H.B. 294 Employer Verification Amendments: transcript

Thank you. Is it on? Okay. Couldn't hear. So, committee, I am here to, um, bring a bill to you that I know that we talked about this topic last year, and, um, you'll see that it's a a little bit different this year. Um, to give some background, um, where this came from, when I very first got my job out of college as an accountant, I worked at, um, a construction company, and I ran all of their social security numbers through and came back with a lot of name and numbers don't match. And so I, I sent out letters to the employees and I had many of them come to me and say, I paid good money for this number. This is a real number. And that was my first experience realizing that it wasn't just people coming here undocumented and trying to work undocumented. It was stealing people's identities so that they were able to work. And, um, so that was, that was my first thing. Then as a parent, um, I, I have some kids, and so I was looking to put credit freezes on their social security numbers and then, um, also to lock it for employment. And I realized that you cannot lock a child's social security number and you have to be 16 or older in order to do that. So, um, we have lots of instances of children who have no knowledge that someone is using their number and coming to age later and, and wanting to go work and realizing that they owe a bunch of BA back taxes, or they have to spend years trying to figure out and untangle the issues that they had with someone using their identity. And I would say that our kids are targeted more than anyone else because there are so many years where no one will be looking at that information. So, um, I, we are E-Verify Bill used to, or E-Verify used to be at 15. And during COVID, we changed it up to one 50. Um, I'm here speaking to, um, the, the amendment or the sub that would bring it down to 100. And I think that we need to move slowly and, um, give businesses time to adjust and also, um, just show our constituents who I know reach out to me and say, Hey, what are we doing about this? Why are we having so many people, um, in our country that we're not doing anything about? And so, um, I know some of the, the things that were brought up last year was that many people don't feel like E-Verify has many teeth to it, or, or very much. And I would say that there was a report done that the Federal Reserve did a research paper that they showed by Utah, just having E-Verify on the books that it lowered the projected number of a legal workforce by 34%. So while we're not making business, um, owners, the enforcement arm for the government, um, it, it just has a dampening effect, um, just by being there. And so, um, I think that this is a doable change and moving in the right direction without being such a dramatic shift. And I know you guys have a, a pact, um, agenda, so I won't take too much time, but I think that it would be worthwhile to show that we're making some movement in that area.

Yes, it does. Okay.

Representative Moss, chair Malloy. Thank you Mr. Vice Chair, uh, representative. Thank you for being here and appreciate your presentation. Um, just for the record, uh, we talked, you talked about numbers 150 50 and your, your amendments at a hundred. Can you just tell us what those numbers mean? Uh, just for the record, I think a lot of us do know, but I think it'd be, oh yeah, sorry. Um, so right now our statute says that if you are a business that has over 150 employees, then you have to, um, use the E-Verify system. And my bill would be changing that too if you have over a hundred employees.

Thank you. Thank you, representative Wynn. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. And I thank you for bringing this bill forward. I know that, you know, our children's identity absolutely is paramount. There are a lot of bills out there right now that do tackle identity theft, and I think those are warranted. Those are needed to make sure that not just our children, but any, any citizens, any Utahans identities are protected with this bill lowering the amount from one 50 to a hundred.

Have you had conversations with, um, different associations? Have they supported this? Where are their members, members, like, you know, chambers of Commerce or Farm Bureau or the Trade Association, where are they on this bill?

Yeah, so I have talked to members of, um, the Farm Bureau and I've talked to Chambers of Commerce, and I'm sure other people will be here. I've talked to, um, you know, construction. Um, I would say that there are many who have chosen not to support or oppose this, and I think there will be some here who are opposed. But I think that this is a very measured response. You can see that the original bill was 50, and I think if you look at last year, it was a lot tighter than that. So, um, as I said, I think it's a measured response that's doable for most of these Businesses. So the conversations you had, you're saying a hundred at a hundred, it's doable.

Um, is there any kind of enforcement in this bill where if employers who had a hundred or more employees did not use E-Verify what happens to these employers right now?

