• Pass mandatory E-Verify

Construction wages are rising at nearly 4 percent a year, and specialized trades in some markets are seeing increases of 9 to 11 percent. That is not a crisis — it is proof that immigration enforcement works for American workers. When jobs can no longer be filled with illegally underpaid labor, pay rises until Americans take them.

I urge you to support and pass H.R. 251, the Legal Workforce Act, to make employment verification mandatory for every employer in America. E-Verify shuts off the jobs magnet that drives illegal immigration in the first place, and it protects honest businesses from being undercut by competitors that break our hiring laws.

The wage gains American workers are seeing today depend on enforcement policies that a future administration could reverse with the stroke of a pen. Writing E-Verify into permanent law would protect those gains for good. Americans deserve an immigration system that works for American workers, and mandatory E-Verify is where it starts.

Greg Raven, Apple Valley, CA

Sent to:
Jay Obernolte