John Hope Bryant: “I once again take issue with this characterization of the bill. This is not the bill that the House voted on; it is not…”

“I once again take issue with this characterization of the bill. This is not the bill that the House voted on; it is not the bill the Senate voted on. It is a bill that the Republicans spent 4 months behind closed doors cooking up so it would serve their electioneering and political interests this year. The fact of the matter is that this bill now does not have wage and hour inspectors in it which are necessary, it does not have the subpoena authority for the Labor Department which is necessary, it does not have the requirement that employers participate in the verification project. In other words, they have done exactly what the employers wanted them to do so that the draw of illegal aliens into this country, which is to get a job, has not been effective. Oh, yes, we are talking about more people on the border if the Committee on Appropriations goes along with this. That sounds good. I am certainly for that. But the only way we are ever going to solve this problem is to deal with the fact that there are people out there who habitually hire illegal aliens, and we had many, many inspectors in the House committee, had many, many inspectors in the House committee version, the 150. We had 350 in the Senate bill. They are gone. Of the enhanced penalties that we had in the bill, the enhanced penalties that we had in the bill so that habitual offenders would suffer for their acts have now been removed.”