So I think I, I talked about that a little bit before that last year. Um, there was a lot of talk about the teeth and, you know, what teeth is actually in the bill. And, um, the Federal Reserve saying that by just having it, it reduced the projected workforce of illegals by 34%. Um, I have faith in our business owners that they will follow the law. And so I'm, I'm, I don't think that I need to worry about that or not that's gonna be up to them to decide, but I think it's up to us to show what message that we're, we're sending to the citizens

of our state who are worried about this And we're worried about identity theft. So, so if it's identity theft that we're worried about, why are we putting it on the backs of family owned, small, locally owned businesses, which generally falls under the definition of a hundred or less employees, where we are now requiring them to be immigration law enforcement to scrutinize these documents. Because in speaking, with a lot of these business owners, they are doing the thing that they're supposed to be doing. They are taking social security numbers, they're taking IDs, they are going through submitting it, filling out the I nine forms. And then, you know, to the best of their knowledge, they are trying to be upstanding members of society as business owners, as job creators to go and do that. But where this bill forces them to scrutinize these documentations a lot more, it's now getting them into the position of making them the immigration law enforcement, you know, beyond their scope of being able to really scrutinize these documents and taking away from, from being able to really do what they're doing as business owners and job creators.

So I reject the fact, the statement that we're making them enforcement. We're not making them enforcement, as you've said, that there's nothing in this bill that says that they would have to, so they're already taking this information, running it through the I nines as an 18-year-old, it was not hard for me to run through Social Security numbers. It's not a burden. It's pretty easy to do. And I think if we're talking about small businesses and, and family owned businesses, uh, the vast majority of them are under 100 employees. And, and even if they are over a hundred employees, they are running these I nine forms through, they are submitting the paperwork work to the IRS, like they're supposed to. It comes back, there's no documents. They're just proceeding on like they should.

Do you fear that this will make it harder? Because we had testimony last year from E-Verify from different folks with experience with E-Verify that it is not the most reliable, uh, method, most reliable database on information. The turnaround time does take a lot longer. And where a lot of these industries, like the manufacturing industry, the agriculture industry, the um, construction industry, that it's pretty competitive to try to find employees in those, uh, in these industries. And we're, when we're requiring them to use E-Verify or wait for the response that can take days, weeks, that they're not gonna have an employee, he's gonna be willing to wait for it. Do, do you find that it is something that employee employers should bear the burden with this policy?

Like I said, I don't think it's a burden. I just called it the Social Security Administration and asked, Hey, does this name match this number? And I figured it out that same day. So, um, I don't, I don't think that this is anything unusual to ask for a small business and someone just doing regular bookkeeping can figure it out quite easily.

I will, I will bring this to the larger context, if I may. Um, right now, when I pull the numbers on, we know that this is a tight budget year. We know our revenue's down. I think in one of my earlier committees in revenue tax, they said we're actually doing pretty well because of our rainy day fund, which is great. However, the projected near future revenue is not looking great right now. And our, between our agriculture, our construction, our accommodations industry, it's pulling in 20 about roughly 25 billion in revenue for the state. Now, when you speak to business owners, they are saying they are having a heck of a time right now trying to find employees. My fear with this bill, when we adopt a bill, that's just not quite hitting the crux of what the bill sponsor's saying is it's gonna protect identity theft, which I agree with, but not in this type of manner, this type of policy that it takes it on the backs of business owners when we hurt an industry that's already bringing in $25 billion in revenue and we're in a tight revenue budget as it is, and the forecast does not look good for the economy, for them to be able to really bring in more income for the state, I really feel this is the wrong direction if we, if we pass this bill through that's already hurting these industries and, and these industries are really good generator for revenue for the state. So, so thank thank you for, for having this discussion and, and I'll leave it there for now.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Vice chair. I just wanna make a statement, if I may, um, I support this bill. Um, we sat here last year and went through it in, in excruciating detail. And I think this sponsor has improved the bill. I come from Orchard Country and, uh, the, the primary complaint last year was with, uh, agricultural workers. But I can tell you the orchard men that I know handle this very professionally, they bring back the same people every year. They use the system very effectively because they want the continuity, those employees, the same people each year. And so I think this is a good start and a, and a good bill, and I'll be voting for it. Thank you.

