Main immigration bill loses support

 

Rep. Vicki Schneider anticipated few troubles when she introduced legislation that would require Missouri employers to use a free online federal database designed to detect illegal immigrants.

Schneider, a Republican from St. Charles, had the support of Gov. Matt Blunt and the understanding that Republican core voters are particularly passionate about the subject of illegal immigration. House Speaker Rod Jetton signed on as the lead co-sponsor after Schneider arranged for him to meet with Kris Koback, the University of Missouri- Kansas City law professor who drafted the bill and who had worked for former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as an immigration adviser.

House officials expected the Schneider bill to become a major vehicle for the effort to crack down on illegal immigration, which Jetton and Senate President Pro Tem Mike Gibbons both highlighted as a major issue during speeches at the start of the session. The House special committee on immigration scheduled early hearings on House Bill 1736.

But just over a month into the legislative session, Schneider’s bill is in trouble, and the head of a House immigration committee is looking for an alternative but said time is running short.

All of the state’s major business lobbies— Associated Industries of Missouri, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Federation of Business-Missouri—are firmly united to scuttle the legislation, and Jetton’s views have changed.

“The speaker is backtracking,” said a clearly disappointed Schneider. “The people who have been using illegal workers want to continue.”

Business lobbyists sharply dispute Schneider’s characterization of their opposition and said the provisions could unfairly penalize businesses. They were also worried about a possible $1 billion increase in federal unemployment taxes that Missouri businesses could be required to pay if the bill became law.

But in recent days, they have been meeting with legislative allies, trying to find some alternative to Schneider’s proposal that could let members say they had addressed the issue of hiring undocumented workers.

On the Senate side, another St. Charles County Republican, Scott Rupp, filed the lone bill that affected immigrants. Gibbons promised on opening day to give Missourians “our best effort to protect their safety, jobs and benefits, rather than reward illegal immigrants with jobs and public support at the taxpayers’ expense.” But the proposal he’s now pushing would affect only workers employed by government contractors.

Schneider acts after local use of illegal workers
Schneider was among a half-dozen legislators who, along with Blunt and Attorney General Jay Nixon, made proposals before the session began to restrict illegal immigrants and businesses that employ them. She found the motivation for her efforts in her own backyard—the St. Louis suburb of O’Fallon. At least two contractors there had been found using undocumented workers, and the cases were highly publicized.

Schneider, a general contractor with residential and commercial projects, said, “I’m having a hard time keeping our doors open.” Without the competition from firms that use and underpay unauthorized help, Schneider added, “our guys could be working more.” But even city officials who found the illegal set-ups “couldn’t stop it,” she said.

Immigration issues dominated a special House race in St. Charles County this month, and the Republican with the stronger viewpoint won.

The rules in HB1736 would apply to all new employees hired after Jan. 1, 2009. The federal government prohibits use of the system to re-check eligibility, so current employees are unaffected.

Unlike those of other states, Missouri businesses that failed to use the service would not face fines. If caught, they could lose their ability to do business—for 30 to 60 days for the first offense, one to two years for a second and five to 10 years for a third. The exact mechanism for the penalty is unclear because Missouri does not issue state business licenses, although for some businesses, such as bars, other state licenses are involved.

The use of E-Verify, operated by the Citizenship and Immigration Service and Social Security Administration, has been soaring in recent months as businesses react to public disenchantment with employers who hire illegal workers. The free service essentially tells employers whether an applicant’s name and Social Security number (or lawful worker documents) are valid.

“I use it,” said Schneider, who added the program is easy for small businesses to use and access.

Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma and Arizona already have adopted such a law, although legal challenges continue, while Indiana, South Carolina, Kansas and several other states are considering similar attempts to combat antiimmigrant- worker sentiment. Business lobbies in most states, though, are opposing the measures.

Altogether, 52,000 employers use the service nationwide—up from only 14,000 a year ago—and the total is growing by 1,000 a week, although the numbers are infinitesimal amid 5.7 million U.S. companies.

Federal legislation that would have required all employers to use the system failed in 2007, but the Department of Homeland Security has decided to require 200,000 federal contractors to comply and urged states to adopt the same rules for security reasons.

Illinois, however, last year banned attempts to require use of E-Verify, largely because of complaints about discrimination and inaccuracies in federal records that are acknowledged by the Social Security Administration and others. In September, the federal government sued Illinois to block the state law, but in December, Illinois agreed not to enforce the law until further action was considered.

