Department Of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the amendment I offer to the Homeland Security appropriations bill deals with the E-Verify Program. This morning, we voted to make the program a permanent part of our immigration laws. This was a vote in favor of the program because it is a very valuable tool for businesses across the country that want to abide by the law.

My amendment makes the program an even better tool for businesses. It says that if an employer chooses to verify the status of all their workers, not just new hires, then they should be allowed to do so. Employers want to abide by the law and hire people who are legally in the country. Right now, E-Verify only allows the employer to check prospective employees, but we should be allowing them access to this free, online database system to check all of their workers.

I hope my colleagues will agree with this approach. I believe it would fit in closely with initiatives by our new President to change the emphasis upon enforcing the laws against employment of people who come here illegally, because the President is emphasizing going after employers who are not abiding by the law.

And there are lots of investigations that are going on in that direction.

So we are now giving employers, through my amendment, the opportunity to check all their employees because that is very important. If a person is a businessperson, and there is a prospect that Federal people are going to come into the process and look at all their employment records, I would think an employer would want this tool to be able to use to see that everybody who has been hired--not just people recently hired--is legally able to be here.

I urge my colleagues to agree to this amendment and allow their businesses back home to take steps to be in compliance with their immigration laws.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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