Iowa businesses would be required to use the federal E-Verify system to ensure their employees are authorized to work in the United States under a bill passed Wednesday by Republicans in the Iowa Senate.
Knowingly hiring people not authorized to work in the U.S. is already a federal crime, but the bill would add a state-level business penalty for employers. An employer could lose their business license if they knowingly hire undocumented immigrants and are caught twice in three years.
Sen. Julian Garrett, R-Indianola, said the bill is needed because undocumented immigrants are desperate for work and are undercutting wages for others.
“It’s very unfair for law-abiding legitimate business and employees to have to compete with people that are coming across the border,” he said.
Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, said Republicans are turning their backs on the business community to prioritize making an anti-immigrant political statement. He said the bill sends this message to the major business groups that oppose it:
“We’re looking for you, and we’re going to penalize you,” Bisignano said. “And Casey’s, we’re going to run you out of the state of Iowa.”
Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said the bill would allow any member of the public to file a complaint with Iowa Workforce Development alleging an employer has hired someone illegally.
“That may be just because they don’t like how they look, because they see someone brown working on a roof, because they see someone brown working in the field,” she said.
Weiner also said even as some states have required E-Verify, it does not appear to have deterred people from crossing the southern U.S. border. She said if Republican lawmakers are truly concerned about the border, they should advocate for the passage of a bipartisan border bill at the federal level that got rejected by congressional Republicans.
Garrett said border security is probably the number one concern he hears about from constituents, and passing the E-Verify bill is a way to respond.
“It doesn’t make us look good to just slough that off and ignore it,” he said. “There’s not a lot we can do here in Iowa at the state level. This is something we can do, and I think it’ll make a difference.”
Vanessa Marcano-Kelly, an immigrant rights advocate and small business owner, said earlier this month that the E-Verify proposal is burdensome, inefficient and can wrongly flag people who are authorized to work.
“It puts a threat on Iowa’s workforce, on people who are trying to make a living and people who are trying to support their families, people who are trying to run businesses and people who are just trying to bring economic activity to Iowa and contribute,” she said.
Garrett said E-Verify results often come in three to five seconds, and he said less than 1 percent of job applicants are wrongly flagged by the system.
Democrats proposed an amendment that would make the requirement apply only to businesses with at least 50 employees, but Republicans rejected that, keeping it applicable to businesses of any size.
Garrett hasrepeatedly introduced E-Verify legislation for several years. The Senate passed the bill five years ago, but it has never been brought up for a vote by the full House of Representatives. The bill now goes to the House for consideration.
Republican lawmakers have also advanced bills this year to prevent undocumented immigrants from qualifying for in-state college tuition, to allow state courts to order deportations and to create a new crime of “human smuggling” to target people transporting undocumented immigrants in the state. These bills have not yet received a vote by the full House or Senate.
