    [House Hearing, 113 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                              LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                        IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

                                     OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                       ON

                                   H.R. 1772

                                   __________

                                  MAY 16, 2013

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 113-11

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

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

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                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                       BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
    F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,         JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
        Wisconsin                        JERROLD NADLER, New York
    HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina         ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
    LAMAR SMITH, Texas                       Virginia
    STEVE CHABOT, Ohio                   MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
    SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama              ZOE LOFGREN, California
    DARRELL E. ISSA, California          SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
    J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia            STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    STEVE KING, Iowa                     HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
    TRENT FRANKS, Arizona                  Georgia
    LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas                 PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
    JIM JORDAN, Ohio                     JUDY CHU, California
    TED POE, Texas                       TED DEUTCH, Florida
    JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah                 LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
    TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania             KAREN BASS, California
    TREY GOWDY, South Carolina           CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana
    MARK AMODEI, Nevada                  SUZAN DelBENE, Washington
    RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho                 JOE GARCIA, Florida
    BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas              HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York
    GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina
    DOUG COLLINS, Georgia
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida
    [Vacant]

               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

                         TED POE, Texas, Vice-Chairman

    LAMAR SMITH, Texas                   ZOE LOFGREN, California
    STEVE KING, Iowa                     SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
    JIM JORDAN, Ohio                     LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
    MARK AMODEI, Nevada                  JOE GARCIA, Florida
    RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho                 PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
    GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina

                         George Fishman, Chief Counsel

                       David Shahoulian, Minority Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                                  MAY 16, 2013

                                                                       Page

                                    THE BILL

    H.R. 1772, the ``Legal Workforce Act''...........................   205

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    The Honorable Trey Gowdy, a Representative in Congress from the
      State of South Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
      Immigration and Border Security................................     1
    The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the
      State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and
      Border Security................................................     1
    The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the
      State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
      Immigration and Border Security................................     3
    The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
      from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
      the Judiciary..................................................     4
    The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary    10

                                   WITNESSES

    Angelo I. Amador, Sr., Vice President, Labor and Workforce
      Policy, National Restaurant Association
      Oral Testimony.................................................    12
      Prepared Statement.............................................    14
    Jill G. Blitstein, International Employment Manager, Human
      Resources, North Carolina State University
      Oral Testimony.................................................    39
      Prepared Statement.............................................    42
    Julie Myers Wood, President, Compliance, Federal Practice and
      Software Solutions, Guidepost Solutions LLC
      Oral Testimony.................................................    46
      Prepared Statement.............................................    48
    Dominick Mondi, Executive Director, New Jersey Nursery and
      Landscape Association
      Oral Testimony.................................................    59
      Prepared Statement.............................................    61

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    Prepared Statement of the Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative
      in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee
      on Immigration and Border Security.............................     6
    Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative
      in Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member,
      Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security................     7
    Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a
      Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and
      Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary.....................     8
    Material submitted by the Honorable Steve King, a Representative
      in Congress from the State of Iowa, and Member, Subcommittee on
      Immigration and Border Security................................    80
    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................   183

                                    APPENDIX
                   Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

    Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a
      Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and
      Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary...........................   195
    Letter from R. Bruce Josten, Executive Vice President, Government
      Affairs, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America...   197
    Prepared Statement of the Food Manufacturers' Immigration
      Coalition......................................................   198
    Prepared Statement of the American Meat Institute (AMI)..........   199
    Letter from James W. Tobin, III, Senior Vice President & Chief
      Lobbyist, National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).........   204

                              LEGAL WORKFORCE ACT

                                  ----------

                             THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

                            House of Representatives

                Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security

                           Committee on the Judiciary

                                Washington, DC.

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:16 a.m., in
    room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Trey
    Gowdy (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Gowdy, Poe, Smith, King, Jordan,
    Amodei, Holding, Goodlatte, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Gutierrez and
    Garcia.
        Staff Present: (Majority) Andrea Loving, Counsel; Graham
    Owens, Clerk; and (Minority) Tom Jawetz, Counsel.
        Mr. Gowdy. We will now move to our legislative hearing on
    H.R. 1772, the ``Legal Workforce Act.''
        The Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security will
    come to order. Without objection, the Chair is still authorized
    to declare recesses of the Committee at any time.
        We welcome all of our witnesses. I will introduce our
    witnesses properly here in just a moment, but for now I will
    recognize myself for a brief opening statement.
        Today this Subcommittee holds legislative hearings on bills
    that can, if implemented, substantially affect U.S. Immigration
    policy in a positive way. The first hearing is on H.R. 1772,
    the ``Legal Workforce Act,'' which requires all U.S. employers
    to use E-Verify to verify the work eligibility of their
    employees.
        Because the desire for employment is one of the--if not
    the--largest incentives for illegal immigration to the United
    States, we must help ensure employers have appropriate and
    workable tools to verify a legal workforce.
        I know Chairman Goodlatte and past-Chairman Smith and
    others have worked tirelessly on this issue, and I am pleased
    to yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Texas,
    the past Chairman, Mr. Smith.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I very much
    appreciate your yielding me your time.
        The Legal Workforce Act is bipartisan legislation that
    shuts off the jobs magnet attracting illegal immigrants to the
    United States. The bill expands the E-Verify system and makes
    it mandatory for all U.S. employers. Twenty-three 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.
        H.R. 1772 could open up millions of jobs for unemployed
    Americans by requiring all 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 451,000 American employers voluntarily use E-
    Verify, and an average of 1,600 new businesses sign up each
    week. The program is free, quick and easy to use. In fact, this
    Subcommittee heard testimony in February from the Department of
    Homeland Security that E-Verify can now be used by smartphones.
        You have to show your Social Security number to visit the
    doctor, go to the bank or buy a home. It makes sense that
    businesses would use the same identification to ensure they
    have a legal workforce by checking the legal status of their
    employees.
        The Legal Workforce Act requires that all U.S. employers
    use E-Verify to check the work eligibility of new hires in the
    U.S. The verification is phased in depending on the size of the
    employer's business; up to 2 years, for example, to provide
    additional time for smaller businesses and agriculture.
        H.R. 1772 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 the patchwork of State
    E-Verify laws, but retains the ability of States and localities
    to condition business licenses on the use of E-Verify. In
    addition, H.R. 1772 allows States to enforce the Federal E-
    Verify requirement if the Federal Government fails 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 USCIS additional
    tools to help prevent identity theft. For example the bill
    allows individuals to lock their own Social Security number so
    that it cannot be used by imposters to verify work eligibility.
    The legislation also allows parents to lock the Social Security
    number of their minor child to prevent identity theft, and 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.
        Studies by Westat on error rates in the cost of E-Verify
    have been mentioned at prior hearings. That study utilized old
    data and failed to address the provisions aimed at preventing
    identity theft that I mentioned above and which are in the bill
    today.
        In regard to cost this Subcommittee heard testimony earlier
    this year that discredited the study because it amplifies
    higher numbers by 25 percent by counting internal promotions
    and transfers. Many of these critics fail to point out that
    other studies reveal that three-quarters of employers stated
    that the cost of using E-Verify is zero.
        Equally important, the American people support E-Verify. A
    2011 Rasmussen poll found that 82 percent of likely voters
    ``think businesses should be required to use the Federal
    Government's E-Verify system to determine if a potential
    employee is in the country legally.''
        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 will help ensure that employers from every
    State are on an equal footing when it comes to hiring
    employees. This bill is a commonsense approach to deterring
    illegal workers that could open up millions of jobs for
    unemployed and underemployed Americans.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentlemen from Texas.
        The Chair would now recognize the gentlelady from
    California, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Ms.
    Lofgren.
        Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Few issues have received as much attention before this
    Subcommittee in recent years as E-Verify. In the last Congress
    we held three hearings on the electronic employment eligibility
    verification system, and the Committee marked up the Legal
    Workforce Act. In this Congress we have already held one
    hearing on E-Verify and will today examine Congressman Smith's
    new version of the Legal Workforce Act.
        At the outset let me note that the new version of the bill
    we are considering today contains several improvements over the
    version offered in the last Congress, and I want to recognize
    the bill's sponsor for responding to some of the concerns
    raised at that time. For instance, when we marked up the Legal
    Workforce Act in the 112th Congress, the bill exempted
    returning seasonal farm workers from having to be verified upon
    hire. This gigantic loophole came under attack from all sides.
    From the right it was attacked as amnesty; from the left it was
    attacked as an admission that E-Verify alone would destroy our
    agricultural industry and the millions of jobs held by U.S.
    workers that are supported by that industry. The Committee
    struck this provision from the bill during markup, and I am
    glad to see it is omitted from this version.
        The bill in the last Congress also created new criminal
    penalties for unlawful conduct that were excessive and
    wasteful. In addition to imposing multiple mandatory minimum
    prison terms, the bill made it a felony punishable by up to 15
    years in prison for a person to use a Social Security number
    that did not belong to him or her during the employment
    verification process. Although this version of the bill still
    creates one mandatory minimum prison term, it contains a number
    of improvements in the criminal provisions pertaining to fraud
    and misuse of documents.
        And finally this version contains some changes designed to
    make E-Verify a little less unworkable for the Social Security
    Administration, which obviously serves a number of other
    critically important functions.
        Having said that, today's bill still contains several of
    the greatest flaws of the bill we considered in the last
    Congress. It continues to provide no meaningful due process
    protections for authorized workers, including U.S. citizens,
    who may lose their jobs because of erroneous final
    nonconfirmations.
        The idea that Americans and authorized immigrants will lose
    their jobs as a result of this bill is not simply theoretical.
    Although we know that the government continues to work hard to
    reduce error rates in E-Verify, errors absolutely still exist.
    Under this bill people would lose their jobs and become
    effectively unemployable for an indeterminate length of time
    because of such government errors, and they would have no
    meaningful recourse.
        The bill also provides no penalties at all for employers
    who violate the requirement that they inform an employee about
    a tentative nonconfirmation and give that employee an
    opportunity to contest the ETNC. The absence of any consequence
    renders the notice requirement completely toothless.
        But let me take a step back, because although I welcome the
    opportunity to discuss how to discuss how to design an
    effective and fair E-Verify system, I believe it is clear that
    we can only do that together with other necessary forums to our
    broken immigration system.
        We could design the best E-Verify system imaginable, a
    system that is easy to use, 100 percent accurate, and available
    at virtually no cost to big and small businesses alike. But if
    we impose that system nationwide and did nothing to fix our
    immigration system, the consequences would be disastrous.
        I won't belabor the point because the issues are so
    familiar to Members of this Subcommittee, and we have witnesses
    who are prepared to testify. I will simply say that without
    top-to-bottom reform of our immigration laws, expanding E-
    Verify would devastate the agricultural economy, resulting in
    closed farms, a less secure America, and the mass offshoring of
    millions of U.S. jobs, including the upstream and downstream
    jobs that are created and supported by our agricultural
    industry.
        Expanding E-Verify without more would also cost the
    government significant tax revenues. In 2008, the Congressional
    Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation concluded
    that mandatory E-Verify in Representative Health Shuler's SAVE
    Act would decrease Federal revenues by $17.3 billion over a 10-
    year period. Those offices determined that expanding E-Verify
    in an economy with this significant undocumented workforce and
    no way to provide for a legal workforce would drive employers
    and workers off the books and into the underground economy. The
    end result would be lost tax revenues and depressed wages and
    working conditions for all workers, including U.S. workers.
        I believe firmly that E-Verify must play an important role
    in helping to fix our immigration system, so I appreciate the
    proposal by Representative Smith. I thank Chairman Goodlatte
    and Chairman Gowdy for the opportunity to discuss this today. I
    think we have further work to do, but I look forward to the
    testimony of the witnesses, and I yield back.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentlelady from California.
        The Chair would now recognize the gentlemen from Michigan,
    the Ranking Member of the full Committee, Mr. Conyers.
        Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        This is an important hearing, and we know that everybody's
    currently focused on the Senate Judiciary's markup of S. 744,
    and that is why we are encouraged by the ongoing efforts by
    Members on both sides of the aisle to forge an agreement on an
    immigration reform bill in the House. That is why the U.S.
    Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO were able to come together to
    forge an historic agreement regarding a future temporary
    guestworker proposal. It is why all of the major agricultural
    producers amazingly, including the American Farm Bureau and
    United Farm Workers, joined together to back changes to our
    agricultural guestworker program.
        So I agree that we must talk about E-Verify because it will
    be an important component of comprehensive immigration reform,
    but when we do so, we need to recognize the dangers that
    American workers would face if we were to make E-Verify
    mandatory for all employers without fixing our immigration
    system. I think it is important whenever we talk about E-Verify
    to talk about the real-world actualities.
        Sometimes we hear people say that E-Verify will help
    American workers because every time an undocumented immigrant
    is denied a job, an unemployed American will get hired. That is
    a simple, an appealing proposition, but is probably not
    correct. Immigrants often fill critical gaps in our own
    workforce. Even in this difficult economy, there are entire
    industries that rely upon undocumented immigrants because there
    just aren't enough Americans around willing to do the work.
        Just look at how mandatory E-Verify would affect
    agriculture. Fifty to seventy-five percent of farm workers are
    undocumented. Losing these workers would obviously be
    devastating. Fruits and vegetables would rot in fields, and
    American farms would go under, and we would see a mass
    offshoring of jobs, including millions of upstream and
    downstream American jobs supported by agriculture.
        An earlier witness at a hearing testified that some farms
    could survive by shifting to different crops. Now, that is
    really one for the books, crops that are not labor intensive.
    The majority of all lettuce in this country apparently comes
    from one county in California. Lettuce farmers may well be able
    to find a different crop to grow, but let us be clear about
    what it means. Virtually all our lettuce from now will be
    imported from another country. The same is true for tomatoes,
    flowers, strawberries. The list goes on and on.
        I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses,
    and I hope they will comment on some of my observations. We
    need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Smith
    legislative proposal, and in doing so I hope that they each
    take some time to talk about whether they think it would be a
    good or bad thing for America and our workers if Congress made
    E-Verify mandatory nationwide without simultaneously fixing our
    broken immigration system.
        So we talk about, I conclude, comprehensive reform: One, 11
    million people on the path to an earned legal status; two, and
    most importantly, modernizing the flow of future immigrants so
    it works for both businesses and families; and three, improved
    enforcement, including E-Verify, but not on its own.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman for allowing my statement.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from Michigan.
        Without objection, all the Members' opening statements will
    be made part of the record.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