Representing you. Yeah. Hello, Mr. Chair. Uh, my name is Casey Hill and, uh, today I am representing NFIB, the National Federation of Independent Businesses. NFIB represents approximately 3,500 small businesses in Utah. And the definition of small business, um, kind of varies based upon the issue in the area that we're dealing with. Um, I was actually, uh, initially planning, uh, to speak against this bill based on the 50 number. Um, but I feel like the number that we, that, that the sponsor has landed on at a hundred as a reasonable number for, um, our association members to be able to deal with. So I appreciate, uh, her willingness to, to work with small business owners. Um, there are, you know, challenges that small business owners, um, you know, struggle with. While E-Verify is not, uh, is not a significant time constraint, um, in, in order to comply and doesn't have costs associated with it per se. There are costs associated with the time that goes into verifying these, um, the, these employees to ensure that the employer is, is, is following the law. There's staff training, there's administrative record keeping that goes along with it, time spent resolving issues. If you do, uh, find that you, you have, uh, uh, a situation, um, legal consultation when again, you find that there's someone that, uh, may, uh, may have triggered the, the system. So these are challenges that are disproportionate for small business owners when they're facing a situation where they don't maybe have a, um, a sophisticated hr, um, program or team involved. And so typically, once you get into companies that are in the 100 employee range, you start to have those kind of sophist, more sophisticated HR systems. So again, we feel like it's a, a good and a fair number and probably, um, something that we, well, not probably, but it is something that we are willing to work with over the next year and see how it works for our employers and, and receive feedback from them on that thing. So just wanna say we, we thank her for her work on that. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, I just wanted to ask, has the federal government made it any easier to use the E-Verify platform? I know there was a time where that was problematic. Yeah. Uh, thank you.

The, the answer is, is the system has become easier to use over, uh, I think when we started this process, I think, uh, representative er mentioned that it was back in around 2020 or 2021 when the number was, was adjusted. Um, that system has improved since then. Um, like I said, the burden, I, I don't want to overstate the burden. I think I just wanna be realistic about, uh, about the challenge that it is, um, for, um, for our small business owners. It's just another example of times where, uh, these type of requirements are, they're more significant for our small business owners, um, than they are for a larger, sophisticated company to, to handle.

Yes. I appreciate it. Just because you, uh, are the, the result of what companies have to do. I have three questions. Is it just in Googling it, it says, it sends, it is six to $10 an employee as a cost. Is that true? It also says it's not necessarily reliable and can cause false positives. And my question is, is this really just a message bill? How much is it really used just because there's no, is anybody even asking employers if they're doing this? Or is it just on their own accord?

Um, well, our, I think I'm now speaking on behalf of, again, a group of 3,500 employees or, uh, 3,500 companies that are members. You will have members of our association who will answer this differently than I'm going to. Um, the first question is, is does it cost money? Um, my understanding is, is that if you use the federal system, it does not cost money. There are, there are programs out there that will do these, who will do these verification checks for you, um, as an employer. And so there are, you know, there are costs associated with that, obviously. Um, thinking about the next question, Sorry. Reliable and Enforceable reliability. Yes. Um, I, I, I think that, um, from the perspective of our, uh, again, from our membership, I've not heard re reliability be, uh, a concern for them. Um, they have, they have, um, voiced concerns about the, the fact that if they, if the system does fail them, it does end up causing, you know, it does end up causing them additional legal time and legal work on it. But I'm not aware of any example of that. I've just heard that I, I've heard that said as an argument against a bill like this. Um, but I can't, I, I don't have one member who I can point to to say that they have an example of having used E-Verify and had it not, you know, not work for them. And the last one, is it enforceable or do they actually do it? They do it. Our, our members do take this seriously and they, they comply with the law. And, um, if this law changes, it will mean more of our, uh, more members will have to, uh, have to be compliant with it. Um, it's something that, you know, that we provide as a service to our members as to keep them up to date on these kind of laws, and we'll make sure that, you know, they're made aware of it. But, um, you know, they're, well more than 3,500, uh, small businesses in our state, I think the numbers somewhere more, uh, around 60,000 registered small businesses. So, uh, they're not all that sized. They now would be impacted by this.

