After the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Illinois' new law banning the use of Homeland Security's E-verify system for employee immigration status verification, Senator Iris Martinez (D-Chicago) proposed a change this session to line up Illinois law with federal law. The Illinois Senate recently passed unanimously SB 1878, which would lift the E-verify ban and allow its use, but still discourage employers from running the federal check on job applicants' immigration status.
SB 1878 was picked up in the Illinois House by State Rep. Randy Ramey (R-West Chicago) who said after the bill sat for almost a week with no House sponsor picking it up, decided that the bill should be amended to make changes more likely to protect employers from unknowingly breaking federal law by mistakenly hiring illegal immigrants.
IR Contributor Rosanna Pulido voiced her concerns about the Illinois Senate unanimously passing this amendment on to the House. Over this past weekend, State Senator Chris Lauzen (R-Aurora) responded on her April 14 post with this explanation for supporting Senator Martinez' bill in the Senate. His response bears our full attention:
Two weeks ago, Rosanna Pulido wrote an unnecessarily insulting and uninformed column about SB1878 in which she misled her readers saying, “Oh and Chris Lauzen who voted NO the first time on HB1744 that caused the Department of Homeland Security to file a lawsuit against the State of Illinois had it right the first time, but I guess now Chris has seen the light!! Cheap labor for all!!”
Although I agree with her that “Illinois needs E-Verify now”, that was not the imperfect bill that was before us for the vote. The incredible and seemingly irrational current law in Illinois is that employers are prohibited from using a database to check if their new hirees are in this country legally. I believe that the status quo could not be worse for those of us who oppose illegal immigration. “I voted “Yes” to change the status quo.”
As the Elgin Courier reported accurately and Rosanna did not share in her attack, “Employers across the state soon could be using the federal government’s E-Verify and other web-based employee-verification systems to ensure they are employing legal residents. Senate Bill 1878 which would lift last years’ statewide ban on the use of such programs, recently was passed in a unanimous Illinois Senate Vote (57 – 0).”
SB1878 marginally improved - but did improve - that status quo by removing the statutory prohibition, thus allowing Illinois employers to use E-verify. Language in the bill “discouraged” employers from using it, but there were no enforcement provisions to that discouragement. This legislation also made moot expensive and distracting litigation by overturning current law. If Rosanna had been present during the debate in committee or had she extended to either Bill Brady or me the simple courtesy of a single telephone call to ask us why we voted as we did before she launched her sarcastic rebuke, she could have been informed that these advantages were explicitly discussed by members of the Senate Republican caucus.
I understand that Mrs. Pulido is an ardent fan of Jim Oberweis to the exclusion of all other conscientious conservatives, but it is not a constructive activity to intentionally or unintentionally mislead, denigrate, and/or alienate the few allies that have those of us who are opponents to illegal immigration have left in Illinois. A “no” vote, as Mrs. Pulido seems to recommend, would have merely sustained and protected the current unacceptable law.
When our opponents concede ground, the least we can do is accept the small victories we achieve.
Senator Chris Lauzen
See also IR's posts: Roskam blames Blagojevich for E-Verify debacle, Illinois agrees to temporarily back off E-verify bans on E-verify, Congressional GOP candidate Lauzen outlines immigration policy;