     Prepared Statement of the Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in
         Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on
                        Immigration and Border Security

        The Legal Workforceq Act is bipartisan legislation that shuts off
    the jobs magnet attracting illegal immigrants to the United States. The
    bill expands the E-Verify system and makes it mandatory for all U.S.
    employers.
        Twenty-three million Americans are unemployed or under employed.
    Meanwhile, seven million people are working in the United States
    illegally. These jobs should go to American citizens and legal workers.
        H.R. 1772 could open up millions of jobs for unemployed Americans
    by requiring all employers to use E-Verify. The E-Verify system is
    quick and effective, confirming 99.7% of work-eligible employees.
    Recent data shows that approximately 451,000 American employers
    voluntarily use E-Verify and an average of 1,600 new businesses sign up
    each week.
        The program is free, quick and easy to use. In fact, this
    subcommittee heard testimony in February from the Department of
    Homeland Security that E-Verify can now be used via smart phones.
        You have to show your Social Security Number to visit the doctor,
    go to the bank, or buy a home. It makes sense that businesses would use
    the same identification to ensure they have a legal workforce by
    checking the legal status of their employees.
        The Legal Workforce Act requires that all U.S. employers use E-
    Verify to check the work eligibility of new hires in the U.S. The
    verification is phased-in depending on the size of the employer's
    business--up to two years to provide additional time for smaller
    businesses and agriculture.
        H.R. 1772 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. In addition, H.R. 1772 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 non-discriminatory manner.
        Furthermore, the Legal Workforce Act gives USCIS additional tools
    to help prevent identity theft. For example, the bill allows
    individuals to lock their own Social Security Number so that it cannot
    be used by imposters to verify work eligibility. The legislation also
    allows parents to lock the Social Security Number of their minor child
    to prevent identity theft. And 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.
        Studies by Westat on error rates and the cost of E-Verify have been
    mentioned at prior hearings. That study utilized old data and failed to
    address the provisions aimed at preventing identity theft that I
    mentioned above and which are in the bill today. In regard to cost,
    this subcommittee heard testimony earlier this year that discredited
    the study because it amplifies hire numbers by 25% by counting internal
    promotions and transfers. Many of these critics fail to point out that
    other studies reveal that three-quarters of employers stated the cost
    of using E-Verify is zero ($0).
        Equally important, the American people support E-Verify. A 2011
    Rasmussen poll found that 82% of likely voters ``think businesses
    should be required to use the federal government's E-Verify system to
    determine if a potential employee is in the country legally.''
        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 will help ensure that employers from every state are on
    equal footing when it comes to hiring employees.
        This bill is a common sense approach to deterring illegal workers
    that could open up millions of jobs for unemployed Americans.
                                   __________

        [The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows]:

     Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in
    Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
                       on Immigration and Border Security

        Few issues have received as much attention before this Subcommittee
    in recent years as E-Verify. Last Congress we held three hearings on
    the electronic employment eligibility verification system and the
    Committee marked up the Legal Workforce Act. In this Congress we have
    already held one hearing on E-Verify and will today examine Rep.
    Smith's new version of the Legal Workforce Act.
        At the outset, let me note that the version of the bill we are
    considering today contains several improvements over the version
    offered in the last Congress and I want to recognize the bill's sponsor
    for responding to some of the concerns raised at that time.
        For instance, when we marked up the Legal Workforce Act in the
    112th Congress, the bill exempted returning seasonal farmworkers from
    having to be verified upon hire. This giant loophole came under attack
    from all sides. From the right, it was attacked as amnesty and from the
    left it was attacked as an admission that E-Verify alone would destroy
    our agricultural industry and the millions of jobs held by U.S. workers
    that are supported by that industry. The Committee struck this
    provision from the bill during markup and I am glad to see it is
    omitted from this version.
        The bill in the last Congress also created new criminal penalties
    for unlawful conduct that were both excessive and wasteful. In addition
    to imposing multiple mandatory minimum prison terms, the bill made it a
    felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison for a person to use a
    social security number that did not belong to him or her during the
    employment verification process. Although this version of the bill
    still creates one mandatory minimum prison term, it contains a number
    of improvements to the criminal provisions pertaining to fraud and
    misuse of documents.
        Finally, this version contains some changes designed to make E-
    Verify a bit less workable for the Social Security Administration,
    which obviously serves a number of other critically important function.
        Having said that, today's bill still contains several of the
    greatest flaws of the bill we considered in the last Congress.
        It continues to provide no meaningful due process protections for
    authorized workers--including U.S. citizens--who lose their jobs
    because of erroneous final non-confirmations. The idea that Americans
    and authorized immigrants will lose their jobs as a result of this bill
    is not simply theoretical. Although we know that the government
    continues to work hard to reduce error rates in E-Verify, errors
    absolutely still exist. Under this bill, people would lose their jobs
    and become effectively unemployable for an indeterminate length of time
    because of such government errors and they would have no meaningful
    recourse.
        The bill also provides no penalties at all for employers who
    violate the requirement that they inform an employee about a tentative
    nonconfirmation and give that employee an opportunity to contest the
    TNC. The absence of any consequences renders the notice requirement
    completely toothless.
        But let me take a step back, because although I welcome the
    opportunity to discuss how to design an effective and fair E-Verify
    system, I believe it is clear that we can only do that together with
    other necessary reforms to our broken immigration system. We could
    design the best E-Verify system imaginable--a system that is easy to
    use, 100% accurate, and available at virtually no cost to big and small
    businesses alike. But if we imposed that system nationwide and did
    nothing to fix our broken immigration system the consequences would be
    disastrous.
        I will not belabor the point, because the issues are already so
    familiar to Members of this Subcommittee and we have witnesses who are
    prepared to testify. I will say simply that without top-to-bottom
    reform of our immigration laws, expanding E-Verify would devastate the
    agricultural economy, resulting in closed farms, a less-secure America,
    and the mass off-shoring of millions and millions of U.S. jobs,
    including all of the upstream and downstream jobs that are created and
    supported by our agriculture industry.
        Expanding E-Verify without more would also cost the government
    significant tax revenues. In 2008, the Congressional Budget Office and
    the Joint Committee on Taxation concluded that mandatory E-Verify in
    Rep. Heath Shuler's SAVE Act would decrease federal revenues by $17.3
    billion over a 10-year period. Those offices determined that expanding
    E-Verify to an economy with a significant undocumented workforce would
    drive employers and workers off-the-books and into the underground
    economy.
        The end result would be lost tax revenues and depressed wages and
    working conditions for all workers, including U.S. workers.
        I believe firmly that E-Verify must play an important role in
    helping to fix our immigration system, so I appreciate the proposal by
    Rep. Smith and I thank Chairman Goodlatte and Chairman Gowdy for the
    opportunity to discuss this today.
        I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses.
                                   __________

        [The prepared statement of Mr. Conyers follows:]

    Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative
     in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee
                                on the Judiciary

        At the Judiciary Committee's first hearing in this Congress, we
    discussed opportunities for legal immigration as well as enforcement of
    the law against undocumented immigrants. It became clear early on that
    pretty much everyone on the Committee agreed that our immigration
    system is broken.
        So what can we do to fix it? For years, some people have argued
    that we only need to enforce the laws that are on the books. Last
    Congress, we spent more time talking only about expanding E-Verify--
    three hearings and a Committee markup--than we spent on any other
    topic. Already in this Congress we have held one hearing on E-Verify,
    so today's hearing makes it two.
        Based on everything I have heard, I am hopeful that we have begun
    to turn the corner. I believe there is genuine interest in Congress
    from Members on both sides of the aisle to help us achieve a real
    solution to our broken immigration system and I look forward to working
    with Chairman Goodlatte and Chairman Gowdy to get the job done.
        So what does a real solution look like? For starters, it means we
    cannot return to proposals that rely solely upon enforcement of our
    broken system. Let me be clear. No one argues that we should stop
    enforcing our immigration laws. But enforcement without reform will
    promote a race to the bottom that only hurts the American worker. If we
    fix our broken immigration system, however, we can help American
    workers and grow our economy.
        That is why everyone right now is focused on the Senate Judiciary
    Committee's markup of S. 744, the ``Border Security, Economic
    Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.'' And that is why
    everyone is encouraged by the ongoing efforts by Members on both sides
    of the aisle to forge an agreement on an immigration reform bill in the
    House.
        That is why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO were able
    to come together to forge an historic agreement regarding a future
    temporary guestworker proposal.
        That is why all of the major agricultural producers--including the
    American Farm Bureau--and the United Farmworkers joined together to
    back changes to our agricultural guestworker programs.
        So I agree that we must talk about E-Verify, because it will be an
    important component of Comprehensive Immigration Reform. But when we do
    so we need to recognize the dangers that American workers would face if
    we were to make E-Verify mandatory for all employers without also
    fixing our immigration system.
        I think it is important whenever we talk about E-Verify to talk
    about the real world. Sometimes we hear people say that E-Verify will
    help American workers because every time an undocumented immigrant is
    denied a job, an unemployed American can get hired. That is a pretty
    simple proposition and I see how appealing it is.
        The problem, of course, is that it is completely false. Immigrants
    often fill critical gaps in our own workforce. Even in this difficult
    economy, there are entire industries that rely upon undocumented
    immigrants because there just are not enough Americans willing to do
    the work.
        Just look at how mandatory E-Verify would affect agriculture. 50 to
    75% of farm workers are undocumented. Losing those workers would be
    devastating. Fruits and vegetables would rot in the fields and American
    farms would go under. And we would see a mass off-shoring of jobs,
    including the millions of upstream and downstream American jobs
    supported by agriculture.
        One witness testified at a hearing earlier this year that some
    farms could survive by shifting to different crops. Crops that are not
    as labor-intensive. But my friend Mr. Darryl Issa explained the
    problems with that answer.
        The majority of all lettuce in this country apparently comes from
    one county in California. Lettuce farmers may well be able to find a
    different crop to grow, but let's be clear about what that means.
    Virtually all of our lettuce from now will be imported from another
    country. The same is true for tomatoes, flowers, strawberries. The list
    goes on and on.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, because we need to
    understand the strengths and weaknesses of Rep. Smith's legislative
    proposal. But in doing so, I hope they each take some time to talk
    about whether they think it would be a good or a bad thing for America
    and American workers if Congress made E-Verify mandatory nationwide
    without simultaneously fixing our broken immigration system.
                                   __________

