Speech #1040190347

This means that a sponsors income and resources must now be taken into account when determining a legal aliens eligibility for the most public benefits. No longer will a legal alien be able to come to the United States and live off of our welfare system without the sponsors being held accountable. If an alien ends up becoming a public charge. by receiving 12 months of welfare benefits within 7 years of arrival. he could be deported. And. prospective sponsors must show that they could support both themselves and the sponsored immigrant at a minimum of twice the poverty level. The admission of low skill/educated legal aliens has also resulted in 50 percent decline in real wages for high school dropouts. With fewer low wage and service jobs available. high school dropouts already living in the United States are having to compete with legal immigrantswho might be willing to accept lower wages because the wages are still far better than what they would have received in their home country. Consequently. with more people looking for work. employers can lower wages and still know that their work will get done. H.R. 2202 ends the lowskilled preference program in order to keep more low wage jobs available for those without/with only high school diplomas without expanding our welfare system. At the same time. this legislation also recognizes that highly skilled/educated foreigners are invaluable in making American companies more globally competitive. and that their contributions will only create more jobs for Americans in the future. But. in order to make sure that employers are playing by the rules. there must be guidelines and enforcement mechanisms in place. While this legislation helps to protect American workers from being replaced by temporary foreign workersthe H1B temporary visa programit does not go far enough in making sure that employers dont hire illegal aliens/unauthorized workers to cut costs. Just as we require illegal and legal aliens to abide by the law. so too much employers. The original legislation. as passed by the Judiciary Committee. contained a worker phone verification pilot program under which employers in the five States with the highest number of illegal aliens would be required to verify the eligibility of a prospective employee with their Social Security number. The purpose of the system was to make it easier for employers who continue to struggle understanding the employer enforcement requirements of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 [IRCA]. Under IRCA. employer sanctions are imposed on any employer who knowingly hires an illegal alien unauthorized to work in the United States. Employers are required to verify eligibility and identity by examining up to 29 documents and completing an INS I9 form. In enforcing these measures. employers are allowed a good faith defense and are not liable for verifying the validity of any documents. but instead are only responsible for determining if the documents appear to be genuine. However. increased numbers of fraudulent documentsSocial Security cards. birth certificates. green cards. and work authorization cardshave made it difficult for employers to weed out illegal aliens. And. INS has been more concerned with sanctioning employers for paperwork violations. such as incorrectly completing 19 forms. than with helping employers expose counterfeit documents and unauthorized/illegal workers. Although H.R. 2202 importantly reduces tie number of allowable documents from 29 to 6. significantly decreasing an employers paperwork burden. it has changed the five State mandatory pilot program into an allvoluntary one. Opponents of the pilot claim that it will give the Federal Government the power to decide who works for whom. In addition. they fear that informational mistakes made by the computer system could either be used against an employer as evidence of hiring an illegal alien or could be used against a prospective employee as evidence of discrimination. In fact. under this program. an employer is provided with a good faith defense shielding him from liability based on the confirmation number he receives after verifying an employees social security number. And. if an employee is not offered a position because of faulty information which cannot be resolved within a 10day period. than he Is entitled to compensation under existing Federal law.