UPDATED:  June 28, 2011 11:33 PM
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CAPAC Leaders Oppose Bill Expanding E-Verify Program

Washington–Rep. Judy Chu, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), and Rep. Mike Honda, Chair of CAPAC’s Immigration Taskforce, are opposing Rep. Lamar Smith’s Legal Workforce Act, saying it would attempt to expand the use of the error-prone E-verify program.

E-Verify is a government Internet-based program that compares information from an employee’s Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 to data from U.S. government records.

Remarked Congressman Honda (D, CA) and CAPAC Chair Emeritus: “I agree that our broken immigration system doesn’t work and that we must take steps to fix it. However, simply expanding a flawed program without implementing other measures to protect workers is not the answer.”

Congresswoman Chu (D, CA) said: “E-verify hurts American workers, legal immigrants, small businesses, and our economic recovery efforts while doing nothing to fix our broken immigration system.”

She added if the bill becomes law, 1.3 million Americans and lawful workers would lose their jobs due to the program’s high error rates. “This will disproportionately affect the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, since 61 percent of AAPIs are foreign-born and the error rates of E-verify are 20 times higher for foreign-born workers and 30 times higher for naturalized citizens,” she stressed.

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