        Mr. Gowdy. We have a distinguished panel of witnesses for
    which we are all grateful. I will begin by swearing you in, and
    then I will introduce you en bloc, and then we will recognize
    each of you for your 5-minute opening statement.
        If you would please stand.
        [Witnesses sworn.]
        Mr. Gowdy. Let the record reflect all witnesses answered in
    the affirmative. You may be seated.
        It is my pleasure to begin by introducing Mr. Angelo
    Amador. Mr. Amador is vice president of labor and workforce
    policy with 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 joining the NRA, Mr. Amador served as the executive
    director in labor, immigration, employment benefits division of
    U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and was an adjunct professor of law
    at George Mason University School of Law. He is a graduate
    Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of
    Maryland and obtained a master of arts in international
    transactions from George Mason University. He earned his J.D.
    From George Mason University School of Law, graduating cum
    laude.
        Welcome, Mr. Amador.
        Ms. Jill Blitstein is testifying today on behalf of the
    College and University Professional Association for Human
    Resources. She is currently the international employment
    manager at North Carolina State University. Her current
    position involves assisting departments, faculty, and staff
    with immigration and visa issues, and overseeing the employment
    eligibility verification process and compliance procedures at
    NC State University.
        Prior to joining NC State, she was a senior associate at
    the Chicago office of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy--and I
    apologize to your former partners if I messed that up, I am
    sure I did--from 1997 to 2007. Ms. Blitstein received her law
    degree from DePaul University College of Law in 1995. I would
    also like to note that she is a constituent of one of our
    Subcommittee's Members, the former distinguished U.S. attorney
    from whichever district that is in North Carolina, Mr. George
    Holding. Welcome, Ms. Blitstein.
        Julie Myers Wood is president of compliance, Federal
    practice and software solutions at Guidepost Solutions, LLC, an
    immigration investigation and compliance firm. She served as
    the Assistant Secretary of DHS Immigration and Customs
    Enforcement for nearly 3 years. Under her leadership the agency
    set new enforcement records with respect to immigration
    enforcement, export enforcement, and intellectual property
    rights. She earned a bachelor's degree and, along with Brittney
    Griner, is probably the most famous graduate of Baylor
    University that I can think of; and earned a J.D. Cum laude
    from Cornell Law School. Welcome, Ms. Wood.
        Mr. Dominick Mondi is executive director of the New Jersey
    Nursery and Landscaping Association, a trade group representing
    horticulture industry in the State. Prior to joining the staff,
    he served on the board of directors of the organization, first
    of all working for a landscape design/build contractor, Doerler
    Landscapes, and later while running his own landscape design
    firm, Mondi Designs. Mr. Mondi serves on the advisory council
    for landscape industry program at Rutgers University, where he
    also graduated with a degree in landscape architecture.
        I will, now that I have hopefully sufficiently introduced
    all of you, ask you to indulge me while I recognize our
    Chairman for his opening statement, and then I promise we will
    go to you for your opening statement.
        The gentleman from Virginia, the Chairman of the Judiciary
    Committee, Mr. Goodlatte.
        Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for
    being late, and I do have a great interest in this issue and
    the hearing and our witnesses, so I apologize to them, but I
    did want to give my opening statement.
        I want to thank you and Congressman Smith for your hard
    work on this legislation.
        The future of immigration reform hinges on assuring the
    American people that our immigration laws will be enforced. In
    the past Americans were promised tougher enforcement in
    exchange for the legalization of those unlawfully in the U.S.
    Succeeding 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 fast way for employers to
    electronically check the work eligibility of newly hired
    employees. H.R. 1772, the ``Legal Workforce Act,'' builds on E-
    verify's success and helps ensure the strong enforcement that
    was promised to the American people many years ago.
        The Legal Workforce Act doesn't simply leave enforcement up
    to the Federal Government; in fact, it actually empowers States
    to help enforce the law, ensuring that we don't continue the
    enforcement mistakes of the past where a President can turn off
    Federal enforcement efforts unilaterally.
        Over 450,000 employers are currently signed up to use E-
    Verify. It is easy for employers to use and is effective. In
    fact, as USCIS testified in front of this Committee this past
    February, E-Verify's accuracy rate for confirmation of work
    eligibility is 99.7 percent.
        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 Social Security number 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 could occur.
        The Legal Workforce Act addresses identity theft in several
    ways. First, it requires notification to employees who submit
    for E-Verify a Social Security number that shows a pattern of
    unusual multiple use so the rightful owner of the Social
    Security number will know that their Social Security number may
    have been compromised, and once they confirm this, the
    Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security
    Administration must lock that Social Security number 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.
        But there are other changes that should also be made. For
    instance, in order to help prevent identity theft, the USCIS
    created and utilizes the photo match tool in which photos from
    green cards, work authorization documents and passports can be
    seen during the use of E-Verify in order to help ensure that
    the person submitting the identity document is, in fact, the
    person who owns that document. But I recently learned that
    USCIS materials regarding the use of E-Verify specifically
    state that a photo displayed in E-Verify should be compared
    with the photo in the document that the employee has presented
    and not with the face of the employee. What good is the photo
    match tool to prevent identity theft if the employer is
    prohibited from matching the photos to the person submitting
    the identity document? This policy is ludicrous, and we will
    look to address it as this legislation moves forward.
        The bill also phases in E-Verify use in 6-month increments
    beginning with the largest U.S. businesses, raises penalties
    for employers who don't use E-Verify according to the
    requirements, allows employers to use E-Verify prior to the
    date they hired an employee, and provides meaningful safe
    harbors for employers who use the system in good faith.
        H.R. 1772 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 want to continue to work with the business community and
    other stakeholders to address any additional concerns with the
    bill. And I am pleased to be an original cosponsor and look
    forward to the testimony of the witnesses today.
        Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you former Chairman
    Smith and all who have worked on this legislation, and I yield
    back the balance of my time.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentlemen from Virginia.
        Each of our witnesses' written statements will be entered
    into the record in its entirety, so I would therefore ask that
    you summarize your statement within 5 minutes so we can have
    the benefit of the answers to your questions as well in a
    timely fashion. To help you stay within that 5-minute time
    parameter, there is a lighting system in front of you, and the
    lights mean what they traditionally mean in life: Green is go,
    yellow means you have a minute left, and red means if you could
    conclude your thought with all deliberate speed, that would be
    wonderful.
        So with that we would welcome all of you again, and, Mr.
    Amador, we will start with you for your opening statement.

     TESTIMONY OF ANGELO I. AMADOR, SR., VICE PRESIDENT, LABOR AND
           WORKFORCE POLICY, NATIONAL RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION

        Mr. Amador. Thank you. My opening statement, I have
    prepared oral remarks, but after listening to all of you, I am
    going to try to take less than my 5 minutes and just address a
    couple of things.
        For over a decade, you know, I have been working with your
    staff, and with then-Chairman Jackson Lee, and Chairman Smith,
    Chairman Sensenbrenner, Nolan Rappaport, who was the staffer.
    George Fishman would remember all these people. A lot of
    staffers have changed. But we have all worked on an
    unemployment verification title. So the question, there is
    really only one issue.
        I also want to, before I begin, say that I am honored to be
    here before Mr. Pierluisi, who may not remember me, but I
    started my career in D.C. working indirectly under him in his
    days as attorney general, so it is an honor to be here.
        I will use my time instead to say that the only question
    that seems to be before the Committee and before Congress is
    whether we should consider an employment verification system
    being made mandatory by itself, or should it be considered as
    part of a comprehensive immigration reform package?
        When I look at it, you know, and we support pieces of
    immigration because what we want is our immigration system to
    be fixed. So just like we supported DACA, which is the Deferred
    Action for Childhood Arrivals, we support the Legal Workforce
    Act. And the reason is that in the over decade that I have been
    working on programs and unemployment verification, with
    staffers on both sides and with chairmanships from both
    parties, this is by far the best employment verification
    mandate that I have seen from the days of the Daschle-Hagel
    bill in the Senate to the Gang of 8 now.
        So what I would say to the Committee, and that is if you
    don't take anything from the my written testimony and by the
    testimony of others, is that it is upon you to look at
    employment verification title and see if you can improve it.
    And I think that by viewing it by itself, we have had the
    benefit to be able to negotiate and to look at different pieces
    without the disruption of talking about a guestworker program,
    which is also very complicated legalization and all the pieces.
    But it is imperative that we look at the employment
    verification title by itself.
        And again, the only point I want to make is that from all
    the bills that I have been able to submit comments and analyze,
    the Legal Workforce Act is not perfect, but I have not seen any
    perfect law yet, but is by far the best employment verification
    mandate. It is simple; it makes accommodations for small
    businesses, which is something that we have been asking for for
    years; and it creates one set of rules that would be across the
    Nation for all employers.
        And even though, you know, we talk about 11 million on
    legalization as one important piece, I would say that this is
    just as important. This would affect 6 million employers, and
    this would affect how 160 million people get verified to get
    work authorizations. So it is very, very important that these
    pieces get right, and, in our opinion, this is the best
    starting point moving forward.
        Thank you very much.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Amador.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Amador follows:]

                                   ATTACHMENT

                                   __________

        Mr. Gowdy. Ms. Blitstein.

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

        Ms. Blitstein. Chairman Gowdy, Ranking Member Lofgren, and
    honorable Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this
    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. NC State is an
    active member of the College and University Professional
    Association for Human Resources. CUPA-HR represents more than
    1,900 institutions of higher education, 44 percent of which are
    public. I am speaking today on behalf of CUPA-HR.
        My institution has been using E-Verify since January 1 of
    2007, when it was mandated by the State of North Carolina for
    all public employers and the university system. I have
    responsibility for the institution's I-9 and E-Verify process.
        With more than 8,000 regular employees and almost 8,000
    more student workers and temporary employees during the
    academic year, including many foreign nationals, NC State's use
    of the E-Verify process is substantial. I speak to you today as
    someone who has experienced the positive effects of this
    program and found most aspects of it to be administratively
    manageable, as well as someone who might offer some informed
    suggestions as to its implementation by other employers.
        CUPA-HR supports the majority of provisions within the act
    as being positive for both employers and employees. For
    example, we support the reduction in the number of documents
    acceptable to prove identity and work authorization, we support
    recognition of good-faith compliance, and we especially support
    the act's clear preemption of any State or local law on
    employment verification.
        NC State has not experienced the worst-case E-Verify
    scenarios that were circulating several years ago, and in the 6
    years that we have been managing this process, we experienced
    only a handful of cases in which a new hire could not present
    valid documentation or be cleared through the E-Verify process.
    So we believe that process works as intended.
        That said, based on our direct experience, we do have some
    concerns about the proposed time frames for compliance. The act
    would require that within 6 months, all Federal, State and
    local government employers must reverify the employment
    eligibility of all current employees not already in the E-
    Verify system. Having verified the entire workforce at NC State
    University, I can tell you with confidence that this is an
    unrealistic time frame to achieve full compliance for large
    public employers.
        Executive Order 12989, as amended in 2008, required Federal
    contractors with contracts containing Federal acquisition
    regulation, or FAR, language to use E-Verify to confirm the
    eligibility of employees working under that contract. NC State
    is a Federal contractor, and we received our first of many of
    FAR contracts in September of 2009. We quickly realized that
    verifying individuals coming and going on FAR contracts could
    be impractical, so we selected the only other alternative, to
    verify our entire workforce, for us meaning every active
    employee hired before January 1st of 2007.
        We had a 6-month time frame to enter 12,000 I-9s into E-
    Verify. It actually took us 7 months to fully accomplish this
    goal even after hiring temporary staff. The time and effort by
    my office, my boss and others was significant to achieve
    compliance for 12,000 employees. It was an incredibly intense
    effort, and we have now invested in an electronic system to
    help us manage that process.
        CUPA-HR would strongly encourage a longer phased roll-out
    compliance timeline, particularly for large public employers,
    of 24 months. Additionally, CUPA-HR suggests a longer
    reverification period for employees with limited work
    authorization. The act would require reverification of such
    employees, including many foreign nationals, during 3 business
    days preceding the expiration of their current work
    authorization. As an employer with over 3,000 foreign nationals
    a year on payroll, it is not practical for us to reverify all
    of them within the 3 business days before their authorization
    expires. CUPA-HR supports a reverification time frame of 30
    days.
        Our spring semester just ended at NC State, and the number
    of foreign nationals with May expiration dates is in the
    hundreds. A 3-business-day reverification period not practical
    for employers like us with large numbers of individuals whose
    expiration dates may converge around the same time.
        In closing, I would say that the Legal Workforce Act is a
    balanced approach to creating a more secure and flexible
    employment-eligibility verification system. We respectfully
    encourage the Subcommittee to consider the suggestions we have
    offered today, and I personally thank the Members of the
    Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Ms. Blitstein.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Blitstein follows:]

                                   __________
        Mr. Gowdy. Ms. Wood.

     TESTIMONY OF JULIE MYERS WOOD, PRESIDENT, COMPLIANCE, FEDERAL
        PRACTICE AND SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS, GUIDEPOST SOLUTIONS LLC

