Urge NC Senators to support E-Verify

Ask State Senators to Support E-Verify Bill


This is a special message for NumbersUSA members in North Carolina.

Dear North Carolina friends,

State Sen. John Snow introduced a bill (SB 32) that would require city/county governments, and certain state and local government contractors, to use the federal E-Verify system to check the workplace eligibility of new hires. State agencies were required to use E-Verify beginning in 2007, so this is the next logical step in an effort to extend E-Verify usage and thereby free up jobs for unemployed citizens and legal residents.
The state legislative session is expected to end around June 30, but there is still time to push this bill through. It is currently sitting in the Senate Commerce Committee, but has not been given a hearing or a vote. Please call and email the following influential Senators and ask them to ensure that a fair up-or-down vote is held on SB 32:

Sen. President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight (919) 733-6854 Marc.Basnight@ncleg.net

Sen. Commerce Committee Chair R.C. Soles, Jr. (919) 733-5963 RC.Soles@ncleg.net)

Sen. Commerce Committee Vice Chr. David Hoyle (919) 733-5734 David.Hoyle@ncleg.net

Sen. Commerce Committee Vice Chr. Tony Rand (919) 733-9892 Tony.Rand@ncleg.net

Note: Senators Hoyle and Rand are co-sponsors of SB 32.
Also, please ask your Senator via phone and email to do everything possible to ensure passage of SB 32. You can look up your Senator’s name by clicking on this link -- http://www.ncleg.net/Senate/Senate.html -- and typing your zip code under the text “Who Represents Me?” in the right-hand column.
If your Senator is one of the other co-sponsors of SB 32, please thank him/her: Austin Allran; Tom Apodaca; Bob Atwater; Doug Berger; Harris Blake; Julia Boseman; Don Davis; W. Edward Goodall; Steve Goss; Jim Jacumin; Floyd B. McKissick, Jr.; Martin L. Nesbitt, Jr.; Joe Sam Queen; A. B Swindell; Jerry W. Tillman; and Don Vaughan.

Talking Points

· Please make sure that SB 32 – Sen. Snow’s E-Verify bill – gets a fair up-or-down vote in the Commerce Committee and on the Senate floor, and vote YES on the bill. The North Carolina unemployment rate currently stands at 10.7 percent. We need to take action now that will free up illegal-alien jobs for unemployed citizens and legal residents. Our state currently uses E-Verify successfully, but only for those applying for state government jobs. Please take the next step down this road and help North Carolinians in dire straits.

· I know that the Senate will be taking up the state budget this week, but I do not want to be told that you don't have time to deal with SB 32 because you have tough budget decisions to make. To the contrary, this is the best time to take up SB 32 since it will help save tax dollars. A recent study by the group FAIR shows illegal immigration is costing North Carolinians over $1.3 billion per year in state social and educational services to illegal aliens and their dependents. Moreover, we'll save on paying out unemployment benefits when North Carolinians are hired instead of illegal aliens. SB 32 is win-win legislation for budget-cutting legislators and unemployed North Carolinians.

· Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently told a congressional panel that E-Verify is an essential tool for employers to maintain a legal workforce and a cornerstone of workplace enforcement across the country. She recognizes that we cannot stop illegal immigration without removing the jobs magnet that draws illegal workers to our communities. That is why it is critical for N.C. to enact mandatory employment eligibility verification legislation for city and county employers and public contractors.

· In the past two years, the number of enrolled N.C. companies using E-Verify has increased by more than 700 percent to 2,567. Over 122,000 employers representing 468,000 hiring locations throughout the country use E-Verify, and around 1,000 new businesses sign up for the program every week. Over 14 percent of all non-agricultural new hires are now run through E-Verify.

· 99.6 percent of legal workers with no problems in their Social Security Administration (SSA) records are accurately authorized under E-Verify. Those who have inaccuracies are given instructions on how to clear up their records with SSA and time to do so. The bottom line is that nobody is automatically ruled out for work authorization and those eligible to work in the U.S. will not lose their job. If a person is not work authorized, it's not discrimination if you don't continue to employ them. That's complying with the law.

· If the office tries to pull a bait-and-switch: There are no longer any valid excuses for our government to continue to hire illegal workers, not when there are so many citizens and legal residents struggling to find work, so do not tell me to check with XXXX about SB 32 (Note - pick one that you are not currently talking to: committee chairman, bill sponsor, or senate leader) I need YOU to step up to the plate and make sure SB 32 gets a fair vote.


THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!

Van Esser

Chief, Membership Services

NumbersUSA

via email

DHS is no longer doing workplace raids, but going after employers. Well, my question is how can they know the employers have not been hiring illegals if the employers don''t use Everify to make sure the employees are here legally and allowed to work?