Hello again. Uh, Robert Babcock, uh, Babcock Scott and Babcock, uh, 46 year experienced construction lawyer, well involved in that industry. Um, 50 years involved in the immigrant community from mission field days to serving in units of Spanish speaking to currently serving in my hometown service in West Salt Lake City. Um, I know very much the immigrant community and I work with employers of that, of those folks. Uh, appreciate some of the questions I've been asked here. This is a message bill. Last year, the sponsor used the guise of identity theft. That's really not the purpose. As Ron Mortenson testified last year, you know, the, the purpose is to make life miserable for people that they'll self deport, at least. Representative Lee this year is saying that unabashedly in the bills that he's running, that the climate is to say we want all undocumented people out of our state. That has horrific impacts in our economy. In the construction circles, what was disappointing yesterday is I sat in and listened to the representative ball. So, sorry, can you keep our, keep it pertinent to this bill. Yeah. So we can keep it moving. Yeah. 'cause this, this bill is targeted to our immigrant community. That's who it's targeted to. And this body needs to understand the, the reality of that situation. In yesterday's debate or discussion, all it was talked about was the cost. There was no, and it was the cost of allegedly 930 million out of fair. That's Representative Lee cited. He also said that it was 500,000 illegal immigrants. According to them, no. If you I got on it last night. They say there's 137, Sorry. Can you keep it per into this bill? If we don't want references to Charlie anymore, please. Thank you. Okay. The point is this, the economic benefit in construction is somewhere around two to $2.4 billion. Um, in our, that's not right in the immigrant community. I'm not, if we say we've got 137 use that, if you, if you look to what the economic benefit, it's over $2 billion easily, which is 10% of our in, of our gross product. If we wanna say we wanna get rid of that people, there's an economic impact. We can't just deal with these things in the abstract. We can't just say, you know, public benefits or E-Verify or what are we, what are we doing? Is our real goal to force the deportation of the 137,000. I'll use that number of, of worker or people, many of which are working in our economy. We put them to work, um, and they are working and they're supporting their families. What needs to happen, and this is my request to this body, is last year there wasn't pending the Dignity Act, but there is this year, most of the organizations support the Dignity Act, the Chamber of Commerce, A-G-C-H-B-A. They support the Dignity Act, which is a federal solution to this Problem. Can, can we keep it pertinent to this Bill? We have a long agenda, please. Thank you. This bill should be voted down like it was last year, and say to the federal government, will you please address and solve the problem? That's what the Representative Walter said last year. That's what Representative Shepherd said yesterday when she, before she voted, this is a federal problem, it should be solved by them. We don't want 50 states independently trying to change enforcement mechanisms and pick this and pick that. Uh, we should be telling the federal government, do what you're supposed to do, solve the problem. There's legislation pending, they ought to address it. And we would hope this body like we'd bid back in the 20 10, 20 11 timeframe on the Utah Compact. We said to the Feds, help solve the problem. So that's my request. This body would pass a resolution, defeat this bill, the other bills like this, and say, federal government, please address and solve the problem. So we're not, we are not, uh, burdened with it. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Okay, good. Go ahead. No, I appreciate the time. Um, yeah, I'm a, I'm a construction business owner in Lehi, Utah. Craig Madson, uh, just wanted to say I'm opposed to this, you know, last year I got on this as well, um, with the E-Verify. I think it's interesting that this is proposed to under the guise of identity theft. I, I have LifeLock LifeLock membership. Last Wednesday, I received an email that 25 million Americans had a, were exposed information in a data breach. This morning, I received one that there was 6.8 billion, uh, people's information released. So I, I don't, I don't think this is something with that, uh, E-Verify we need to leave it at the 150. There's a lot of industries that will be imp impacted this even at the 100. Um, uh, mine will be, I don't, I don't think this does what it, what what we're thinking it'll do. You know, I think if the, there's, there's jobs in construction, in farming, in, uh, hospitality that just will not be filled. I mean, I I, I'm not trying to be offensive. There's a lot of suits in this room, right? I've worn a suit before. A lot of us don't do the construction trades. A lot of us don't work day to day on that. Uh, these immigrants that are here, some that have been here for decades, they actually will do the work and we need them to do the work. Um, and, and I feel like this is pushing this on the employers. When I agree with what Bob said there, this is a federal issue. Um, these people are here. They were allowed to come here illegally. But I think if there's a way to allow businesses to get them to work legally, whether it's a, a path to, you know, work permits or a employer sponsor, something like that, that would allow them to be able to work here. The legitimate companies would hold their state and federal withholdings. They would hold their social security, they would pay those. And we need the work to be done. There's nobody else that's gonna be filling some of these positions. And I think this is one of those things that nobody's really looking at.

