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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Statement on Hearing on “Worksite Enforcement” Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Worksite Enforcement

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As my colleagues and I travel around our nation, we hear a consistent message from the American people—fix our broken immigration system by enacting comprehensive reform. Sensible worksite enforcement, designed to identify and penalize those employers who violate federal law, is one important aspect of our nation’s approach to immigration policy. However, unless we do more, an enforcement-only approach will hurt the economy and cost American jobs over the long-term.

Although many people would rather not acknowledge it, undocumented workers play an important role in our economy by performing jobs that would otherwise largely go unfilled. Without their labor, for example, a large percentage of America’s farms would close, leading to the loss of millions of “upstream” and “downstream” jobs held by U.S. workers. The undocumented workers who fill agricultural jobs sweat and toil for low wages and often work far away from their families. Because they have no legal status, they—and their employers—often do not pay taxes. These workers also have no rights they can feasibly exercise, which results in a lowering of labor standards for all workers, including native-born American workers.

If we truly want to help law-abiding businesses and protect the rights of all American workers, we will find a way to bring undocumented workers out of the shadows and onto the tax rolls. The Obama Administration should continue to focus its worksite enforcement on “bad actor” employers who exploit the broken immigration system to undermine their competitors. By stopping employers who violate immigration and labor laws, our government would protect all workers—including native-born American workers—and help level the playing field for honest businesses. Illegal immigration is not a problem that happened overnight, and we cannot expect the Obama Administration to solve it overnight, especially without reform of our nation’s immigration laws.