Congresswoman Giffords in the News: Immigration

SOURCE The Valley of the Sun Human Resource Association

A More Reliable Alternative to E-Verify Sought by Valley of the Sun Human Resources Association

PHOENIX, June 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Valley of the Sun Human Resources Association (VSHRA) today endorsed the New Employee Verification Act (NEVA), as introduced by U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). NEVA is intended to improve on the E-Verify program, which Arizona requires all employers to use, yet has been criticized for inaccuracies and a vulnerability to fraud and identity theft.

NEVA is intended to prevent unauthorized work in the United States by requiring verification of all new hires through the use of a more reliable, technologically advanced verification system than currently exists.

“Employers in Arizona are in an increasingly difficult position. If an unauthorized worker is added to the payroll, our companies face severe consequences in terms of fines and potential loss of license. Yet we have no foolproof system to determine whether an applicant is presenting forged or stolen identity documents,” said Kelsie McClendon, President, Valley of the Sun Human Resources Association.

McClendon noted that the E-Verify system only matches names and birthdates and with Social Security Numbers or Immigration Document Numbers. If these items match, such as the case with identity theft, the system will return the individual as an authorized worker even if those documents don’t belong to the person presenting them.

“Although E-Verify provides an employer a defense from prosecution in Arizona if an unauthorized worker is hired, it doesn’t provide protection from the costs of business disruptions caused by local and federal law enforcement investigations and workplace raids, nor potential legal costs,” McClendon continued. “NEVA will go a long way towards rectifying this situation and improving employment verification throughout the country.”

The Giffords legislation would create a voluntary biometrics option that employers could choose to use in the verification process. This system would include a standard background check and the collection of a “biometric” characteristic — such as a thumbprint — to secure an employee’s identity and prevent the illegal use a Social Security number, stolen or fraudulently-obtained drivers’ license, or altered identification documents.

“Arizona’s HR professionals can be part of the solution to preventing unauthorized workers, we just need an effective tool to help us achieve our common goal,” said Larry R. Betz, Chair of the VSHRA Legislative Action Committee. “We commend Representative Giffords for a forward-thinking look at the problem of employment verification, and urge others in the Arizona Congressional delegation to co-sponsor NEVA.”

The Valley of the Sun Human Resource Association (VSHRA) is a Superior Merit Award chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). With over 400 members representing over 250 companies throughout metropolitan Phoenix, VSHRA the largest local chapter of the Arizona State SHRM Council. Founded in 1947, VSHRA is an organization committed to advancing the profession through educational and career development opportunities, networking and community involvement.

ARIZONA DAILY STAR Published: 05.22.2009
Editorial

When President Obama unveiled his detailed budget plan earlier this month, he proposed eliminating or trimming 121 programs in an effort to save $17 billion in the next fiscal year. He said some of the cuts were “more painful than others.”

One cut, we believe, was also more irresponsible than others.

The Obama plan would eliminate the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP, which helps states partially offset costs they incur to prosecute and imprison illegal entrants. The program received $400 million last year.

This cut is unconscionable because it makes border states pay all the law-enforcement costs associated with illegal immigration, which is a federal responsibility. It is, after all, the United States border.

Many members of Congress justifiably were quick to criticize the elimination of SCAAP funding. We call on them to continue fighting to save the program.

Former President Bush also eliminated funding for SCAAP in his 2009 budget, but lawmakers were able to restore the money.

We would like to see a repeat of that effort this year.

Soon after Obama unveiled his budget, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., signed a bipartisan letter asking the Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., to reject the Obama proposal and fund SCAAP.
The letter, dated May 8, says: “Border protection and enforcement of immigration laws remains a federal responsibility. We will continue to make our case to the new administration that SCAAP is an important component of the Department of Justice’s support of state and local law enforcement.”

That same day, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., joined fellow Arizona Democratic Reps. Harry Mitchell and Ann Kirkpatrick in writing a letter to House appropriations leaders urging renewal of SCAAP funding. Since then, 20 other lawmakers – 15 Democrats and five Republicans – have co-signed the letter.

“I’m working very hard, along with other members of Congress, to make sure the federal government stands up to its responsibilities,” Giffords told us Thursday. “State and local governments are spending a lot of tax money to make up for the federal government’s failure to protect the border. They need to be compensated for it.”

