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Excerpt from Lou Dobbs Tonight Show Transcript
This show aired on CNN September 23, 2008
[...]
Well e-verify one of the federal government's most successful programs targeting workplace enforcement of our immigration laws is now in danger of being eliminated and leaders on the congress are hoping you will won't will paying attention because at the presidential election, because of that campaign and of course the turmoil on Wall Street and under cover of all of that, they are trying to kill the program. Supporters of the program said it's all because one senator wants to link the program to an expansion of legal immigration, one senator.
Casey Wian has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 13% of new employees are now being checked through e-verify, a voluntary federal program allowing employers to determine if new hires are using legitimate social security numbers. More than 87,000 businesses have signed up for the service. It's said to be 99.5% accurate and according to the Department of Homeland Security, it can help protect companies for being prosecuted for hiring illegal aliens.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: The value of e- verify, assuming a company uses it in good faith, it will be a defense.
WIAN: However, the e-verify program expires in November. The house overwhelmingly passed a five-year reauthorization in July. The senate has failed to act. Time is running out because lawmakers will adjourn from October 1st at least through the presidential election.
JANICE KEPHART, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: E-verify has huge broad bipartisan support. On the senate side, they have been unable to get action because one senator has decided to put a hold on it, Senator Menendez from New Jersey.
WIAN: Last Thursday night, Menendez blocked he is in support of e-verify. He's demanding the senate agree to admit between 300,000 and 550,000 additional legal immigrants to the United States next year, family members of legal permanent residents and citizens. SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: I think we are being reasonable and it is not able a broad comprehensive immigration reform.
WIAN: The Department of Homeland Security urged lawmakers to extend e-verify, saying it is one of the nation's best and most effective tools for ensuring a legal workforce.
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALABAMA: If the congress allows e-verify to expire it would rightly cause every American, hearing members of the senate and congress, promises to restore of rule of law to immigration, they would know we are not serious at all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIAN: Studies recently examined e-verify and found that it rejected about five percent of the new employees whose identities were run through the system which is about the same percentage of illegal aliens estimated in the U.S. workplace. Another example they say that e-verify is working.
DOBBS: It is precisely the reason that Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader and of course Bob Menendez want to kill the program along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. I just cannot imagine how Bob Menendez can manage to smile, even lightly, when he discusses the national interest, how he can even embrace the concept of being an American, when he is putting obviously his views of the illegal immigration ahead of the national interest. It's unconscionable what he is doing.
WIAN: We contacted Senator Menendez's office today both by phone and by email to get him to explain this linking of legal immigration with the program designed to target illegal aliens and he did not get back to us.
DOBBS: I can help you out there. It just so happens I can help you out there. Right up to June 28, 2007 as the senate was preparing to vote on closure, he was demanding more visas to bring in the families of illegal aliens who would be granted amnesty and move to the front of the line. This is unconscionable what is happening and I would urge everybody watching this broadcast to tell your senator how I want them to vote on the issue of e-verify whether you want it authorized or not. I hope you do because it's one of the few programs that actually works. 99.5% effective according to the General Accountability Office. That is why the powers that be want to you ignore it and to let Senator Menendez where have his way. We will have more for you. Tell your friends and family. Because this is one senator destroying the one program that works. And by the way, the democratic leadership in the house and senate sure hope he gets his way.[...]
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