#NCGA: Bill reversing 2013 E-verify water-down intro’ed in House
Governor Pat McCrory knocked heads with the General Assembly — and lost — on the issue of waiving the use of E-verify to do residency checks on temporary workers across the state. Now, it appears that a group of Republican House members is seeking to repeal the legislation passed despite the governor’s veto.
Reps. Cleveland, Millis and Conrad are sponsoring HB 1184, which seeks to repeal the e-verify exemption for temporary workers and appropriates funds for an extra investigator.
House speaker Thom Tillis supported the exemption in 2013, but has talked tough about illegal immigration during his 2014 Senate campaign. The bill was sent to the House Judiciary Commitee on May 22.
If you encounter Speaker Thom on the campaign trail, ask him about this bill and when we might see a vote on it.
Tillis talked out of both sides of his mouth on illegal immigration, such as telling the NC Farm Bureau that he supported ”a pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens. He also supported legislation to gut e-Verify and to give illegals drivers licenses,
Tillis is a control freak, and this bill will need his green light to get a hearing. If it does not, Tillis; fingerprints will be evident.
So, I looked up the current text of the bill – it does simply marks out the 9-month exemption – which I entirely support. 🙂
But, then it adds a provision for a waiver to potentially be granted to agricultural employers who request one. Other than the obvious politics of having to gather support, I cant see a reason why that would be necessary.
I’ll mull it over some, but I’m not getting the need for it – if an American citizen or other eligible worker cant get their documentation together and pass an E-verify check…. then that person shouldnt be getting employed anywhere and employers shouldnt be hiring that person – at all. That person needs to go handle their business and get their paperwork straight.
The prior setup of allowing a 90 day grace period for getting the check completed seems much more the proper way to go.
Still… this is much better than that abysmal amendment we saw mentioned here earlier in the week. 🙂 As for Tillis, that’ll be interesting. He’ll talk whatever talk you want if you write a big enough check, but he’ll have to figure some interesting political calculations if he’s gonna be forced to do anything now. My guess is he’ll try to kill it via proxy with as low a profile as possible, hope it blows over, and keep trying to ride the noncommittal fence on immigration.