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and other state law-enforcement agencies received $17.4 million in SCAAP funding in 2008 and $18.4 million in 2007.

That may sound like a decent sum, but for years border-area law-enforcement agencies have been receiving about 10 cents for every dollar they spend to prosecute and incarcerate illegal entrants.
With local governments straining to pay for essential services, cutting payments for doing the federal government’s job is wrong.

Gov. Jan Brewer made an issue of the SCAAP cut in a speech Wednesday to the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, calling it another example of the federal government’s unpaid bills.
“I have personally spoken to President Obama about this and asked that he re-review his plans to eliminate the so-called SCAAP funds,” Brewer said.

Giffords said her office has been in touch with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, in an attempt to persuade the administration to renew SCAAP funding.

“She gets this,” Giffords said of Napolitano. “She herself has billed the federal government for border costs. We think she can be a conduit to the president.”

Giffords expressed cautious optimism that SCAAP funding can be restored. She also added this it is an issue with support on both sides of the aisle and from lawmakers who don’t live in border states. Lawmakers from Massachusetts, New York and Ohio have signed her letter.

Border communities are unfairly burdened by the government’s failure to solve the illegal-immigration problem.

Until that issue is solved, border states should be reimbursed for trying to clean up the federal government’s mess.

Sierra Vista Herald  – May 2, 2009

Opinion > Letters To Editor

To the Editor:

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, recently re-introduced bipartisan legislation (H.R. 2029 — New Employee Verification Act) that would replace the current federal employee verification system — E-Verify — with a more effective program.

While it is technically true that Giffords wants to end the E-Verify program (“Lawmaker wants to scrap E-Verify system,” April 23), it is more accurate to say that she wants to replace it with a new paperless Electronic Employment Verification System (EEVS) that is tougher, fairer and that would apply to every company in the United States.

Currently, Arizona and a few other locations have laws that require employers to participate in the E-Verify program even though there is no federal mandate for enrollment. The New Employer Verification Act (NEVA) would require all employers throughout the nation to use the new system to ensure that workers are legal. A federal program would have a more meaningful impact to curb illegal hires than ones that are imposed on a state-by-state basis.

The NEVA provides real sanctions for companies that fail to use the system and evade the law. It systematically increases the civil and criminal penalties for hiring illegal workers. In some cases, the penalties under the NEVA are more than 10 times the current federal penalty. The EEVS is a more accurate and user-friendly system than what is currently available. Employers confirm eligibility by entering employee identification data through a state’s “new hire” reporting program, a database that more than 90 percent of employers currently use.

By implementing a system that is more reliable and efficient than E-Verify, Giffords’ legislation not only safeguards U.S. citizens’ identities and protects against immigrants who commit identity fraud, it also levels the playing field by requiring employers in all states to adhere to the same employment requirements. As the country moves towards mandatory employee verification, her effort is a thoughtful step forward.

Glenn Hamer
President and CEO
Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry

ARIZONA DAILY STAR – Published: 05.01.2009

Our view: Bill would make employers’ legal status checks more accurate, useful

Although it’s only one of several steps needed to fix the nation’s broken immigration system, we believe federal legislation aimed at revamping the way businesses check on potential employees’ work eligibility should move forward.

As outlined in the New Employee Verification Act of 2009, which was re-introduced last week by U.S. Reps. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and Sam Johnson, R-Texas, the program promises to be more efficient, less error-prone and would, for the first time, be mandatory for companies nationwide looking to hire workers.

To check the eligibility of potential workers, companies can use a system called E-Verify, which is voluntary. Only about 2 percent of employers nationwide have used the system, according to the bill.

Arizona is the only state that mandates businesses use E-Verify to screen would-be employees. Some municipalities in other states also require businesses to use the system.

However, E-Verify is far from perfect. It has been criticized for providing erroneous results due to name changes, citizenship-status updates and data-entry or data-processing errors. Johnson and Giffords also said there have been cases of identity theft involving E-Verify.

The New Employee Verification Act would do away with E-Verify and replace it with the Electronic Employment Verification System that builds upon E-Verify.

Like E-Verify, the new system would be linked to the nation’s Homeland Security and Social Security databases. However, the new system would also tie into the National Directory of New Hires, a database used by states and 90 percent of U.S. employers to improve enforcement of child-support payments. We believe this is a critical improvement that would keep the database current and reduce errors in verifying employment eligibility.

