White House Signals Intent To Work With GOP On Their Immigration Ideas

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)
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Immigration groups eager to see reform might not have been happy with Rep. Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) proposal to expand the E-Verify program, but they’re unlikely to be any more pleased with the White House’s response to it. President Obama has previously expressed support for the program, and the White House today left open the possibility of working to achieve Smith’s vision.

The program is described on the DHS website:

E-Verify is an Internet-based system that allows an employer, using information reported on an employee’s Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to determine the eligibility of that employee to work in the United States. For most employers, the use of E-Verify is voluntary and limited to determining the employment eligibility of new hires only.

There was originally a provision in Obama’s stimulus plan that would have required all businesses receiving stimulus funds to use E-Verify, but the Senate ultimately scrapped it because of inaccuracies in the program. A 2007 DHS study had concluded that “the database used for verification is still not sufficiently up to date to meet the requirements for accurate verification.”

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), a member of the Tea Party Caucus, was expected to take up the anti-immigration mantle once he became Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. He has previously advocated ending birthright citizenship, and has argued that President Obama has come “awfully close to a violation of [his] oath of office” by not securing the border.

But Smith may take a more subtle path once he becomes Chair in January, focusing on preventing illegal immigrants from holding jobs. Particularly, he told Politico that his first two hearings would focus on expanding the E-Verify program.

“They are what I call 70 percent issues — 70 percent or more of the American people support those efforts,” Smith told Politico. “I think they are popular across the board, and I think they will be appreciated by all American workers regardless of their ethnicity or background or anything else.”

In an e-mail to TPM today, an administration official said: “We’re open to any ideas for solving this problem; our standard will be – as it has always been – that we want to make sure that whatever proposals get put out there are effective without causing other kinds of problems. So we’re looking forward to whatever Smith has got that fills that description.”

Spokesmen from the pro-immigration groups the Center For Community Change and the National Immigration Forum did not immediately return TPM’s request for a response.

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