Rep. Calvert Applauds the Passage of the Legal Workforce Act by the Judiciary Committee

Today, Congressman Ken Calvert (CA-42) applauded the passage of the Legal Workforce Act, H.R. 3711, which preserves jobs for citizens and legal workers by requiring U.S. employers to check the work eligibility of all future hires through the E-Verify system. The Legal Workforce Act was introduced by Congressman Lamar Smith (TX-21), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (VA-6), and Rep. Calvert.

"American jobs should only go to citizens and people legally authorized to work in our country," said Rep. Calvert. "I applaud the Committee passage of the Legal Workforce Act and look forward to the bill coming to the House floor in the future. I want to thank House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Rep. Smith for advancing this bill and their leadership on this issue."

In 1996, Rep. Calvert authored the law that created the E-Verify program, the only tool available for employers to voluntarily check the legal work status of newly hired employees. Since then, Rep. Calvert has worked steadily over the years to expand E-Verify and pushed to make it mandatory.

E-Verify is operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), E-Verify checks the social security numbers of newly hired employees against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security records to help ensure that they are genuinely eligible to work in the U.S. The program quickly confirms 99.8% of work-eligible employees and takes less than two minutes to use. Nearly 740,000 American employers currently use E-Verify. A summary of key components of the Legal Workforce Act can be found here.

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