Debates focus on database accuracy
The national debate has provided the threads for the emerging Missouri debate—if E-Verify is considered fully.
At issue with E-Verify is the accuracy of records that it uses to determine whether a person can legally work. In 2006, the Social Security Administration issued a report showing 18 million of the 435 million records in its database, or 4 percent, contained errors. Included was a 4 percent error rate in the names used, which may be attributable to marriages and divorces but still affects the results from E-Verify.

Brad Jones, who heads the Missouri unit of NFIB, said “mandating use” of a database with such an error rate “would be irresponsible,” particularly with the proposed penalties. “Most businesses,” he said, “cannot survive a 30-day suspension. It’s a death sentence.”

Jones, like other business association spokesmen, said the bill’s lack of “safe harbor” language that protects businesses relying on EVerify also ranks as a critical problem. Business lobbyists tended to focus on private lawsuits that they could face for alleged misuse of inaccurate information.

Gary Marble, president of Associated Industries, said any proposal that involved mandatory use of EVerify would earn that group’s opposition. House Bill 1736 “absolutely makes employers” rather than the responsible federal agencies “the gatekeeper for immigration. Immigration is a federal issue and should be handled at the federal level,” not by the state legislature.

“The instructions [from the Department of Homeland Security] are 87 pages long, and employers have to sign a six- or seven-page contract” just to hire an employee, added Marble, a former Republican House member. “I don’t mean to be hard-nosed about it,” but the proposal seems to violate provisions of the Missouri Constitution.

He predicted that the system Schneider’s bill envisioned would drive businesses to neighboring states.

Marble said that, “rather than looking at employers as the problem,” the legislation should aim its fire at the illegal workers who are “the criminals. Go after the criminals, and the business community will do all it can to arrest and deport the illegal workers. No mandated use of a flawed system is acceptable.”

Mike Grote, a Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry consultant, focused on the problem of identity theft and the prospect of a $1 billion tax increase on Missouri businesses if the legislation is passed as originally drafted.

The basic pilot or E-Verify programs have never been able to identify stolen Social Security numbers and names, as the Department of Homeland Security readily acknowledges. If a Social Security number has been sold to 13 different immigrants who use the right name, the system simply shows the new hire as valid.

The Internal Revenue Service does not track tax returns that use the same number, although it will attempt to collect taxes from an unsuspecting resident if an illegal has stolen his number but not paid.

The issue of the tax increase arose when the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reviewed the bill. Based on a letter from federal officials, department director Todd Smith told the Columbia Business Times that the legislation would cost Missouri business owners $977 million in unemployment tax credits they now claim because the system here would not comply with federal requirements.

He sought to have the department removed from the bill to avoid those extra taxes. Schneider said she supported that request because she had no intention of jeopardizing businesses’ tax credits.

“One billion dollars is a lot of money. There was no reason to do this because Missouri is one of the states with the lowest [illegal] immigration rates,” of less than 3 percent, said Grote, who characterized Koback’s work as “poorly drafted.”
Schneider wonders where an answer lies—if illegal immigrants come to the U.S. primarily to work. “If you can’t use E-Verify” to allow businesses to determine whom they can hire, “what do you use?” she asked.

E-Verify is the only system that gets access to the Social Security database that includes most native Americans and the Homeland Security database that includes the work authorization papers of legal immigrants. It is also computerized and Internet accessible, which are valuable traits if business owners need to reach the data easily.

Business lobbyists advise immigration committee leader Republican Rep. Jerry Nolte of Gladstone, chair of the House Special Committee on Immigration, said he expected to find the answer—if one exists—in the next week or so and incorporate it into his own legislation, which he will file shortly.

“We need to find something that is not onerous on employers who are doing the right thing and still get the bad players,” Nolte said.

He does not share the business lobbies’ doubts and fears about the E-Verify system. Nolted noted that the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis—which represents highway firms—had no problems with E-Verify.

“It’s not as onerous” a system as other proposals, and “it’s a decent database. You don’t want to force a lot of business owners to go sifting through a lot of documents.”

Some involved in the discussions say some portions of the I-9 process—the federal hiring standards in effect since 1986—perhaps could be adapted to a Missouri system, but that still raises question of whether a verifiable database could develop. “Whatever happens needs to happen in the next two weeks. The clock is ticking,” Nolte said.