E-Verify To Go Before Congress Today As Business Expresses Mixed Feelings On National Expansion

E-Verify, an employment verification system designed to find undocumented immigrants who are currently working in the country illegally, is set to go before Sub Committee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement in the House today.

One group sure to be watching what happens at this hearing closely is business, in particular farmers who believe that without undocumented labor their could be a destabilization of the agricultural economy. 

Shanker Vedantam from the Washington Post has the full story up here:

In an early indicator of how congressional Republicans will legislate on immigration, House GOP leaders are expanding an inquiry into an enforcement program that allows employers to check the immigration status of employees. Many business owners believe that Gallegly and other House Republicans want to make E-Verify, currently a voluntary program for companies, mandatory. Critics of such a move, many of them farmers, warn that it could destabilize the agricultural economy, which is heavily dependent on undocumented immigrants, and jeopardize millions of jobs held by American citizens that are upstream and downstream of farm labor.

As talk turns to making E-Verify mandatory nationally, many in the business communities have begun to express misgivings. The National Chamber of Commerce has expressed mixed feelings about mandatory E-Verify: 

"I have a real mixed reaction from my members," said Randel Johnson, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Some find it workable, and others do not." "With some companies, it is the logistical problem of having a computer on your construction site" to run the online queries, Johnson added. "If you are running a small business, there is aversion to a new system that will make things more complicated."

The other side of this equation, is what happens to the United States Economy if ramped up enforcement legislation continues but there is no other type of reform which would allow for the legal flow of immigrant labor:

But the elephant in the room is that significant portions of the U.S. economy depend on undocumented immigrants for labor, said Craig J. Regelbrugge, vice president of the American Nursery & Landscape Association. "Simply put, any E-Verify expansion that comes without meaningful immigration reform would be disastrous for the American agricultural economy," he said. "It will leave the United States importing food and exporting jobs."

More on the hearing as it develops.