Immigration Law

New Employment Immigration Regulation Eased After Firms Complain

By Robert Kraft

The Washington Post reports that the Department of Homeland Security will significantly scale back its planned crackdown this winter on federal contractors that hire illegal immigrants. Here are excerpts from the article:

Under a rule published yesterday, the agency said only contractors that do more than $100,000 in federal work will be required to use an electronic government system to check the work documents of new hires. Originally, officials had proposed that companies doing $3,000 in federal work must comply.

The agency also said it would require federal contractors to check only laborers used on specific contracts, instead of their entire workforce.

The revisions significantly reduce the number of companies that will be subject to the program, which will apply to federal contracts and solicitations issued after Jan. 15. The Bush administration had hoped to make the work eligibility system, called E-Verify, mandatory for nearly 200,000 government contractors, covering about 4 million U.S. workers over 10 years.

The change came after months of intense lobbying by business groups, which argued that the requirement singled out contractors, was unduly burdensome and was so big that it would overwhelm the government system. Randel K. Johnson, vice president and spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that the Bush administration "had been responsive to a substantial amount of business concerns," particularly by limiting the rule to large contractors, but that the chamber is reviewing its legal options.

Full post as published by Immigration Law Answers Blog on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).