Uh, Representative Thurston. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we set a time to adjourn at 6:00 PM

Yeah. So Executive appropriations committee is coming here right after us. And I just wanna be fair to our audience and to everybody that's participating to know that we will have to end at six o'clock.

I make a motion that we hold this bill.

Yes, I would. Thank you. In the conversations I've had with a lot of different trade associations and business commerce chambers, a lot of them said they, you know, out of respect, they would not come speak against it. They do not want to see the numbers change from one 50. They believe that at one 50 it is doing the job it needs to do to really, um, to clamp down on, on, uh, fraudulent uses of, of identity. So, and at one 50, it wouldn't hinder some of these small businesses. And I, if we are looking to really fix identity theft, I would more than welcome more, more policies looking into how we can strengthen that in those other bills. I don't believe that we should make it encumbered on business owners to have to be the immigration attorneys on, on the city side of these documents, or real or not. They are trying to do the best they can with taking those IDs and putting them through the current system that it is. Um, I believe that this policy does not have the teeth that it needs to really enforce. It's another one of those unfunded mandates that's just a message bill right now. And I don't want it to come at the expense of businesses who are trying their best, who revenue's already down. We've seen that through our budget and to further hurt employers by trying to get employees right now.

Um, I would reject that. Uh, you can see that there are a lot of organizations who are not here that, who were here last year, and it's because I've been doing the work and talking with them and finding a number that is doable. And this is that number.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to make a substitute motion. Go ahead. I'd Like to move amendment number one to HB 2 94.

I would accept that Motion to, to sponsor? Yeah, that's just changing the number to 100.

Uh, yes. Now that it's been adopted, I actually make a motion to hold for the reason that, uh, there's not, even in looking at the law, there's not even any teeth in it to facilitate what employers are supposed to do other than say, I'm so sorry, I can't hire you. Um, I, I, I don't see that that message bills are, are helpful. I think it is important that we verify, uh, people, but it, it is a burden for the employers, um, the way that it is, and nobody even asking or checking, I think is problematic as it is. So I'm a, I would recommend that we hold it until we have, um, even information about who's asking if employers are even doing this.

Um, I don't think that this is just a message Bill. As I said before, the Federal Reserve did a research paper and showed that Utah just having it in place, lowered it. Our projected legal workforce by 34%, which means that it's doing its job. We don't need to fine business owners into oblivion for, for not following this. I think that this is a great law that balances people following the law and having integrity, which they do and they follow, which we just heard, uh, the same thing that they're doing right now at 150 employees. It, it wouldn't change at a hundred employees. And, um, so I think that this is the right policy to move forward and make some movement on it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would make a substitute motion that we pass favorably HP 2 94 as amended out committee.

Uh, I think the sponsor's done a lot of work. Uh, we've talked about this. I think it's a good bill. Okay.

underlying motion Representative Ballard? No, I Was just using the sponsor's words that it was a, it was a message. A bill,

Waive. Thank you. Okay.

And to the committee. Um, like, to say something, I, I think that, um, a lot of, a lot gets said on, on, uh, or there, there's been not enough said on there actually are victims to this crime. Um, you know, uh, identity theft is a real thing. It is. It's not just a message bill. And illegal immigration also has a cost to it. So it, it's, uh, it's, it's, it is a real issue. And if we want to deal, if we want to deal with the problem, we have to actually enforce the, the laws that are on the books. There is a, a way forward to, to, to, uh, address the, the underlying concerns. Those do real, I think a lot of those are, uh, are, It's an issue that Congress has to deal with, right. And, but states are, are kind of left with, you know, what, what we can do. And I think this is something that will help us to, to get in the right direction. I wish Congress would stop playing politics with this and actually figure it out. But we're gonna, I think us doing what we can do here is, is important. So I support the bill.

Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. And, um, I, I would just reiterate what I, what I said before. I mean, if you look at the, the numbers, we have multiple last names being used on the same social security number for underage kids. And those are numbers that are, um, and like, um, reported on through our Department of Workforce Services. And also as a state, Utah likes to lead out. We like to, um, manage our own state and not rely on the federal government to tell us what to do. And so if, if they're not gonna get their act together, then this is something that we can do. Thank you.

Thank you. If you'd like to sum, okay. So the motion is that, yeah. Yeah. So the motion is that we recommend Favorably House Bill 2 94, employer verification amendments.

employer verification amendments. This was a tough one. Thank you. I'll try to make it quick. Um, I'm sure you all know that, um, in during COVID, we switched that E-Verify from 15 up to 150 employees. And, um, so my bill would be bringing that down in a measured way to 100. My very first job out of school was as accountant for a construction company. And when I ran their matching and when I sent out the, um, the letters to the employees, they came back and they told me this is a good number. I paid good money for this number. And so that was my first experience realizing that this wasn't just a victimless crime, that they're, these are real identities that are being taken and used. And specifically when I was a mother, um, I, I looked into doing credit freezes on my kids' social security numbers and then also to do, um, freezes for employment. But if a child is under 16, you can't freeze their social security numbers. And these are the ones that are most used by, um, undocumented workers because they will have, you know, 16 years possibly of being able to use this number without, um, repercussions. And so this child, once they are old enough to work, submits, um, their application and then they find out maybe they have all these back taxes or all these other taxes to worry about. So, um, a a lot of this has to do with identity theft and trying to find a way to, to scale that, that back, but also to not place an undue burden on companies as they're getting used to it. I, I think, um, if you have 100 employees, it's not a burden because you still have, you know, hr com, um, things in place where they're already doing a lot of this administration and it doesn't really impact the workload I've heard. You know, maybe some of the arguments are this is a burden, but as an 18-year-old outta school, I could figure out how to do this. And so that's, that's my bill.

Can you hear me? Does that work? Yes,

Thank you very much for, uh, letting me, uh, chat with you about it today. So the E-Verify program we're talking about, it's really a federal program that should be dealt with by Congress, not by the Utah Legisl.

Okay. My name is Robert Babcock. I'm the president of the construction law firm here in Utah. Babcock. Scott and Babcock been practicing construction law for some 46 years, been involved in immigration issues, not only professionally, but personally for some 50 years in in various, uh, religious settings. Um, some very familiar with the, the needs and, and challenges that, that exist in our both economic issues, but also the, uh, uh, I'll call it the community issues at any rate. Uh, so the E-Verify that we're talking about, it's really a federal program and it should be dealt with by Congress, not the individual states. Immigration is certainly within the purview of the federal government. It's not to really within the purview of the legislative bodies in the 50 states. And they shouldn't be in piecemeal enforcement of trying to fix our horribly broken immigration loss. The, the problem stems, as you we know from the declining birth rates, while at the same time having growing needs for workers, which immigration meets those needs. Unfortunately, Congress has never fixed and created a legal system that works so that we can have the needed workers to come legally now. And the sponsor talks about this needed to protect against identity theft and that's really not the goal. The goal is to make it more challenging for people, uh, to work. So they'll self deport. And we talked about that last year. Ron Mortenson came and testified, and that's his proposition on these, on these bills. Um, and frankly, when you talk about in that context, if truth be known, the stricter the enforcement on E-Verify laws, the more likely that's gonna result in identity theft as people become more likely to use questionable documents to try and work in our economy. The sponsor in the house hearing, she didn't cite it today, but there she cited a 10-year-old study for the Federal Reserve in, uh, Dallas. It's a very questionable report that I looked up and and reviewed, but it, it took the position that if you pass it and e verify bill, it'll reduce immigration by 34%. But that's a wild assumption. What's more important is, uh, what's happening in the, in the economy, is the economy a hot economy? Is it drawing people here? And Utah has had extremely hot economy the last 10 years. We've doubled our GDP from about 150 billion to almost 300 billion. And that's had a major impact on our demand for workers. And, um, but what's most notable to me is the sponsor in that hearing then and today as well, makes no comment about what that study says about the, the broader economical and fiscal impacts of such E-Verify legislation with the loss of workers, loss of government revenue collection, spending likelihood change changes in, um, the overall economic growth. And frankly, there's a bill pending up in Idaho at the same time, a much more strict E-Verify, but they just came out with a study this month about how it impacts, um, the economy in Idaho. And they talk about a, a couple of billion dollar impact, negative impact from such type legislation in Idaho. And they have about 20% of the workers that we have in Utah. So we're not in a vacuum in this thing. I guess the other issue, one of the other ones I'd point out is Utah leaders would like to have 35,000 more starter homes in the next few years. And that's an admirable goal, but the industry that is most impacted by this kind of legislation is the home building industry. And we've gotta pick our poison, if you will. Um, and we have to be realistic in what we're doing. And unfortunately, a lot of people just aren't realistic in what's happening. So we see across the country when we say not the vacuum, Florida, their industries, particularly agriculture's, been heavily impacted by a strict E-Verify bill. I've mentioned Idaho. It's ongoing right now. Texas has got, uh, real challenges in, in its, uh, economic world and its home building industry. Um, anyway, it's going around the country. This is what's happening, um, when we adopted the Utah Compact and this legislative body. Alright. Or actually the body doesn't adopt that, that was the state.