        Ms. Wood. Thank you, Subcommittee Chairman Gowdy, Ranking
    Member Lofgren, Members of the Subcommittee. It is great to be
    before you again, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify
    about H.R. 1772, the ``Legal Workforce Act.''
        As all of you have already stated, these challenges are not
    new. The government has not succeeded in effectively reducing
    the magnet of unlawful employment. Whether we are working to do
    this through civil audits or criminal investigations, the
    government has not found the right mechanisms to compel
    widespread compliance with immigration laws.
        In my view, in attempting to effectively address the magnet
    of unauthorized employment, employers have been unfairly
    saddled with the significant burden related to interior
    enforcement of our immigration laws. I think that the Legal
    Workforce Act takes some very positive steps to equitably
    address these burdens and provide additional tools to
    employers, while ensuring that we will make some progress in
    reducing this magnet.
        I want to highlight just a couple areas where I think the
    bill does an excellent job, and those where--areas where this
    bill may differ a little bit from the bill pending now in the
    Senate.
        First, the bill levels the playing field by requiring
    mandatory employment verification, and does so smartly by
    building on the existing E-Verify framework. It is not
    requiring the creation of a new framework; it is building on
    and using an existing tool. Although a sizable number of
    industry leaders are on E-Verify, and more joining every day,
    in many industries E-Verify participation is still the
    exception rather than the rule. What I often hear from
    employers, particularly in high-risk industries, is that they
    go on E-Verify, but their competitors do not, and that their
    competitors continue to engage in high-risk hiring practices,
    undermining the market. This must change.
        Second, and I think a very critical point, is this bill
    reduces the burden on employers by combining the duplicative
    form I-9 and E-Verify process into one single process. For
    employers this current duplication is particularly problematic
    because they can be fined based on errors in their I-9s even
    though their employees were found to be employment authorized
    through the E-Verify system. An example of such error includes
    a failure of an employee to check a box indicating the
    employee's status even when the employer recorded the
    appropriate documents and the employee went through the E-
    Verify system successfully. And even when employers are allowed
    to correct these paperwork errors, they are still spending a
    lot of time and often money to make a piece of paper neat and
    technically accurate for the regulators. Such a focus on the
    technical side of the I-9 really defeats the purpose, and the
    purpose is to ensure that employees are authorized to work.
        Finally, one of the biggest challenges that employers face
    is that the E-Verify system does not have a fool-proof way to
    address identity theft. The system's Achilles' heel remains its
    reliance on and limitations on the information that is input
    into the system. If an employer is unable to confirm that the
    identity documents presented actually belong to the individual
    who presented them, then what value is there to the employment-
    authorized determination? It is merely confirming the
    authorization of the data entered.
        Even though USCIS has made considerable progress, and
    despite their efforts in this area, absent a stronger identity
    tool tied to E-Verify, employers have been left to serve as
    document detectives. The good news, and I think the good news
    that this bill recognizes, is that there are ways to improve
    the current system, and there are many models for the pilot
    proposed by section 12.
        One system that I think really addresses this is the
    software system I actually helped develop called SecureID. This
    system leverages public-sector data and other information to
    provide real-time algorithms and consistent screening for our
    employees in conjunction with the I-9 and E-Verify. It also has
    a lot of protections or exception processes to make sure that
    we represent adequately and take care of the rights of asylees
    and new immigrants.
        The SecureID system avoids the problem of making rank-and-
    file HR managers be identity investigators, who, in their well-
    intentioned efforts to promote a legal workforce, only ask
    certain new hires lots of questions because their English isn't
    great, or they are presenting certain documents. That is simply
    unacceptable. Tools like the SecureID system have proven to be
    extremely effective for employees who have faced significant
    identity-fraud problems, and something like this could be used
    in a pilot as proposed in section 12.
        One of the ways that our tool is being used right now, for
    example, is for managers who are trying to figure out how do
    they address employees who come in through the DACA process.
    These are people who have now changed their name, and they said
    they have adjusted under DACA. The employees' employers are
    trying to decide how do we do that in a fair and consistent
    way, because last time we were fooled, right? Last time we
    thought they were authorized, but they weren't. And so by using
    a tool like this, using knowledge-based authentications, you
    can really do this in an effective way.
        Employers have also used a system like this to address
    third-party notification, such as when an insurance company
    calls you up and says, hey, this person you think is John Doe
    is actually not John Doe. Employers are facing how do we do
    this and how do we address this in an appropriate and
    nondiscriminatory manner. There are many tools like this in the
    private sector, and I encourage and applaud the work done in
    the Legal Workforce Act to look and see how can we push E-
    Verify further and really address the problems of identity
    theft.
        Effective employment verification is critical to reducing
    the magnet of unlawful employment and restoring integrity to
    our immigration laws. I think the Legal Workforce Act takes
    some positive steps, and I agree with my counterparts that it
    is the best bill we have seen on this to address this
    continuing problem.
        I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you and
    would be glad to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Ms. Wood.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Wood follows:]

                                   __________
        Mr. Gowdy. Mr. Mondi.

      TESTIMONY OF DOMINICK MONDI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW JERSEY
                   NURSERY AND LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION

        Mr. Mondi. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Gowdy, Ranking
    Member Lofgren, and honorable Members of the Subcommittee.
    Thank you for the opportunity to come to Washington today to
    discuss this very important topic of immigration reform, E-
    Verify and the Legal Workforce Act.
        With this renewed debate, Congress now has a chance to
    repair our broken immigration system with legislation that
    addresses border security and employment verification, earned
    legalization, programs for future legal immigration, and
    guestworker programs.
        As for the E-Verify piece, no one has more to gain from the
    implementation and enforcement of an improved employment-
    eligibility verification system than the honest small
    businessmen and -women who are trying to compete on a level
    playing field. Good business owners don't look to the
    government to create competitive advantages, of course, but
    rather to provide that level playing field, and a
    comprehensively reformed immigration system can help achieve
    that end.
        Unfortunately, the implementation of E-Verify in a vacuum
    outside the context of a comprehensive immigration package will
    have the unintended consequence of pushing more labor to the
    black market, increasing staffing burdens, and ultimately
    hurting the thousands of small businesses in the nursery,
    landscape and like-minded service industries. This is not what
    we need out of immigration reform.
        While we certainly don't defend the use of unauthorized
    workers knowingly or unknowingly, there is a reality that a
    large part of this workforce has been trained and has advanced,
    contributing their skills and talents to the good employers and
    businesses who make good-faith efforts to follow the law.
        Should mandatory E-Verify force much of this workforce off
    the books with no avenue to legal work status, the loser is the
    honest business, and the winner is the dishonest company who
    drives down prices and wages by taking up the skilled labor
    under the table. There are over 90,000 landscape companies in
    the country, and most average under 20 employees throughout the
    year. These are truly small businesses that rely heavily on
    labor. These thousands of small businesses need and desperately
    want a safe, legal and available labor pool to meet their year-
    round and seasonal needs, but if a piecemeal enforcement-only
    policy is pursued instead of a comprehensive fix, and the
    existing workforce is displaced, where will the labor come
    from?
        It would be wrong, of course, to state there are no native-
    born Americans who are willing or able to do this work. I
    myself have worked in the landscape industry my entire life
    starting at age 16. Our Nation's demographics, educational and
    employment opportunities, however, have changed over the last
    50 years. There are certainly some willing to do the work, I
    meet them all the time, but the pool to draw from is smaller
    than it has ever been and does not meet the overall needs of
    our economy.
        An older, slower-growing, better-educated society, while a
    good thing in many regards, is the contributing factor to the
    difficulties of many businesses in our industry and others like
    it have in finding qualified, hard-working labor. The ag
    sector, of course, would be hardest hit, of course, with 50 to
    75 percent of workers undocumented. We need proactive, forward-
    thinking, and comprehensive immigration reform to address these
    challenges for the next generation of business owners and
    workers in our industry.
        In previous testimony before this Committee, it has been
    encouraging to hear about the improvements in the E-Verify
    system. And despite the recent and forthcoming improvements,
    many of our employers will face special challenges using a
    system like E-Verify due to factors like limited high-speed
    Internet access, high seasonal hiring and turnover, remote or
    nonoffice hiring, and lack of dedicated human resource
    personnel staff. We believe it is essential that the program is
    simplified for users, that error rates are minimized, and that
    identity theft concerns are addressed if E-Verify is to be
    phased in for all employers. As I understand it, this still
    does make strides in that direction, but the phase-in must
    coincide with a broad reform package.
        In conclusion, our organization supports the use of E-
    Verify, but only as part of a comprehensive approach
    modernizing our immigration laws to help the needs of our small
    businesses who rely on an immigrant workforce. If enacted as an
    isolated measure, however, we believe mandatory E-Verify will
    be a clear net negative to our industry and will harm small
    businesses across the range of sectors, do serious damage to
    the economy.
        Thank you, and I look forward to any questions.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Mondi.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Mondi follows:]

