuaded that counterfeit documents, sometimes for hundreds of employees, could, in fact, be mistaken as genuine or authentic by the employer. 

That coupled with the fact that I never had a worksite enforcement action against an employer that used E-Verify seems to provide anecdotal evidence that E-Verify is a great protection for employers. But again, that is anecdotal, so I want to get some testimony in that regard. 

And I want start with you, Ms. Blitstein. In the years, as I understood your testimony, for 8,000 employees that have gone 

through and been subjected to E-Verify, can you talk briefly and 

hopefully quantify whether there were instances where E-Verify 

did in fact identify I-9 process documents that were false even 

though they may have looked valid on their face? 

Ms. BLITSTEIN. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Ratcliffe. 

I would like to say, at least for N.C. State, we actually probably 

at this point, after using the system for 8 years, we have probably 

E-Verified about 30,000 employees over the course because usually, 

when the semester is underway, when you add in the additional 

8,000 students and other workers, then our workforce doubles to 

16-plus-thousand during an academic year. So over 8 years, people 

come and go, about 30,000. 

Off the top my head, I can tell you I can remember very distinctly two incidents where people presented false green cards. One 

of them was actually very good, and the system came back with the 

final nonconfirmation. We let the person go. I studied it for a while 

and finally was able to see some of the flaws. One of the other fake 

green cards was actually rather terrible. So once I got involved at 

my level and saw it, I knew right away. But we let E-Verify just 

kind of clean up the process there. So we have had those two. 

I would have to say that our industry is higher education, so we 

probably have smaller rates of people without documentation trying to pass themselves off. We really don’t experience it to the 

same degree that I am sure some other industries probably do. 

But at this point now we are very reliant on the system after 8 

years. We are required by the State. We are going to keep using 

it probably indefinitely. But again, the safe harbor idea is very attractive for us. 
114 

And in over 30,000, I can remember those two. There might be 

a few others, but I would probably say less than 10 over the 8 

years we have been using it where we actually were dealing with 

something that might be related to fake or false documents. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay, thank you. And you mentioned safe harbor, and I apologize, I know there has been some testimony. I have 

gone in and out. But, Ms. Blitstein, you offered a number of recommendations in your testimony about ways that you believe the 

Legal Workforce Act could be improved, but one of them didn’t include any changes to the safe harbor provisions. Do I take that as 

an endorsement of the currents safe harbor provisions? 

Ms. BLITSTEIN. That is correct. We did not see any additional 

need for improvement, based on what is already in the act. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. Amador, you already spoke to that issue, so I think I am 

clear on that point. I think you called it the strongest language 

that you had seen thus far with respect to safe harbor. 

Mr. AMADOR. Correct. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Okay. 

What I am not clear is, Mr. Johnson, have you given testimony 

with respect to that? And if not, on behalf of many folks associated 

with the Chamber, your thoughts on that? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, look, we have had a lot of experts look at 

this language, litigators, before we agreed to it. We think it is solid. 

As more and more individuals and experts look at it, there may be 

a tweak here and there that we can recommend to the Committee. 

But as of right now, we are satisfied with it. 

Mr. RATCLIFFE. Terrific. Great. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Texas. 

The Chair would now recognize himself. 

Mr. Conner, I want to start with you, and I want you to deliver 

this message for me, because it is really, really important that this 

message be delivered. The secretary of agriculture in South Carolina is a longtime friend of mine named Hugh Weathers, who happens to be a dairy farmer. 

Mr. CONNER. He is a good man. 

Mr. GOWDY. He is a good man. He married into the very first 

family that helped me when I ran for district attorney, so if anybody is wondering who to blame, it would be the Gramling family 

from South Carolina. They are peach farmers, so I am keenly 

aware of agriculture’s interest, and so is our Chairman, who is the 

architect and the author of an agricultural bill, which the South 

Carolina Farm Bureau endorsed last session. 

We necessarily cannot have simultaneous hearings, or at least I 

have not figured out how to have simultaneous hearings, so you 

have to start with one. But I do not want you, and I would ask you 

to take back to the farmers, the fact that we started with E-Verify 

in no way, shape, or form means that we are not cognizant of the 

issues that the agriculture community faces. 