Hi, I am Seth Stewart, representing myself from American Fork. Um, I take no issue with, with the, um, need to prosecute identity theft and identity fraud. Uh, I would just like to point out there's a structural vulner vulnerability here in that we're outsourcing to the federal government, the identification of individuals. And I've had similar concerns with, uh, voter ID laws and so on in that we are, we have these very centralized dependencies on who is allowed to, like your allowance to represent yourself for who you really are, your authentication of your identity. And, uh, I would just question the underlying structure that mandates that we, uh, you know, that the government have oversight of who's who, uh, in working arrangements, because that's a private contractual agreement. And I understand there's a whole ton of tax implication for this and everything. It's just, uh, it's, it's a very messy structure. Um, I'm, I'm just concerned that, uh, you know, we're looking at social security numbers to try to identify who a person is, and we know that those can be stolen. We know that those can be improperly issued and so on. So, is your identity really reducible to some number that some federal government employee types into a computer? So just submit, that's a, it's an inherent vulnerability in the system, so thank you.

Um, I would just like to say that I do support this bill. Um, my son's social security number was actually stolen and used for unemployment in Vernal, and he's 12 years old and we were notified he's been working and not paying taxes for several years. So if, uh, the number that, uh, for employees, if that was lower, that you had to do the E-Verify for this, could have been avoided because this criminal was not a smart criminal and used his own name with my son's social security number. And that would've been very easy to find that that was fraud. So I, I do support this bill.

What was that? A motion?

I motion that we pass this out favorably.

I, I heard a motion. I thought I, I would speak against that. I think this is gonna have pretty negative impact on our ability to, uh, build affordable housing in Utah and then, and have a significant impact on individuals. I think I, I don't like that this goes straight at individuals and doesn't necessarily hold the larger, uh, companies in, um, in harm for, for what they're doing here. So I, I guess I would, um, make a substitute motion to hold this.

Thank you. Um, I would say that that's not a friendly, um, motion. And also you'll notice there were a lot of agencies that were called out in one of the public comments, but they're not here to speak against this. I've worked closely with stakeholders finding a number that can work, while also showing that we are taking our constituents concerns about this topic, um, very seriously. And so I would, I would urge you to go with the first motion.

A waive. Okay. All those in favor of holding? Yeah.

Well, I, I think I've, you know what I had to say, and I know that you guys are always short on time, but, um, you know, I, I, I think yes, the federal government is in charge of enforcement, but this isn't enforcement, um, as far as our law enforcement, but it does notice the federal government that we are taking this seriously and that we would like changes to immigration and, and workforce, um, policy. But in the meantime, Utah's never been a state to wait for the federal government to act before we do something about that. And I think as we've heard that this is a problem that should be addressed and, and this is, uh, the way to do it.