                                   __________

        Mr. Gowdy. Thank all our witnesses for staying within the
    time parameters.
        The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Virginia,
    the Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Goodlatte.
        Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I appreciate the testimony of all of our witnesses. And I
    will start with you, Mr. Amador. I very much appreciate your
    testimony and wondered if would you explain why the National
    Restaurant Association believes an E-Verify check should have
    an end date.
        Mr. Amador. Well, as is currently drafted, one of the
    problems that we are having is with extent of nonconfirmations
    that go on forever and forever, you know, it could be several
    months. Under the law you still have to send them to training,
    you still need to do all these things. And you have to--it is
    an expenditure for an employer to do all of these things
    without knowing whether he is going to be able keep this
    employee or not.
        So one of the things that my members keep emphasizing to me
    is but it has to be clear, and it has to have an end date,
    because we want to know whether this employee is going to
    continue on our payrolls or we are going to have to let him go.
    And we understand, you know, we have been talking to counsel
    and looking at the bill. We like, you know, the 10 days, 3 days
    and then 10 days, and then under certain circumstances 23 days
    should be enough for the government to tell us whether the name
    and the Social Security number of that individual that is
    working already inside a premises is authorized to do so.
        Mr. Goodlatte. Very good.
        Ms. Wood, you note in your written testimony that having to
    comply with many different State and local employment-
    eligibility verification laws has been difficult for some
    larger employers with national footprints to manage all the
    requirements. Would you comment on those difficulties, and
    might companies avoid doing business in certain States or
    localities because of competing laws?
        Mr. Amador. It creates----
        Mr. Goodlatte. You can comment on it, too, but we will go
    to Ms. Wood.
        Ms. Wood. We are probably on the same page on this one, I
    think. You know, to say that a company--you don't want
    companies to think, I shouldn't expand in Colorado because
    their additional verification sheet is going to make life
    difficult. And, you know, HR managers have difficult jobs as it
    is. We want them to spend all their energy making sure that
    their workforce is authorized as well as managing other tasks.
    Right now, when there are a number of different competing
    requirements, it is tough for them to do it effectively, be as
    compliant as they want. So I think this bill takes good strides
    in making, you know, a Federal E-Verify mandate and yet
    allowing States to have some ability to do certain things
    without allowing them to impose new requirements.
        Mr. Goodlatte. Very good.
        And, Ms. Blitstein, in the year that NC State has been
    using E-Verify, have you had situations in which E-Verify
    helped identify situations in which documents presented by an
    individual for the I-9 process were not, in fact, valid even
    though they looked valid on their face, as current law
    requires?
        Ms. Blitstein. Yes, to my knowledge we have had about two,
    maybe three at most, but two that I can clearly remember, where
    the individual presented documentation that on its face
    appeared to be valid, and then, through the E-Verify checks, we
    realized that it was, in fact, very good--in one case a very
    good fake and in another case not quite as good. But the system
    did catch those, and then we ended that employment.
        Ms. Wood. And if I could add just one thing to that. I work
    with a lot of high-risk industries. When they come onto E-
    Verify for the first time, they find a lot of instances where
    there are final nonconfirmations. Of course, then the pattern
    shifts, and it is just identity theft. But early on I think
    they find it very helpful, particularly the photo-matching
    tool, because even if you do regular training for HR managers
    on how to identify fraudulent documents, there is turnover in
    that position as well, and it is just tough for them to keep up
    on the latest changes. So I think E-Verify and the photo-
    matching tool has been extremely effective for that purpose.
        Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you.
        And, Mr. Mondi, what percentage of your industry's
    employees are not authorized to work in the U.S.? If, as you
    state in your testimony, unscrupulous employers who employ
    illegal workers, employees in the competitive marketplace--I am
    quoting you--suppress prices and hold down wages, why would you
    not want all of your competitors to be required to use E-Verify
    as soon as possible?
        Mr. Mondi. Sure. I can't give you a specific percentage.
    There hasn't been good reporting on that, so I don't have a
    specific number for you.
        The challenge that a lot of businesses in our industry have
    now is that there is already a bottom-feeding tier, if you
    will, of employers who are paying cash under the table, who are
    not necessarily following existing laws, and there is no reason
    to believe that they would discontinue that practice. Obviously
    it would depend somewhat on how enforcement was enforced.
        The challenge would be that if they are already not
    following those practices, and the middle-tier employers who
    are forced to do E-Verify, and maybe they have some
    undocumented workers that they don't even know about, and all
    of that now forces--that part of the workforce gets displaced
    downward, there is actually an expanded labor pool for that
    bottom market, and the good employees have a problem.
        Mr. Goodlatte. Got it. But one would presume that if we
    made this mandatory, that one of the keys to that is not just
    making it mandatory that that bottom employer, as you described
    them, use the system, but that we have an aggressive system to
    make sure that they are indeed using the system.
        So I am sure you would agree that that should be a part of
    this. In fact, in this legislation, while there have been
    concerns expressed by some that we not have 50 different States
    having 50 different E-Verify systems, we have also recognized
    that the States have a role in helping the Federal Government,
    which may have more limited resources, in checking to see if
    businesses are indeed using E-Verify to have a much greater
    compliance effort there to check to make sure businesses are
    indeed using it.
        So once we have the system up and operating, we want it to
    work fairly for the employer and the prospective employee, but
    we also want to make sure that everyone is using it. That is
    really the whole point of the legislation, to have it mandatory
    so everyone is using it, including the people who are getting
    away with things today that they shouldn't be getting away
    with.
        Mr. Mondi. I agree 100 percent. And one of the unique--more
    unique challenges of the landscape industry, like maybe some
    construction trades, is the oftentimes lack of any centralized
    office or location. So we see with environmental regulations as
    well where certain companies, it is hard to track them down if
    they are dodging license fees or things like that because you
    can go to their office if you want--it is generally a room in a
    house, or maybe it is a small yard where the owner is--but he
    picks up his work to and from the yard--his labor to and from
    the yard, they are off site in different locations, sometimes
    not just day to day, but hour to hour, and unfortunately it
    becomes a real challenge.
        Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you very much.
        My time is expired. Thank you, Chairman.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from Virginia.
        The Chair will now recognize the gentlelady from California
    Ms. Lofgren.
        Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And I would like to follow up with Chairman Goodlatte's
    line of inquiry, Mr. Mondi, if I can, because if I am hearing
    you correctly, there is an important goal that I think all of
    us would share, which is that everybody comply with the same
    rules so that it is a level playing field, nobody cheats and
    gets ahead.
        But there is an additional element, I think, and this is
    really my question, which is if there is not enough people to
    actually hire to do the job, then what? So you are in New
    Jersey with the landscape association. In the last Congress,
    you know, some people actually said that it wouldn't be so bad
    if people and landscaping and agriculture were denied access to
    needed workers; that then they would just go to mechanized
    efforts, and they would fill in with technology the loss of
    human capital.
        Would that work in the landscaping industry? I mean, the
    estimate is--we don't know, of course, but the estimate is that
    over half of the employees may not have their proper papers,
    they may have given a false document or the like. I am not
    suggesting that every employer knowingly hired someone not
    authorized. Would it work if half or two-thirds of the
    employees in the landscaping business in New Jersey were no
    longer available to hire?
        Mr. Mondi. Well, no. I mean, you would start to
    fundamentally change the structure of the whole industry.
    Traditionally you are talking about people who are younger and
    can handle working outside a lot and things like that. And as
    our demographic shifts, that labor pool is getting smaller.
        You know, on the agriculture side, we have a lot of nursery
    producers, high labor. If a lot of that production just shifted
    away from high-labor practices, you would see a loss of access
    to local food, especially crop growers shifted to other
    practices, or you would see a loss of open space in farmland,
    which is certainly not something that I would think we would
    want either. New Jersey prides itself, the Garden State, on its
    agriculture.
        On the landscape industry it proposes a lot of challenges
    as well. You start to actually see a separation. You might
    actually get to the point where if there are just less people
    to do the work, and there is less companies doing the work, a
    hyperinflation of the industry, which would start to make home
    landscaping, gardening, lawn maintenance, things which many
    average Americans and certainly in New Jersey can enjoy these
    days start to become unreasonable, start to create this higher
    tier of estate gardener--you know, you go back to the estate
    gardener sort of status for that community--while possibly
    having some sort of an undercurrent down below.
        And it is tough to say without having an exact number of--
    or exact percentage of the workforce that is undocumented, but
    I can tell you in preparation for today, calling my members and
    asking questions, New Jersey has high unemployment, and
    employers are advertising online and in print and everywhere
    you would traditionally do that, and they are having a very
    hard time finding employees to do the type of work that they
    need. So it is already a challenge, and if that workforce that
    is in place was displaced, it would only get worse.
        Ms. Lofgren. So, what--if you are seeking some percentage
    of immigrants in the workforce, is there any way for people to
    legally come?
        I remember years ago, I was so honored when Dr. Richard
    Land from the Southern Baptist Convention was a witness before
    a Subcommittee, and I always mention that because I don't want
    to steal his line. It was a great line. And he said for years,
    we had two signs at the southern border. One sign said ``No
    Trespassing,'' and the other sign said ``Help Wanted.''
        And there is only 5,000 visas a year for unskilled workers
    without a college diploma. Are you able to meet the needs in
    New Jersey with those 5,000 visas in our current system?
        Mr. Mondi. Yeah. We have a lot of employees that are using
    the H-2B program right now for some of this temporary seasonal
    labor, and it is tough to find one that doesn't have
    complications with the system, and any--no system is perfect.
        Ms. Lofgren. There is a cap on that as well that is usually
    met right away.
        Mr. Mondi. There is a cap on that, and in the lowest of our
    economic times a few years ago, it was okay. I tell you those
    few years before that, that cap was met within the first--you
    know, first week of filings, and it was a real problem. And
    even now, you know, and anecdotally, you know, speaking with
    someone--one of my members on the way up here, they, you know,
    asked for 20 employees, and they got 16, and 4--4 are still
    stuck in their home country.
        And you know, when you are talking about seasonal work and
    not seasonal like, well, Christmas is coming, so we need to
    hear more salespeople, but when we are talking about seasonal
    where when the spring hits, it is time to go, you need your
    workers when you need them or you lose work, you lose revenue,
    and that--obviously, that is a problem. So----
        Ms. Lofgren. I see that my time has expired. I thank the
    Chairman, and I yield back.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentlelady from California.
        The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Texas Judge
    Poe.
        Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being
    here.
        As we progress through this whole numerous issues on
    immigration, and I think there are numerous issues, that as I
    look at immigration law, you take any subject, and it is broken
    all the way up and down the ladder. And I thank--I commend the
    Chairman for being methodical of taking one issue at a time and
    trying to solve each of those.
        When it comes to workers, I used to be one that thought
    that Americans, if they needed work, they would take any job.
    Well, we have been proven wrong about that in the last hearing.
    We had the Georgia peach orchard guy. I don't know if they grow
    peaches in South Carolina or not, but----
        Mr. Gowdy. We grow them more than they do in Georgia, Judge
    Poe.
        Mr. Poe. We don't grow too many.
        But anyway, American farmer wanted to hire 2,000 workers,
    put all the ads out, hired every American that applied, 490-
    some-odd. Peach season is over, he had three Americans working
    for him. Americans don't take those jobs. They have other
    options.
        My own philosophy is when it comes to workers, temporary
    guestworkers on both ends, high-skilled and low-skilled, we
    need as many as we need. Sure, hire Americans first, make sure
    we fill those low-skill, high-skill jobs with Americans first,
    but how many do we need? Well, we need, like I said, as many as
    we need, and the marketplace will drive us on that.
        I don't think we should set arbitrary numbers. I don't
    think the labor union should, the Chamber of Commerce. Congress
    has to figure out a way. Maybe that fluctuates from year to
    year, I don't know. But my philosophy is marketplace driven,
    and this is--the issue of verifying who is working and who is
    not working, and making sure that we keep up with workers and
    they go home when they are supposed to go home, all those
    issues, I commend Chairman Smith trying to make that simpler.
        But I say all that to say this: What do they do in other
    countries? We are not the only country in the world that has
    faced this tremendous issue. Have any of you done research with
    the other 194 countries there are in the world, if we count
    Texas, 195 countries left in the world, on this specific issue?
    And how do they solve this E-Verify concept that we are talking
    about? Any of you want to weigh in on that?
        Mr. Amador. Well, it is a big question, yes. A lot of
    countries have done many different things. I am not saying that
    they should be appropriate for the United States, but even if
    you look at Europe, they solve their problem by just uniting
    and letting poor countries send workers to rich countries, and
    that is how they solve their problem.
        They have similar ways of verifying identity. They have
    different ways of verifying identity. I know in France, you as
    an employer are required to send a list every month to the
    government, you know, with everybody you hire. There are
    different ways of doing it. From the perspective of the United
    States, I think building in a system that employers are
    becoming more familiar with, I think, is the right way to go.
        On the issue of workers, as you mentioned, I think the--we
    do not support the W visa part of the Gang of 8 proposal. We
    like the big bill as a whole, but, you know, again, maybe
    negotiating all of those things ends up creating a lot of
    flaws. So I would hope, you know, that thiscommittee, after
    taking E-Verify, will look at--I know you are looking at
    agriculture next, but look at other portions and maybe come up
    with better titles, you know, so when you go to conference, you
    are able to come up with a better package.
        Mr. Poe. Any of the other three of you want to weigh in on
    that?
        Ms. Wood.
        Ms. Wood. I would just say that I think E-Verify, it is a
    pretty good system, and it is increasingly doing kind of a
    better and better job. We don't have a demand side down, which
    is part of the reason we need to have kind of effective
    comprehensive immigration reform, but I think the E-Verify
    system, in a country that does not want a national ID card, is
    doing a pretty good job, and I think the government is making
    it easier and easier.
        When I was in the government, and now that was several
    years ago, we would meet with many other countries to talk
    about migration challenges, and they would ask advice for us--
    from us, and we would ask advice from them. So it is not my
    experience that somebody else really has it solved. You know,
    Australia has an advantage because it is harder to get there,
    you know. Kind of there are those kinds of things.
        Mr. Poe. That is right.
        Ms. Wood. And other countries that have national ID cards
    can kind of focus on that. But, you know, we worked with
    several countries on effective worksite enforcement and
    challenges, because I think global migration patterns and
    issues, it is a real challenge for everyone, but I do think,
    you know, we are actually making some progress, so I would hope
    we stick with this horse.
        Mr. Poe. I have one other comment or question.
        Mr. Amador, if I own a franchise in Humble, Texas. Let us
    use Chik-fil-A. I am a franchise owner. Who is responsible for
    checking my employees? Is it me, is it a third party, or is it
    Chik-fil-A corporate?
        Mr. Amador. No. It is the franchisee. I mean, one of the
    biggest misconceptions in our industry is when you see a brand
    name, you are thinking it is a huge company behind it, and a
    lot of them is just really a mom and pop, you know, that may
    own two or three franchisees or maybe just one, and he is
    responsible for his employees. That is the way it is involved,
    because, you know, liability and other matters. So he has to be
    able to operate it as well as somebody that may own 100 or so
    franchises that may have----
        Mr. Poe. It is the franchise owner that is responsible for
    the employees.
        Mr. Amador. That is correct.
        Mr. Poe. All right. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, gentleman from Texas.
        The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Michigan,
    the Ranking Member of the full Committee, Mr. Conyers.
        Mr. Conyers. Mr. Chairman, may I be skipped temporarily? I
    have a--someone waiting.
        Mr. Gowdy. Certainly
        Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Gowdy. I believe we would then go to Mr. Gutierrez, the
    gentleman from Illinois
        Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you so much.
        Mr. Gowdy. Yes, sir
        Mr. Gutierrez. I want to, first of all, thank all of the
    witnesses, and I want to say to my colleagues on both sides of
    the aisle I am ready to support a vigorous, rigorous program to
    verify employees. I do not want to see a continuation of a
    permanent underclass of workers in this country. I want to fix
    our broken immigration system.
        I think that essential and critical to any comprehensive
    immigration reform package is to have E-Verify, and I want to
    make sure it works. I want to make sure that, as we have--we
