SAVE Act in Congress

There is a good illegal immigration enforcement bill in the House of Representatives. It's being held up by the Democratic leadership because they are pro-open borders (but rarely admit it):

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the House Democratic leadership are open-borders advocates who want no part of the SAVE Act, and have thus far managed to keep the bill buried in the Judiciary Committee. To get around this roadblock, supporters of the SAVE Act need 218 signatures on a discharge petition to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. As of yesterday afternoon, according to NumbersUSA, they had 169 signatures — 161 Republicans and seven Democrats — who had signed the discharge petition. (Updated totals are available at www.numbersusa.com.) It is likely that many of the 38 Republicans who had not signed as of yesterday will do so in the coming days. The critical question is what will happen with the Democrats — there are more than 30 of them who have signed on as cosponsors of Mr. Shuler's bill who have thus far been unwilling to take the next step: signing the discharge petition.

Sports fans maybe asking themselves, "Heath Shuler, the former quarterback?" The answer is yes, he's now a Democratic congressman from North Carolina. He won in the 2006 Democratic landslide in a conservative district by running as a conservative Democrat. To his credit and for his district's benefit, he has largely voted like one, too. He also wrote the bill. Here is an editorial from Shuler and California Republican Brian Bilbray in today's Washington Times:

Finally, to eliminate the primary cause of illegal immigration — illegal employment — the SAVE Act expands the E-Verify program to provide all employers with the tools they need to ensure that their employees are here legally. E-Verify is a quick, easy and free Web-based system that cross-references Social Security numbers, and other pertinent information, to ensure that a worker is legally entitled to be employed in the United States. It is already being successfully used by 56,000 American employers on a voluntary basis. The SAVE Act gradually phases it in for all employers over four years, allowing businesses time to adapt. Making E-Verify mandatory will protect American workers and law-abiding businesses from the unfair competition created by a massive illegal workforce.

The use of E-Verify also means that individual employers are no longer expected to be document experts. The liability of determining the legal status of an employee is placed on the government, not the business owner. Since employers will be required to check all potential employees, racial profiling will not be an issue. Additionally, in the rare case where the system makes an error the employer is held harmless.

Let's hope they succeed. If they do, we'll see if the Senate can resist voting on it in an election year.

Here's Shuler before he became good at his profession:




UPDATE: More on the SAVE Act from Mark Hemingway at NRO:

Rosemary Jenks, the director of government relations for NumbersUSA, an organization that favors tighter immigration controls, notes there is already a movement afoot by the Democratic leadership to attach something to legislation which will either kill the legislation or add provisions that make it more palatable to the Hispanic caucus.

“Essentially the Democratic leadership has been trying to work out some deals with various different groups of Democrats, but the key is that they want congressman Schuler to sign off on them,” Jenks tells National Review Online. “So far he has stood very firmly against any form of amnesty, which is what the Hispanic caucus wants.” She says, “he is telling them that he doesn’t want extra visas — H2-B visas, or H1-B visas or amnesty visas added to his bill, that he wants it to come up for a vote the way it is.”