My name is Ken Oliver, and I am senior director of Right on Immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Thank you for this opportunity to testify on SB 1621.
Earlier this year, the Texas Public Policy Foundation released its latest research on expanding and implementing the use of E-Verify in Texas. This paper, titled Toward Achieving a Legal Texas Workforce, concluded that continuing statewide E-Verify expansion and implementation is an important and necessary step as part of the state’s overall effort to limit illegal immigration, the underground economy, and identity fraud. While E-Verify does not solve all of these problems, it is also clear that we will never get them under control without expanding and improving E-Verify at both the state and federal levels.
Selective Enforcement Is Not Security, It’s Surrender
Nations do not collapse overnight. They erode when leaders start deciding which laws are optional. It shows the American people that if immigration law only applies when it’s politically convenient, then it isn’t law—it’s theater. Maria Salazar, a Republican congresswoman from Florida recently said, “Don’t touch the nannies or the gardeners… Those people are helping...