    are suggesting today, that if there is an employer in America
    who wishes to hire an undocumented worker, that the full weight
    of the law is applied to that individual. And I would hope that
    as part of any process we make tests, especially in the first
    few months, that when we catch any scoundrels out there
    attempting to hire undocumented workers, that we enforce the
    full force of the law against them, because, you know, it takes
    two. It takes also--not every employer is hoodwinked by someone
    with false papers. There are employers who knowingly and
    willingly undermine American citizen workers by giving workers,
    undocumented workers, and I want to end that. I want to end it
    not only for the American workers, but I want to end the
    inherent exploitation that exists of the undocumented worker.
        I think we need to understand that I am for E-Verify
    because I want everybody verified for the system. We have a
    great Nation. Things are getting better. And how are they
    getting better? Everybody tells us, OSHA tells us, American
    workers are safer than ever before. Tragically, 13 die every
    day and never come home, but they are safer. But when you
    extract Latinos from the group, more Latinos are getting hurt
    on the job, and more Latinos are dying at the job as the rate
    is declining for the overall pool of American workers.
        I want that to end, so I am ready for E-Verify. I am ready
    to verify everyone. But let me just suggest the following. In
    the absence of a comprehensive immigration reform package,
    where are the votes to get the public policy? They are
    certainly not going to come from this side of the aisle, and we
    are going to have difficulty in reaching a grand bargain. And
    this, I want to state categorically, is part of the bargain, an
    essential fundamental part of any agreement in comprehensive
    immigration reform: enforcement, internal enforcement. It will
    stop and not allow a future event where, years to come, we have
    millions of other undocumented workers exploited again.
        So if you look at this from my point of view, and the
    humanity, and the safety, and the justice of immigrants and
    working men and women, or from a public safety point of view,
    or from an economic point of view, take the view you wish, we
    should be able to reach an agreement on comprehensive
    immigration reform.
        Now, if you allow the 11 million out there, then what you
    are asking me is to take our broken immigration system and
    unleash upon them an E-Verify system that is only going to make
    them go deeper into a more exploitive state where there will be
    more people that can prey upon them, I can't do that. I can do
    this, and I will encourage all of my colleagues to do this in
    good faith, to keep America safe.
        So, I want to thank you, Chairman Gowdy, for putting this
    hearing together. I hope we continue to have hearings like
    this. I think E-Verify is important. I believe we can make
    America safer, and make our workers safer, and live by this
    adage: Any job created in America should go to an American
    first, but there is plenty of work for others to come to this
    country, as they have in the past, to do.
        Thank you so much, Chairman Gowdy.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank the gentleman from Illinois.
        The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Texas Mr.
    Smith.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am tempted to ask for
    10 minutes, my 5 minutes plus the 5 minutes Mr. Gutierrez did
    not use for questions. I can only say that about a friend. I
    appreciate and admire Mr. Gutierrez very much for all that he
    has contributed to the immigration reform debate.
        And I do want to say it is nice to hear everyone who is
    here as a witness, and, in fact, all my colleagues support E-
    Verify either alone or often in conjunction with other
    immigration reforms, and I certainly appreciate that.
        Mr. Amador, I would like to start off with you, if I could.
    I don't know if I heard you mention in your oral statement the
    recent survey that was taken by the National Restaurant
    Association. Did you mention that in your opening statement?
        Mr. Amador. Go ahead.
        Mr. Smith. The recent survey that was taken.
        Mr. Amador. Yes.
        Mr. Smith. Could you go into some detail about that survey,
    because I think it is very instructive.
        Mr. Amador. Sure. We--we just issued a survey that was
    completed late last year. We got more responses than we thought
    we were going to get. We got about 800 of our members, large,
    small suppliers. So we got a very good picture of a membership
    comment on E-Verify, you know, both members that use it,
    members that did not use it.
        One thing that, you know, until now and last time we
    testified, the National Restaurant Association testified before
    the Committee, it was all anecdotal. Now we have the evidence,
    you know, and the evidence shows that our--the larger
    companies, you know, the larger members, already 49 percent of
    them are using E-Verify, and out of those, two-thirds of those
    that are using E-Verify sign up to it voluntarily.
        One thing I will mention is, I mean, this whole idea that
    we cannot do enforcement alone, it is already happening. I
    mean, my members are seeing it. It is true that I get a lot of
    push-back from my guys in California as to why are you
    supporting the Legal Workforce Act; it is not going to be
    mandated here. Well, more and more it is mandated across
    borders, and it is having different mandates, and that is one
    of the complaints. They are signing up, and they are viewing
    that it is not just signing to E-Verify, it is signing to E-
    Verify of Colorado, E-Verify of Arizona, and they want a
    neutral playing ground, you know, where they have one law to
    follow.
        From those that are not using E-Verify, I would say that
    the number one comment that they said was, well, we don't have
    an HR department, and we would like some options.
        Mr. Smith. Okay. Mr. Amador, I just wanted to make the
    point that I thought the survey also showed specifically that
    79 percent of restaurant owners view E-Verify as 100 percent
    accurate. Is that--is that the final----
        Mr. Amador. They found that to the best of their
    knowledge,that it was 100 percent accurate.
        Mr. Smith. When you can find 79 percent of any group of
    individuals thinking that anything is 100 percent accurate,
    that has got to be a new record either in the private sector or
    in the public sector.
        Mr. Amador. It was that answer I did not expect, and we
    were happy to see it. Another one that was very interesting is
    80 percent of those that use E-Verify recommended E-Verify to
    their colleagues.
        Mr. Smith. And to your knowledge,the use of E-Verify, the
    cost is minimal by the various owners?
        Mr. Amador. That is what they were saying in the survey.
    One comment is for those that did not use it. For those that
    use it, already have Internet access, already have the
    framework in place.
        Mr. Smith. Right. And then what is the average time that it
    takes to check in a potential or future employee?
        Mr. Amador. It takes--it takes minutes.
        Mr. Smith. You could say 2 to 3 minutes.
        Mr. Amador. And if you want to--excuse me?
        Mr. Smith. Two to 3 minutes is what I have heard. Is that
    accurate?
        Mr. Amador. Two to 3 minutes. And the number one complaint
    with it, which was the original question at the beginning of
    the hearing, was the tentative nonconfirmation throws a wrench
    into the system. So the 2 or 3 minutes we love, but then the
    tentative nonconfirmation adds additional cost to----
        Mr. Smith. Right. And the nonconfirmation shouldn't be a
    surprise, maybe particularly in the restaurant business, but in
    any business, because across the country about 5 percent of the
    workforce is illegal. So when we find out that 5 percent across
    the board doesn't--don't get confirmed, that is not a flaw in
    the system; that is actually showing that the system works.
        Mr. Amador. And the concern that they have with exemptions
    that--exceptions that have been created in other States is they
    may need--it is a very neighborly business, right, so you turn
    somebody down, and they say, then I go to another restaurant
    that is exempted, because it happens perhaps throughout----
        Mr. Smith. That is why everybody needs to use E-Verify.
        Mr. Amador. Right.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        Ms. Blitstein, I wanted to go back to your statement, and I
    wanted to really clarify for the record, when you talked about
    applying E-Verify to the current employees, that I wanted to
    make sure that you and others understood that the bill, yes,
    does apply to current employees when it comes to Federal
    contractors, for example, but as far as all other businesses,
    when we are talking about future employees. So the burden is
    not going to be there, the burden that you might feel, and we
    can talk more about what to do about it, but that burden is not
    going to apply in, I would say, 99 percent of the cases.
        The bill allows an employer to check current employees if
    they check all employees, and that is in an effort to avoid
    discrimination. But again, that is voluntary. We don't force
    everybody to check their current workforce. I just want to make
    sure that that was clear.
        I appreciate your saying that E-Verify works as intended,
    and that it is a balanced approach as would--as well.
        Is my time already up? Maybe I will go into Mr. Gutierrez's
    5 minutes. No. No.
        My time is up. Ms. Wood, let me just thank you for your
    testimony very quickly, and may I ask you what benefit you
    think E-Verify has for American workers? Sometimes that gets
    lost. We all talk about foreign workers. I don't think we talk
    enough about the benefits to American workers. And, Mr.
    Chairman, if I could ask your indulgence for her to answer that
    one question.
        Mr. Gowdy. Certainly.
        Ms. Wood. Well, E-Verify provides kind of an even playing
    field for authorized workers when they apply to the system, and
    so it encourages employers to have, you know, wages and other
    things that are not undercut because they are depending on an
    illegal and unauthorized workforce.
        Mr. Smith. Okay. Thank the gentleman from Texas.
        The Chair would now recognize the gentlelady from Texas Ms.
    Jackson Lee.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I think that has a certain ring to it.
    Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        And as my good friend Mr. Smith was leaving, let me thank
    you and the Ranking Member. And I wanted to make mention of the
    fact for the record that yesterday we completed in Homeland
    Security one of the components to comprehensive immigration
    reform, which is a very strong border security bill, and I
    wanted to make mention for this Committee that Mr. Smith and I
    joined on an amendment that covered operational control for--
    oh, I am sorry. I thought you had stepped away--operational
    control for the entire border. And I just wanted to show a sign
    of bipartisanship and comfort for this Committee as we look at
    these issues that are enormously important, and if I might do
    an advertisement, I hope that we will consider that bill as a
    component to the process of comprehensive immigration reform.
        Let me thank the witnesses. Mr. Amador, it is good to see
    you again. We have had a long journey of working together. But
    I really want to take a moment and thank the National
    Restaurant Association. We have worked with them over the
    years, but I do want to thank them for being such an enormous
    economic engine, and coming from Texas and Houston with such a
    large membership, certainly my friends, I have been in their
    restaurants, I have met with them, I understand the challenges
    that they have, and I would also say that they seek to hire
    anyone who will come and be a good worker, and do the job, and
    stay on the job.
        You have given opportunity to young people. I am hearing
    that you are hiring seniors because seniors are coming back to
    work, and in between. And there are people at your--in your
    business--businesses that use the restaurant job as their
    income for their family, so I think your work is very
    important.
        And I wanted to just ask a straight-out question because I
    wanted to make sure we were correct. The National Restaurant
    Association is supporting a comprehensive immigration reform;
    is that not the case?
        Mr. Amador. We support immigration reform whether it is one
    piece at a time, whether it is only DACA. We supported DACA by
    itself. We support the Legal Workforce Act, and we support
    legalization of work--legal work status for I wouldn't say all,
    but certainly a great number of the 11 million.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. My understanding is that you are going on
    record for access to legalization for the 11-, 12 million
    undocumented individuals?
        Mr. Amador. Of course, with caveats as, you know, if you
    have a criminal record and things like that.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, our bill will cover all that.
        Mr. Amador. But other than that, yes
        Ms. Jackson Lee. You are.
        And you would--you would certainly be happy if components
    of what you are interested in came out in the form of a
    comprehensive immigration package.
        Mr. Amador. Correct.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. So we can work together.
        I wanted to just go over some--and thank you for that. And
    I want to look very closely at this legislation. Certainly our
    Chairman has made a great effort. One of the things that I want
    to implore the Chairman of the full Committee for and the
    Ranking Member is that we do have regular order, and that this
    Committee has the ability to participate in the process, and
    hopefully we will find that there are people here who will work
    for the greater good.
        I want to ask Ms.--is it Blitstein?
        Ms. Blitstein. Blitstein.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Blitstein, let me get that correct. One of
    the things that I wanted to raise very quickly is the question
    of due process and the ability to challenge the idea that I am
    documented. Do you have an answer to that? There is no
    provision in this bill for due process. If someone has claimed
    falsely that they are not--they don't verify them, but they are
    a citizen, or they have status?
        Ms. Blitstein. CUPA-HR would be in support of measures that
    could afford someone due process. No system is completely
    perfect, and while we certainly support the Legal Workforce
    Act, that doesn't mean--because there is no provision, that
    doesn't mean that we wouldn't be supportive of--of some
    mechanism like that.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. That would be very helpful. Thank you.
        I want to go back to Mr. Amador. One of the major concerns
    about E-Verify has been raised. Historically the system returns
    an unacceptably high percentage of both erroneous confirmations
    and erroneous nonconfirmations. And we have heard testimony
    from USCIS early this year that improvements have been made.
    Will that pose a problem? And I have heard from the restaurant
    association that that has been a problem.
        Mr. Amador. It used to be a bigger problem. And again, you
    know, we had originally opposed--and this is years ago when it
    was first mandated, we had opposed E-Verify, but the
    improvements are significant, and our members are telling us
    that, you know, when people go back, they are able to fix those
    problems.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. But you would want to make sure that those
    problems would be fixed.
        Mr. Amador. Well, of course, you know, we would like the
    system to always improve, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be
    mandated, because it is working for the purpose intended.
        Ms. Ja0ckson Lee. I appreciate it.
        Mr. Mondi, I am sorry. Let me just--appreciate your
    industry as well, and I don't want you to have to go out of
    business. What about the idea of how much this would cost maybe
    for the employer, for the employee, and fraudulent documents?
    And in your industry it is seasonal, what kind of major impact
    that would have on you.
        Mr. Mondi. So----
        Ms. Jackson Lee. How much--how much the system would cost,
    maybe cost the user, et cetera.
        Mr. Mondi. If----
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Added cost.
        Mr. Mondi. It would add a lot of cost in lost time. So
    actual dollars spent, if the technology advancements do come to
    fruition the way they have been suggested they may, with
    smartphone application and telephonic things, that might be
    very helpful. If your office is the cab of your pickup truck,
    however, any sort of additional paperwork burden is just that.
    It takes more time, it takes more time in the office, less time
    in the field. You are talking about owner/operators who will
    spend as much time with their hands on the shovel as they do on
    a keyboard, right?
        So the biggest loss of money is going to be through
    additional time and administrative burdens. They don't have HR
    staff; you know, they cover every aspect of the business. And
    so when you are off site, when you do don't have an office, and
    you don't have dedicated office staff, any types of challenge--
    any type of paperwork burdens become a challenge.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the witnesses, and again, if
    I might add my appreciation for the restaurant association and
    the work Mr. Amador has done with us. Can we continue to work
    together?
        Mr. Amador. Yes.
        Ms. Jackson Lee. I would love to do that.
        I want to thank the Chairman, and I yield back.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank the gentlelady from Texas.
        The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Iowa Mr.
    King.
        Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I want to thank the witnesses for your testimony here
    today. And as I listen to the theme through here, that there is
    work that Americans won't do, and having spent my life for a
    time with a shovel in my hands or down in the ditch, and
    actually I haven't found anything that I won't do, or anything
    I can't get my sons to do, or anything that I can't get our
    crew to do. Whether it is 126 degrees heat index or 60 below
    windchill, we will do what needs to be done.
        And there are an awful lot of Americans that are
    naturalized, native-born Americans that are out there in the
    cold and the wind and the heat in the ditch doing this work
    every single day, and I pay attention. Around this city I can
    send my staff out with a video camera, and we could find you
    all kinds of work done in this city done by Americans that are
    doing work that Americans won't do.
        So I just--I wanted to put that particular thing, perhaps,
    to rest, although it keeps recurring year by year, and make the
    point that, for example, 75 percent of illegal aliens in this
    country have less than a high school degree, high school degree
    or less, and a household headed by a high school--someone with
    a high school--without a high school degree will draw down--
    will pay in taxes about $11,469 in taxes, and they will receive
    about $46,582 in benefits. That is a net fiscal deficit of
    $35,113.
        What we are talking about here is a Nation that has a
    cradle-to-grave welfare system. This is not 1900. This isn't
    1907 when the previous wave of immigration peaked. This is the
    cradle-to-grave welfare system in the United States, and Milton
    Friedman said clearly that the--an open borders program and a
    cradle-to-grave welfare system cannot coexist, and that is what
    we are doing here.
        What we are doing is, speaking of the comprehensive
    immigration reform policy that has recurred here, is that we
    are really talking about taxpayers subsidizing the difference
    between the cost of sustaining a household and the wages that
    can be drawn into that household from someone who is--who is, I
    will say, of lower education, not necessarily lower skills. And
    I would ask unanimous consent to introduce into the record the
    Robert Rector report of the Heritage Foundation dated May 6,
    2013, and ask a unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
        [The information referred to follows:]