The act would also give Homeland Security and Social Security more funding to improve and update their databases and verification programs.

Not surprisingly, the legislation has been criticized by immigration hawks in Arizona. They rail at the fact that the act would supercede state laws regarding employment verification.

State Sen. Russell Pearce wrote Arizona’s 15-month-old employer-sanctions law, which threatens businesses with the loss of their license for knowingly hiring undocumented workers. In discussing the federal legislation, he told Capitol Media Services last week: “These folks are so dishonest, so pro-open border, so pro-illegal alien that they ignore the damage to America. They’re doing anything they can, for whatever group is moving them, to open these borders and stop enforcement.”

It should be noted that while Arizona’s employer-sanctions law is mandatory, it has resulted in no businesses — zero — losing their licenses.

What the employer-sanctions law has done is act as a deterrent. If law-abiding business owners know they can lose their license for hiring illegal immigrants, they will probably be less likely to do so.

We’re not sure what Pearce is complaining about. The deterrent factor will remain, only it would apply to businesses nationwide that would be subjected to civil and criminal penalties if they hire illegal workers.

“Our bill would create the nation’s first mandatory employee-verification system for all U.S. employees,” Giffords said last week.

The Star reported in December that the state law has been largely unused. Ten of Arizona’s 15 counties had received one or no formal complaints and no cases resulted in Superior Court action, according to a study by Judith Gans, immigration-policy program manager at the University of Arizona’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.

We’ve editorialized many times that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. The Giffords-Johnson bill puts the job of verifying employees more into federal hands, with federal enforcement provisions. We believe that’s an improvement over having myriad laws enacted by states or communities.

Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, supports the measure.

“While it is technically true that Rep. Giffords wants to end the E-Verify program, it is more accurate to say that she wants to replace it with a new paperless Electronic Employment Verification System that is tougher, fairer and that would apply to every company in the United States,” Hamer said in a letter to the Star.

“A federal program would have a more meaningful impact to curb illegal hires than ones that are imposed on a state-by-state basis.”

We still want to see comprehensive immigration reform that includes better border enforcement and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that are making valuable contributions to society.

As part of that total package, employers should be able to verify who is eligible to work in the United States and who is not. The New Employee Verification Act would help businesses do that, not only in Arizona but across the country.

East Valley Tribune, April 15, 2009

Bill Richardson, Commentary

“We are dealing with a lethal narco-insurgency!”  Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

On April 7, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., hosted a border-related crime summit in Tucson. City, county, state and federal law enforcement officials from Arizona’s border counties, Pinal County, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., attended.

Southern and central Arizona have long been destinations for organized crime. Thanks to years of neglect by state government, Arizona is now the gateway to the United States for the Mexican drug cartels.

David Gonzales, the U.S. marshal for Arizona, described Giffords’ sit-down as a milestone in addressing the problems. Gonzales, a former southern Arizona undercover narcotics agent and gang unit commander, had high praise for Giffords.

The summit focused on the totality of the state’s cross border crime problem, not just illegal immigration. Human smuggling is one of many profit sources for domestic and international organized crime that makes tens of billions of dollars from the United States’ growing supermarket of crime. Border control is just part of the solution.

The congresswoman obviously sees and understands what’s really going on. She wanted facts, not emotion and bravado. She got what she asked for, no holds barred!

Giffords assembled some of the best minds in the business. Ritchie Martinez, a criminal intelligence analysis supervisor from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Center, told Giffords that cartel members are in Arizona to protect business interests and expand their markets. HIDTA is a significant source of federal funding and support for successful local law enforcement projects designed to combat cross-border and organized crime in Arizona.

Martinez has spent 36 years working the border and is one of the top criminal intelligence experts in the world.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told KJZZ radio (91.5 FM) following the summit that violence stemming from Mexico’s ongoing drug war is here.

Gonzales, who also heads the Arizona HIDTA leadership team, said “organized crime groups with ties to the drug cartels are here, growing and joining forces with, or charging other criminals taxes to conduct criminal activity in the state.”

In a March 25 Associated Press story, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, who also attended the summit, said, “the cartels are responsible for kidnappings, shootings, rapes and banditry” in his county.

In 2007 there were 30,600 violent crimes and 279,794 serious property crimes reported in Arizona. Statewide only about one in five is solved. U.S. Department of Justice officials have attributed 80 percent of all crimes committed to organized crime groups and have reported the presence of Mexican organized crime in Arizona. The Congressional Quarterly announced in March that Arizona is America’s eighth most dangerous state.