Yeah, I, I'm gonna try and buy a vote. And so I'm gonna make a substitute motion then on line nine and line 25, we changed the number 100 to 125

Um, I was just gonna say that it wasn't initially one 50 and so 100 was a compromise. It was originally 50, and our current is one 50. So 100 was the compromise after talking to all the stakeholders and, you know, is, is 1 25 going to make that big of a difference compared to 100 When we see that there's not that many people actually speaking against this bill, but I am also wanting this field to pass. So if, if that has to be the number, then I'm open to any movement.

I apologies. I'm not there in person, but in listening in, one of the things that's really frustrating to me is that E-Verify is somehow being painted as a, some sort of a lifesaver. And I actually have no faith in E-Verify as a system, or I should say li limited faith. And so I, while I do approve of the emotion to go up to 1 25, I still think that this is so flawed that I, I think we should give serious pause to actually moving this forward after that. Thank you.

Uh, Lemme, lemme clarify the motion. Okay. Um, motion to amend, amend. So I, I don't think I can make two motions. Okay. Favorably recommend at that point, but I would make a motion to amend on lines nine and lines 25 changing the number 100 to 125.

I would make a further motion to vaguely recommend hospital 2 94 as amended.

I, I think we need to show that we're serious about making some progress, so thank

No, I, I'm just literally trying to get in a spot where we can pass the bill.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Pro Tem, um, colleagues, it might interest you to know that my very first job as an accountant was working for a construction company. And, um, my little 18-year-old self decided to run all the social security numbers through E-Verify. And I got back a lot of letters that said, name and number do not match. And so I decided to send out letters then to the employees where those names and le and numbers didn't match. And I had many of them come to me and say, I paid good money for that number and that is a real number. So that was my first taste of realizing that when we're talking about undocumented workers, it's not really that they're undocumented because they're using someone else's documents. And the further I looked into it, once I had kids, um, I looked into freezing my kids social security numbers and you could do that for credit freezes, but do you know what you can't do it for? You can't do it for employment. So kids under 16, you can't freeze their numbers from being used for employment. And so this is the population that is being targeted by these undocumented workers and using those numbers for so many years because you could have 16 years where no one is checking that number. And then by the time that child is then looking for their first job, they could be surprised with a lot of back taxes and other tax issues that takes years to work out. Um, back in, during COVID time, we changed our E-Verify number from if you had more than 15 employees, you would have to use E-Verify to 150 employees. I've talked to, um, a lot of the stakeholders and I have this bill going down to, if you have over 100 employees, then you will have to use E-Verify. I think that's a very measured step and making some strides to pull back, um, some of the issues with identity theft that we're having and really showing that we're making some progress in that area. Um, because I know that I have many constituents that reach out and, and talk about these kind of things and have shared, um, their, their feelings about this. So, uh, with that I open myself to questions.

Thank you Mr. Speaker ProAm. Uh, so I think the bill's great. Uh, it just bothers me that the federal government isn't stepping up and doing their job and forcing states and businesses to pick up that slack. I think, I think it's kind of, they're forcing us to take this on ourselves. And I think this is, um, uh, I think this is an okay solution, but I, I just wanted to say that I think the federal government should really step up and do their, take care of the responsibility and possibly step out of the way of other responsibilities that are ours. So anyway, just, uh, wanted to get that off my chest. Thank you.

I thank Mr. Speaker. I rises in support of this bill. As many of you know, I ran a bill last year, uh, to try and move it back to its original, uh, threshold of 15. We tried five and 15 and that didn't work last year. And I recognize this is a step in the right direction. Appreciate the sponsor's efforts.

Thank you. Um, I appreciate my good representative from more South than I am. And, um, I, I thought I would, um, mention something that I thought was very interesting. I found a research paper by the Federal Reserve that was done and they showed that by Utah having E-Verify on the books, um, decreased our projected illegal workforce by 34%. And so I think just having that dampening effect, even though we are not doing the enforcement for the federal government. And you know, we, I think we should all hope that Washington moves, um, to do this, but I I don't think Utah has ever been a state to sit back and wait for the federal government to tell us what to do. Thank you.