                                   __________

        Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Then I wanted to ask the question of Mr. Amador, the bill
    prohibits an employer from checking current employees unless
    they check all current employees. So let me suggest that if you
    had a national restaurant burger chain, and you had--in one or
    more of the locations you had reasonable suspicion that a high
    percentage or even any of your workforce was working
    unlawfully, under this E-Verify bill, how would you go about
    doing your due diligence as a citizen to verify those employees
    if you had that administrative burden of all the employees in
    the Nation, as Ms. Blitstein has said?
        Mr. Amador. Well, let us--I will say a little bit of
    history, and I know Ms. Blitstein--Blitstein reported on that a
    little bit.
        When the Federal Government, when the Obama administration
    continued the policy of the Bush administration requiring
    Federal contractors to reverify the entire workforce, the U.S.
    Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit. They have since lost that
    lawsuit, but it was accounted that it cost millions of dollars
    to reverify people that had already gone through the current
    system and there was no suspicion of any of them being
    undocumented.
        The same is still true for the entire workforce. It is very
    expensive to go back and reverify, particularly in our industry
    where you have such a high turnover rate, to bring everybody in
    and make sure that you didn't miss anybody, even the owner,
    because if you did that, then you open yourself for liability.
        Mr. King. Would you prefer to have the option that as an
    employer at a location could just simply run one or more of the
    employees who he verified that were current employees?
        Mr. Amador. We have always supported a voluntary
    reverification with good cause. That doesn't mean that we want
    to waive other nondiscrimination and antidiscrimination laws,
    but at the same time, you know, if you have good cause, if you
    have reason to believe that the----
        Mr. King. And I can get into that discrimination piece,
    because the computer doesn't know the difference. But I would
    go to Ms. Wood in the time that I have left, because one of my
    other concerns, and I have a couple--one of my other concerns
    is that we have an executive branch that refuses to enforce
    immigration law, and so it is hard for me--although I like a
    lot that is in this bill, it is hard for me to get to the point
    where I can except that with a promise of enforcement of
    immigration law, we would actually get enforcement, since I
    have been watching this since 1986 and am disappointed with
    every Administration, including Ronald Reagan, on this issue.
    How could we expect the law to actually be enforced unless the
    President wants it to happen and believes in it?
        Ms. Wood. Well, I think it is tough, and as I noted in my
    written testimony, I mean, it has been a challenge, you know,
    how can we do this more effectively? That doesn't mean, I
    think, that we give up, and I think this bill and more and more
    employers going on E-Verify is a good start.
        I would note just with the idea of verifying kind of one
    employee at a time, I do think we have to be careful and build
    in some civil rights and civil liberty kind of protection,
    because you could have a well-intentioned HR manager that would
    just decide that only employees that don't speak English well,
    those would be the one I would--would want to run through for
    existing employees.
        So I think we have to be careful if you allow people just
    to run an individual employee through without a reasonable
    amount of suspicion or a particular investigation that would
    lead them to that.
        Mr. King. Thank you, Ms. Wood.
        And I would note, Mr. Chairman, that you have already made
    the decision to hire, that would be when the discrimination
    would take place.
        And I yield back.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from Iowa.
        The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Florida
    Mr. Garcia.
        Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ms. Wood, you worked in the previous Administration, and
    back then, if I remember correctly, you favored comprehensive
    immigration reform.
        Ms. Wood. That is right, and I still do, yes
        Mr. Garcia. Good.
        I just want to get back to a statement that was just made.
    You would assume that since we are deporting about half a
    million people a year, that this Administration is enforcing
    immigration law.
        Ms. Wood. I think that no Administration, the Bush
    administration included, has been effective in truly reducing
    the magnet of unlawful employment. I think we have all tried,
    we tried in different ways, and we haven't succeeded. And so I
    think it makes sense to look at how can we improve our overall
    system. One of those ways is by making E-Verify mandatory and
    looking at that. I certainly think that the continuation of the
    Secure Communities program has been a very positive thing, and
    there has been other positive things in the Obama
    administration as well.
        Mr. Garcia. Thank you. Just glad to know--I am glad that
    you agree that we are enforcing immigration law. It is an
    important aspect to this.
        I want to ask you, following up, you would--you would agree
    with me that sort of continuation of an immigration system that
    is broken under the current confines makes absolutely no sense,
    right, that you are probably trying to do the impossible?
        Ms. Wood. I think our system is broken, has been broken,
    and we need to do something to fix and address. I think we have
    a responsibility to do that, even though it is tough, and even
    though the answers, frankly, may not be perfect. But I do think
    this bill on the E-Verify piece, I will say, is, in my view,
    better than the proposal in the Gang of 8 relating to
    employment verification, so I hope that something more similar
    to this could be considered at an appropriate time
        Mr. Garcia. I would imagine that because you believe in
    comprehensive immigration reform, you see this as a part of a
    broader--broader component. This is but a component of an
    overall immigration overhaul, and that what we need to do is
    fix it all at once and get it done, correct?
        Ms. Wood. We need to fix it, but if this is all we can do,
    I would say let us start with this. So I am--you know, I
    certainly think we need to fix it, but--but just like DACA, it
    may be that there are portions of reform that make sense in
    different chunks, and that the American people are--and
    Congress would be able to do that in kind of sizeable pieces,
    and I am not opposed to that. If we can do it in one overall
    bargain, you know, kind of all the better, but we have got to
    make sure we get every piece of it right. Got to make sure we
    get interior enforcement right, border enforcement right,
    future demand right, and that is very difficult, particularly
    in a bill that is almost 900 pages.
        Mr. Garcia. You do realize, though, the complexity when we
    have Members of this Committee who find the ability of doing
    immigration at all or making the assertion, almost ludicrous
    assertion, that Americans are willing do all these jobs when we
    found that that has not been the case across the board probably
    for the last two decades, correct?
        Ms. Wood. These are incredibly tough issues, and I think
    the fact that Congress is focusing on them so much now makes a
    lot of sense. And so I just hope that there is political
    courage on both sides of the aisle to seek for a reasonable
    situation that is not perfect, doesn't satisfy everyone's
    equities, but moves the ball forward, because the current
    situation we are in, I think, is not tenable and not
    sustainable in the way we would like for the American public.
        Mr. Garcia. Okay. I wanted to--thank you.
        I wanted to ask Mr. Mondi a few--a question.
        So, you know, implementing these requirements to the
    agriculture industry, last time it came up, there was sort of
    an outcry because it could basically shut down the agricultural
    industry, and, in fact, there were consequences when we had
    enforced certain provisions in certain parts of the country. So
    is--is the E-Verify that we are proposing here workable for
    your industry, and would you----
        Mr. Mondi. E-Verify is important as part of--there are a
    couple other components. I know after this hearing we are going
    to be discussing a workforce--a guestworker bill.
        Mr. Garcia. Uh-huh.
        Mr. Mondi. And now for specific comment, certainly that
    panel can address those, but there is also the legalization
    factor where if you have people who develop skills over time
    that have been here working hard, which we know in agriculture
    in particular, since that is your question, there is a lot of
    them, without some--you can't pick up three-quarters of the
    workforce, throw them out, and just bring in--replace that with
    new people that have no experience and maybe even ability.
        So, I think that E-Verify is going to absolutely be a part
    of advancing agriculture, but I think it is going to be
    imperative that there is a guestworker program, and that there
    is some legalization program as well.
        Mr. Garcia. Or broader comprehensive immigration.
        Mr. Mondi. And all those things together are contingent on
    each other, so they need to be together.
        Mr. Garcia. Thank you. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from Florida.
        The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from North
    Carolina, the former U.S. attorney Mr. Holding.
        Mr. Holding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Ms. Blitstein, welcome. I understand you are a constituent
    of mine, so it is a delight to have you in the Committee today,
    and so I will ask you a few questions.
        In the years that NC State has been using the E-Verify
    system, have you had situations in which E-Verify has helped
    identify places in which documents presented by an individual
    for the I-9 process were not, in fact, valid even though they
    looked valid on their face, as current law requires?
        Ms. Blitstein. In our experience we had, that I can think
    of, about two situations that I can think of with clarity where
    the system did catch that they were fake documents. One of--
    they are both green cards or permanent resident cards. One of
    them was actually very good, and it took me a little while,
    after I got the result, to figure out where some of the
    fraudulent aspects had come in. And then there was one that was
    not quite as good, but the system captured that right away, and
    then we terminated that employment.
        Mr. Holding. And did you follow up with law enforcement at
    all on the fraudulent documents?
        Ms. Blitstein. We did not. And because through the E-Verify
    system, now at least the Department of Homeland Security was
    aware that those individuals were using fake documents, and so
    we ended our employment, which is our obligation, and then that
    is when we ended the matter.
        Mr. Holding. And do you have any idea whether the
    Department of Homeland Security followed up on, you know,
    occurrence of fake documents being used with individuals?
        Ms. Blitstein. On those two instances, I am not aware, and
    Homeland Security did not reach out to my office at all about
    those two individuals.
        Mr. Holding. The--this is to the whole panel. You know, as
    a situation like that arises, and, you know, you catch an
    instance of false documents, have any of you ever gone beyond
    what is required and reached out to law enforcement to ask them
    to follow up on, hey, we have someone here using false
    documents?
        Ms. Wood. I work with some companies that under the IMAGE
    program have a protocol where they can relate certain things to
    ICE and so have done that on certain occasions. But it is not
    where they have an individual employee that is a problem, but
    where they are seeing kind of a current pattern or something
    else, like the fraud is shifting of individuals trying to get
    through the system, and they report that.
        Mr. Holding. All right. The--again to you, Ms. Blitstein.
    How many resources are wasted when an employer is required to
    actually hire an employee before the employer can check the
    work eligibility of that employee and subsequently finds out
    that the new employee is not work authorized?
        Ms. Blitstein. Because of the industry that I am in, higher
    education, I would say that we are unique from some in that we
    have not found a large instance where we did subsequently have
    any issues with documentation. So it is not something that has
    occurred and wasted a lot of our time, but certainly, like my
    colleagues can say, I do understand when you get the tentative
    nonconfirmation, and that process can take a while to get
    resolved, that there are resources that potentially could be
    effective, or you are training someone and then they have to
    leave. But at least at NC State we have not really had that as
    a situation.
        Mr. Holding. All right.
        Ms. Wood. And, in fact, if I could just add.
        Mr. Holding. Sure.
        Ms. Wood. Particularly what we see in the proposed Senate
    bill, the idea that after a nonconfirmation an individual can
    then go to an ALJ, I mean, there is so much uncertainty for an
    employer, and I think that is very problematic, and you are
    going to have employees who are not authorized who are going to
    try to game the system and stay and work as long as possible.
    So I think that it is stretching out the amount of time before
    the employer has a final decision could be a really kind of
    problematic thing in terms of business operation, money wasted
    on training for people who ultimately aren't authorized, et
    cetera.
        Mr. Amador. And I would like to add.
        Mr. Holding. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Amador. In our industry, I guess, is the opposite.
    Because of the demographics of our industry, and we are very
    proud of our diversities at all levels, from managers to cooks
    to dishwashers, you know, we are very proud of that, but we get
    a disproportionate amount of these nonconfirmations than vis--
    vis other industries. The number one cost is the cost of
    training. You know, you are training this individual for a job
    that he may not have the following day, and at the same time
    you cannot hire somebody else to do the job. So that is the
    number one reason.
        So, one thing that is very important that we have been
    asking for for years, from both Democrats and Republicans, is
    something that is on this bill: being able to conditionally
    hire somebody that--saying, well, if everything checks--you
    know, right now you can look at background checks, you can look
    at all of these other checks except employment authorization.
    Under this bill, you can make employment conditional on a final
    confirmation, and that that is very important because you do
    not waste all that time and money, you know, training somebody
    that might not end up working for you after all.
        Mr. Holding. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Mr. Gowdy. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina.
        The Chair would now yield to the gentlelady from California
    for a question.
        Ms. Lofgren. Just one quick question, Ms. Wood. You, I
    think, said that it would be a concern that unauthorized
    workers would game the system to string it out. Do you have
    any--are there any studies, or, I mean, any evidence to support
    that statement, because I--at least in what we have seen,
    people who are here unauthorized, the last thing they want to
    do is come to the attention of anybody. I mean, they are
    hightailing it down the street if they get caught. What data to
    you have to support that?
        Ms. Wood. Certainly there are companies that I have worked
    with where that has occurred. And so I think that the attitude
    is changing a little bit, and part of that may be people, you
    know, are hoping that there is going to reform in the system,
    and so that if they can just work a little bit longer, 2 or 3
    weeks, while they are employing for a job down the street, they
    would do that.
        I would say several years ago we didn't see that. I think
    there was more willingness even--unfortunately, even people who
    are authorized, but may be new immigrants, if there is a TNC
    that came back, sometimes they would leave the job when they
    shouldn't have. But now we are actually seeing people who are
    contesting even final nonconfirmation.
        Ms. Lofgren. If you could provide us some examples of that,
    I would appreciate it. I remember my former counsel on the
    Subcommittee when I chaired who was an American citizen and--
    you know, an Immigration counsel, who was given a tentative
    nonconfirmation.
        Ms. Wood. Right.
        Ms. Lofgren. And it took her--I mean, she is an immigration
    lawyer. I was Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee. It took
    her----
        Ms. Wood. That might be the problem.
        Ms. Lofgren. It took her almost a month and a half to sort
    it out, and, I mean--and if there is no process, you just get
    fired, and if you don't get notified----
        Ms. Wood. Right.
        Ms. Lofgren [continuing]. Then you can never fix it.
        Ms. Wood. Well, you certainly should have the process, and
    I think the current process generally works. I will tell you
    that right now we have had some people that have gotten a final
    nonconfirmation, but are authorized, and what they have able to
    do, and we have helped them, go to USCIS and get that resolved.
    So I do think it is important that on an individual basis there
    are ways that if the government kind of doing it and they go
    and address that. What I am concerned about is
    institutionalizing the idea of having an ALJ and other layers
    there----
        Ms. Lofgren. I am not necessarily talking about the Senate
    bill so much as the need for Americans to not be treated
    unfairly.
        Ms. Wood. Oh, yeah, and I think the current TNC process, I
    think, works generally very well.
        Ms. Lofgren. I am going to stop, because I want to thank
    the Chairman for letting me ask that question, and I don't want
    to abuse his good courtesy.
        Mr. Gowdy. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I thank the gentlelady
    from California.
        The Chair will now recognize himself for 5 minutes, and I
    would begin by asking unanimous consent to enter into the
    record the following: letters of support for H.R. 1772 from the
    National Restaurant Association, Associated Builders and
    Contractors, Essential Worker Immigrant Coalition, National
    Retail Federation, Darden Restaurants, and a statement of
    support for this bill from ImmigrationWorks USA. Without
    objection, so entered.
        [The information referred to follows:]