Recent seizures of Mexican heroin in northern Arizona show how far-reaching the problem is. And the recent arrests of American street gangsters in Phoenix and San Diego for two separate multimillion-dollar fraudulent enterprises demonstrate a new level of diversification by cunning organized criminals who have long been thought of as only being capable of dealing drugs, drive-by shootings and stealing beer.

The congresswoman expressed concern about the state’s need for resources and the ability of law enforcement officials to share information and move rapidly and collectively against the growing and increasingly unified enemy of organized crime. She told meeting attendees that “communication and cooperation are not optional!”

Unfortunately Arizona is lacking significantly when it comes to effective communications. For years, state officials have chosen not to spend a small portion of the millions in federal pubic safety aid it receives on an urgently needed cooperative statewide criminal information collection, sharing and communications system for law enforcement.

Even though the Legislature has pledged $1.6 million for Maricopa County immigration sweeps, the state won’t fund a $2.5 million information sharing project to allow every police officer in Arizona to communicate and share information on crime and criminals.

Giffords’ summit jump-started a long overdue, serious, apolitical and nonpartisan discussion of the crime problem that’s permeated the border and made its presence well known throughout the rest of Arizona.

Her “take the point” leadership is extremely refreshing.

Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at .

Sierra Vista Herald Published: Sunday, March 15, 2009

By Keith J. Allen

SIERRA VISTA – U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has called on two top federal officials to address a rise in “border violence and drug trafficking.”

In letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday, Giffords also invited the two Cabinet members or representatives of their departments to a closed-door summit on April 8 in Southern Arizona to discuss the border issues.

“A comprehensive approach to addressing the crisis on our southern border is imperative and I stand committed to working with you to make the U.S.-Mexico relationship a top priority in the Obama administration,” the final paragraph of the Arizona Democrat’s letter says.

The Eighth Congressional District that Giffords represents is one of 10 districts that borders the U.S.-Mexico border. Cochise County is part of Giffords’ district.

The district, which is within the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, has been the nation’s busiest sector for illegal immigrant apprehensions and marijuana seizures.

The congresswoman, who also is a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, notes in her letter that more than 1,000 deaths have occurred in Mexico this year and about 6,000 last year due to drug cartel violence.

“In addition, Phoenix now ranks second in the world – after Mexico City – in kidnappings. This is unacceptable and it is clear that bold and collaborative action by the U.S. and Mexican governments is needed,” her letter says.

Giffords uses the November killing of Sonoran police director Juan Manuel Pavon Felix as an example of the need to “strengthen our international partnership with Mexico against the current increase in border violence impacting both of our countries.” She said she met the police director during a November ceremony highlighting the cooperative anti-crime operations being done by U.S. and Mexican law enforcement.

The congresswoman also tells Clinton and Napolitano that she voiced concerns about the Bush administration’s funding request for the Merida Initiative, a program that provides aid to Mexico to battle drug trafficking. Those concerns, she said, range from lack of coordination between U.S. agencies and no “measurable benchmarks” to determine success.

“I remain dismayed that this plan has not produced any clear results in stemming the flood of drugs, guns, fugitives and violence that continues to spill into our country, and my district,” she writes.

Giffords’ letters come just a day after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer sent a letter to the U.S. Defense Department requesting 250 National Guard troops be stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.

During an interview with the Herald/Review editorial board on Thursday, the Republican governor said she would be negligent if she didn’t ask for federal assistance, and that she is concerned about the drug cartel violence in Mexico. She said it is the federal government’s responsibility to protect the nation’s borders.

“We should be able to feel safe in our country,” she said.

In her letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Brewer said Arizona faces “a number of unique and/or disproportionate challenges relative to other states.”

Napolitano, who held the Arizona governorship before resigning to take the homeland security role in the Obama administration, also asked for federal assistance regarding illegal immigration, including urging the Bush administration last year not to remove National Guard troops from working on the border.

During a visit to Cochise County last month, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard also expressed concern about the deadly drug cartel feud in Mexico and that it could spread into Arizona. He noted there have been a higher number of kidnappings in the Phoenix area related to smuggling, and that smugglers were adjusting their tactics along Arizona’s border with Mexico.