John Hostettler: “I want to emphasize two points about the Basic Pilot Extension Act of 2003. First, employers participating in the pilot…”

“I want to emphasize two points about the Basic Pilot Extension Act of 2003. First, employers participating in the pilot program find it of immense help in the day-to-day operations of their businesses. Second, despite some of what we have heard today already, the pilot is working extraordinarily well and will only get better in the future. The report commissioned by the INS to evaluate the program found that "an overwhelming majority of employers participating found the basic pilot program to be an effective and reliable tool for employment verification." Participating employers appreciate the pilot because it reduces uncertainty. The pilot ensures that their operations will not be disrupted by the mass dismissal of employees after the Department of Homeland Security or the Social Security Administration questions the status of their employees. The pilot ensures that they will not be put in a position of hiring illegal aliens, investing hundreds or thousands of hours in training them, and then losing the benefits of this investment years down the road when they are forced to dismiss illegal aliens who were employees. As Paul Weyrich has said in support of this bill, "If we are really serious about enforcing the immigration laws we have on the books, then we must provide the means for employers to quickly determine the validity of the documents with which they are presented.…”