SAVE Act Threatens American Workers

Last month the House Republicans began the process that, they hope, will force a vote on the Shuler/Tancredo “SAVE Act” in the House of Representatives. Rep. Thelma Drake (R-VA) filed a discharge petition for the Shuler/Tancredo bill and GOP leadership hopes to get enough signatures to force through this ill-conceived measure.

Proponents of the bill only need 218 signatures in order to bypass normal committee procedures and force the SAVE Act to the floor. There are already 185 signatures on the discharge petition!

The fact is, trying to fix our broken immigration system through status quo enforcement alone is not a sensible solution. For over twenty years the U.S. has been ramping up border and interior enforcement exponentially, yet the number of undocumented immigrants in this country continues to grow. This only proves that deportation-only strategies fail as they ignore the reasons people come to the U.S. illegally in the first place.

If the SAVE Act were to become law, employers would continue to hire undocumented workers and immigrants would continue to cross the border without permission. This would simply push undocumented workers further into the cash economy and off the tax rolls, creating an even more exploitable group of workers, undermine wages and working conditions for all and threaten law-abiding employers.

Another consequence of the SAVE Act is it's flawed mandatory employer verification system. Because the bill does not have the necessary safeguards to address the system's design problems and database inaccuracies, American workers are not protected from wrongful termination.

TAKE ACTION NOW! Send a message to House members who have not signed the discharge petition for the SAVE Act (H.R. 4088).

Posted in: American Workers,Enforcement Only Legislation,SAVE Act,Shuler/Tancredo Proposal