So if you would let them know how much we appreciate them, 

and we had to start somewhere. Had we start started with the ag 

bill, then other folks would have been critical of us for going in that 
115 

chronology. So if you could help me get that message to your constituency, I would be most grateful to you. 

Mr. Johnson, I know the Chairman asked Mr. Amador, but I 

want to hear from you as an entity that had overall support for the 

Senate immigration bill, but yet had some concerns about their EVerify process. What were those concerns, with particularity? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, the safe harbor language is better in the 

House bill. There is a crazy provision in the Senate bill that deals 

with the so-called U visa, which is a narrow visa for people who 

testify in criminal, very egregious kinds of cases. It was expanded 

to cover virtually any kind of workplace complaint, which we 

viewed as an incentive really for somebody to come forward and file 

a complaint against an employer because the result of that would 

be they cannot be deported from the country while that event was 

pending. 

They, frankly, changed the legal authority of the Office of Special 

Counsel over there from enforcing intentional discrimination to intentional plus unintentional discrimination—i.e., disparate impact, 

which since I did my graduate paper in that area, I was particularly annoyed by. And they have a whole matrix of sort of appeals 

when the tentative nonconfirmation comes back that the employee 

could stay on the payroll forever while this mouse trap of appeals 

was going forward. 

And look, Mr. Chairman, there has to be a balance here, but 

there is no perfect answer to a lot of cases. And you have to balance giving the employee a chance to correct the records, if in fact 

there is a mistake, which I think Mr. Smith’s bill does, versus creating a whole matrix of other requirements and lawsuits, which 

our members are not going to just buy into. 

I have a treatise on my desk. It is 2,000 pages long, just talking 

about what employers must comply with under our few civil rights 

law. We have enough litigation. We have enough gold mines for 

plaintiff lawyers without creating more. 

Mr. GOWDY. And correct me if I am wrong, if my memory serves, 

U visas would be utilized by victims of domestic violence, hypothetically, in one area so they could come forward and cooperate 

with law enforcement and not have any fear of any legal consequence for coming forward. And then that was expanded in the 

Senate version to include labor violations. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Also workplace disputes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Okay. 

Ms. Blitstein, your written testimony stated that you had developed a successful program for handling foreign national scholars 

and graduate students who are coming to the U.S. for the first time 

and, necessarily, do not have a Social Security number. What is the 

process? 

Ms. BLITSTEIN. We have developed a system. Especially with our 

electronic system now, we are able to do the I-9 without the Social 

Security number, because when they first come, they have to wait 

about 10 days after ending the U.S. before they are eligible to 

apply for a number at the Social Security Administration. 

So we still do the electronic I-9. It is kind of pending until they 

go to Social Security. When they are able to get their number, they 

come back to us. We enter it, and then it gets pushed through to 
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E-Verify. And for that process, the E-Verify 3-day timeframe is suspended because there is just practically no way, and Social Security 

is not going to turn it around that fast either. 

So we have developed that process that we have trained a number of our decentralized campus users of the E-Verify system on. 

It is still not perfect, which is why one of our suggestions was to 

allow a little more time, because once the Social Security Administration gives the new number to the individual, they give it 

straight to them. They do not notify us as the employer when they 

have issued them the number. So we still sometimes need to work 

with the new employees to make sure they come back to us, provide us with that number, so we can finish up the process. 

So we are still always searching for ways to improve and to make 

things even better. But that is our current system. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you. I inadvertently overlooked, I do not 

know how, Mr. King, when he was here. I want to apologize to him 

and now recognize the gentleman from Iowa for his 5 minutes of 

questioning. 

Mr. KING. I thank the Chairman for recognizing me and for holding this hearing. And I thank the witnesses for your testimony. 

Having listened to your testimony, a number of questions emerge, 

and I would direct my first one to Mr. Johnson. 

That would be, there are limitations written in the bill on how 

an employer might verify an existing employee. Can you perhaps 

explain to this panel why—I will make this assertion. If I am an 

employer and I have an employee tell me that he is unlawfully 

present in the United States and can’t legally work, but he has 

slipped through my bookkeeping system, why should I not be able 

to run him through E-Verify and deal with him according to the 

law? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think you would be able to deal with him under 

this system. If he slips through because of false paper? 

