Rep. Dave Brat has introduced H.R. 4340, the American LAWS Act. This legislation would go a long way to solving some of our nation’s most pressing immigration problems and I feel it is imperative that you and your colleagues on the House Republican Leadership and on the House immigration task force do all you can to get this legislation passed. Passing H.R. 4340 would help these disadvantaged Americans by ending chain migration and the visa lottery and mandating the use of the E-Verify system.
The United States admits more than 1 million new foreign workers each year and many of these new workers are admitted through the visa lottery and chain migration. Unfortunately, the majority admitted through these programs are less-educated and lower-skilled and compete directly against America’s most disadvantaged workers. This makes it more difficult for these Americans to find work and lowers wages for those who do find jobs.
Mandating the use of the E-Verify system would help to remove the roughly 7 million illegal aliens who work non-agricultural jobs from the workforce. These people are mostly in the construction, manufacturing, and service industries and fill the very jobs that less-educated and lower-skilled Americans would gladly work for a fair wage. Moreover, mandating the use of the E-Verify system would reduce illegal immigration as it would make it far more difficult for illegal aliens to find jobs, removing the key reason for coming to the U.S. illegally.
I hope you and your colleagues in leadership and on the immigration task force will get this bill to the House floor and get it passed as soon as possible.
Greg Raven, Apple Valley, CA
