This week, the House Judiciary Committee advanced immigration legislation that included a guest worker bill for agricultural workers and mandatory E-Verify for all employers with regard to new hires. The E-Verify bill, the Legal Workforce Act (LWA), has long been tied to immigration reform efforts, and the Republican controlled Congress considers its passage to be a prerequisite for the enactment of additional reforms.
AGC supports the LWA and delivered a letter to the committee prior to its consideration, because the bill creates a reliable method of verifying work authorization for new hires, generates protections from employment discrimination, and features federal preemption from the patchwork of conflicting and confusing state and local laws.
The legislation will likely be considered by the House later this year and will be joined to additional immigration reforms. While the legislation has passed the committee several times, it has never been considered by the full Congress; its outcome remains uncertain.
For more information, please contact Jim Young at [email protected] or (202) 547-0133.