Mr. KING. If I suspected an employee of being unlawfully working for me, why wouldn’t an employer who had the best intentions 

of complying with the law, which is what Mr. Conner said his people do, why couldn’t that employer just got a E-Verify, run the data 

through E-Verify to see if that employee can actually lawfully 

work? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I think the bill does provide a process by 

which, if a tentative nonconfirmation comes back, that the employee—I think it is right to give the employee a chance before he 

is fired to see whether or not the information is wrong when it 

comes back. 

Mr. KING. I agree. 

Mr. JOHNSON. It is only 10 days under the bill, as I recall, and 

then the employer can fire the employee. 

Mr. KING. Let me suggest we are really not quite on point here, 

because the bill has been improved from what it originally was a 

couple years ago, in that now the employer has to check everyone 

either within a geographic area or within a work category. I suggest that is an unnecessary limitation, although it is an improvement. 

So I would move on from that and thank you for your response. 
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Also, it has a conditional job offer for an employee, a potential 

employee. That is an improvement in the bill. 

But I am concerned, then, Mr. Johnson, about the preemption of 

the States. My concern has been in the past that if States are preempted from enforcement, and I understand in this now new 

version of the bill that they can enforce in parallel with and in mirror to the Federal law, but if States are preempted, and the Federal Government doesn’t enforce, wasn’t that one of the reasons for 

preemption in the first place, that if the Federal Government 

doesn’t enforce, then we don’t have to worry about the States doing 

that, as was the basis of S.B. 1070? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I have the Section 6 language here in front 

of me on preemption, and it is quite complicated. I would say that 

it still allows the States, even on its most restriction reading, Mr. 

King, it allows the States to check whether or not the employer is 

complying with Federal E-Verify rules and regulations, and if not, 

step in. 

I think it is perhaps a little unclear whether or not the State has 

power beyond simply—not simply. Removing the license for the 

business to operate. 

Mr. KING. And also to levy fines. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And levy fines. 

Mr. KING. And retain those fines. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And retain them. 

So to me, this was a balance that, as I said before, we would 

have preferred a broader preemption, but this does allow the States 

to have a role. It is obviously a smaller one than after the Supreme 

Court’s decision in Whiting. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I appreciate it. 

I would like to turn to Mr. Conner. I was interested in the percentages that you gave of the different components of agriculture, 

in particular, that could be the potential losses, if there was mandatory E-Verify abruptly without time to adjust to that. 

Can you tell us how those numbers, those percentage losses, 

were calculated? 

Mr. CONNER. Certainly, Congressman King. Those numbers were 

the result of the study by the American Farm Bureau Federation 

and we would be happy to provide that full study with those results for the Committee record, if you so choose that. 

Mr. KING. Could I ask you to do that and ask if the Chair, at 

his discretion, might forward that onto the Committee Members, 

the Farm Bureau analysis? 

Mr. GOWDY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. KING. I thank the Chairman of the Committee for that. 

And you also mentioned that there was as much as a 50 percent 

worker rate that would not be in compliance right now. Did I hear 

that correctly? 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. We have an existing workforce of about 1.2 

million to 1.4 million, and the estimates of what that constitutes 

is somewhere between 50 percent to 70 percent that we believe 

probably would not have proper work authority in this country. 

Mr. KING. I am fairly shocked by that, but I would go further 

with these questions and just make this concluding statement instead, Mr. Conner. And that is that it appears to me over my work-
118 

ing life, all of it within sight of cornfields and soybean fields and 

agriculture, as you know, that this country has evolved into a high 

dependency on illegal labor, particularly in agriculture. 

I can replay this through my mind’s eye on what it would look 

like today if that were not the case, if these 50 States were islands 

unto themselves rather than a continent that allowed for a flow of 

labor. 

And I would just make this point in conclusion. There are 

92,890,000 Americans of working age who are simply not in the 

workforce. And to all employers out there, I would suggest that if 

you need one, you can find one from that list. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Iowa. 

In conclusion, I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the 

record statements from the Society of Human Resource Management and the National Federation of Independent Business. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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Mr. GOWDY. This concludes our hearing today. 

I do want to thank every one of our witnesses for your expertise, 

your collegiality among one another and with the Committee, and 

your cordiality with the same. We have all benefited from your expertise, and we thank you. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional 

materials for the record. 

With that, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:43 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD
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Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee 

on Immigration and Border Security 
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