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        Mr. Gowdy. Ms. Wood, do you agree the safe harbor
    provisions in this bill are balanced inasmuch as they seek to
    protect employers who use the system in good faith, but also
    allow the government the flexibility to enforce the laws
    against employers who do not use the system in good faith?
        Ms. Wood. You know, I do think that the safe harbor
    provisions attempt to do that. I think one thing that is
    important is you want to make sure employers have the ability
    if someone comes in on day one with an obviously fraudulent
    document, and you are going through the I-9 process, that you
    can kind of end it right there without them having to move
    through, you know, a longer E-Verify system or something else.
        But, yes, I do think the safe harbor--and I think it is
    important for employers to have a good safe harbor that works.
        Mr. Gowdy. You have referenced consultation and work you
    have done with employers in the past. Can you speak to their
    initial apprehension or skepticism with using this system and
    whether or not actually using it has mollified those
    skepticisms at all?
        Ms. Wood. It really has. For the employers that I have
    worked with in the landscaping, construction, and in the
    restaurant industry, often the first reaction is this will
    never work for our workforce, it is absolutely going to destroy
    our ability. And, you know, oftentimes some of these companies
    weren't coming to E-Verify voluntarily. Some of these companies
    were encouraged to do so by, you know, difficulties in
    interacting with ICE and things. But once they are on the
    system, you know, they feel a lot of help from the system, they
    feel a lot of surety from the system, particularly with the
    photo matching and other tools that E-Verify has.
        You know, I will say that sometimes their turnover is
    higher than they are used to, even in high-turnover industries,
    for a period of time, but I think as employers are on it, they
    get used to it, and I think the workforce knows that it is
    coming and looking for jobs there that, you know, X company is
    an E-Verify employer, and so that there is almost a self-
    selecting of the workforce up to some degree.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you.
        Mr. Amador, what are your thoughts on allowing an employer
    to acquire a prospective employee--to require a prospective
    employee to use and be confirmed through the E-Verify self-
    check option prior to hire? Do you think it is a good idea,
    and, if so, why?
        Mr. Amador. No. I think it is a terrible idea. I have had
    an E-Verify check. I know Tracy Hung had issues. But I didn't
    pass the self-check, so maybe that is why I opposed it.
        No, it is a two-step process. It is not--when people say
    you got to do a self-check, it is not just doing E-Verify. You
    have got to pass through a process that is not based on any
    government database; it is based on credit report. And my
    credit report has my name misspelled four different ways, and
    that was the options that it gave me to choose from, and I
    chose ``none of the above'' because I knew my name was
    misspelled. In that case--and counsel told me to bring my
    passport just in case they asked for another check.
        But--so once that happened, it doesn't let you go forward.
    You are never able to do E-Verify. The way I fixed it is I was
    able to pick up the phone and call Alan Mayorcas, who runs a
    great agency, and he assigned somebody with me, and it took
    them 3 months to explain to me what was it that went wrong.
        So asking somebody to do a self-check is completely
    different than asking somebody to do an E-Verify check, and if
    they are young and don't have enough credit history, if their
    credit report is full of errors, or if you do not remember who
    had your first mortgage at what bank that was sold three times,
    you might never get through E-Verify. So for that reason I
    don't think it should be required.
        It is something to encourage people to do so they have that
    peace of mind when they go and apply for a job that, you know,
    they are not going to encounter any problems, but it shouldn't
    be require, because, again, if it is not based on the
    government database, the security provisions that it has in
    place are based on credit reports and is not, in my view,
    accurate enough, from personal experience.
        Mr. Gowdy. Thank you.
        Mr. Mondi, I don't have a question, but I do want you to
    know that I--some of my better friends back in Spartanburg,
    South Carolina, are in the landscaping and nursery business.
    When they allow me into Sunday school, I sit beside one of the
    largest landscapers and nursery owners.
        I have never served in the statehouse in South Carolina. I
    think E-Verify is mandatory in South Carolina. And so I
    appreciate the work that your constituents, if you will, do.
    And they are some of the better people that I know in my
    hometown, and they are wonderful employers, and they make a
    huge contribution to our community.
        So, with that, and for each of you, this concludes our
    hearing, and I want to thank you on behalf of everyone on both
    sides, and especially our Chairman, Mr. Goodlatte, and my
    Ranking Member, Ms. Lofgren, for your very informative
    testimony and asking good questions, your collegiality toward
    one another and with the Committee.
        Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days
    to submit additional questions, written questions, for the
    witnesses or additional materials for the record.
        This hearing is adjourned. We are going to take a brief
    recess and then proceed to a hearing on H.R. 1773, which is the
    Agricultural Guestworker Act.
        With that, this hearing is adjourned, and thank you all for
    your testimony.
        [Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

                                  ----------

                   Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

    Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in
      Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the
                                   Judiciary

        Thank you Chairman Gowdy. And thank you Mr. Smith for your work on
    this legislation.
        The future of immigration reform hinges on assuring the American
    people that our immigration laws will be enforced. In the past,
    Americans were promised tougher enforcement in exchange for the
    legalization of those unlawfully in the U.S. Succeeding 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 fast way for
    employers to electronically check the work eligibility of newly hired
    employees.
        H.R. 1772, the ``Legal Workforce Act,'' builds on E-Verify's
    success and helps ensure the strong enforcement that was promised to
    the American people many years ago.
        The Legal Workforce Act doesn't simply leave enforcement up to the
    federal government.
        In fact, it actually empowers states to help enforce the law,
    ensuring that we don't continue the enforcement mistakes of the past
    where a President can `turn-off' federal enforcement efforts
    unilaterally.
        Over 450,000 employers are currently signed up to use E-Verify. It
    is easy for employers to use and is effective. In fact as USICS
    testified in front of this Subcommittee this past February, E-verify's
    accuracy rate for confirmation of work eligibility is 99.7 percent.
        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 (SSN)
    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 SSN and the real name corresponding with
    that SSN, 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 E-Verify a
    SSN that shows a pattern of unusual multiple use. So the rightful owner
    of the SSN will know that their SSN may have been compromised.
        And once they confirm this, DHS and SSA 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 SSNs of their minor children for work
    eligibility purposes. This is to combat the rise in the number of
    thefts of children's identities.
        But there are other changes that should also be made. For instance,
    in order to help prevent identity theft, USCIS created and utilizes the
    photo-match tool in which photos from greencards, work authorization
    documents and passports can be seen during the use of E-verify in order
    to help ensure that the person submitting the identity document is in
    fact the person who owns that document. But I recently learned that
    USCIS materials regarding the use of E-Verify specifically state that
    ``A photo displayed in E-Verify should be compared with the photo in
    the document that the employee has presented and not with the face of
    the employee.''
        What good is the photo match tool to prevent identity theft if the
    employer is prohibited from matching the photos to the person
    submitting the identity document? This policy is ludicrous and we will
    look to address it as this legislation moves forward.
        The bill also phases-in E-Verify use in six month increments
    beginning with the largest U.S. businesses, raises penalties for
    employers who don't 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.
        H.R. 1772 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.
        While I want to continue working with the business community and
    other stakeholders to address any additional concerns with the bill, I
    am pleased to be an original cosponsor and look forward to the
    testimony of the witnesses today.
        Thank you Mr. Chairman and I yield back the balance of my time.