Mandatory, phased-in electronic employment verification.

The President’s proposal provides tools for employers to ensure a legal workforce by using federal government databases to verify that the people they hire are eligible to work in the United States. Penalties for hiring undocumented workers are significantly increased, and new penalties are established for committing fraud and identity theft. The new mandatory program ensures the privacy and confidentiality of all workers’ personal information and includes important procedural protections. Mandatory electronic employment verification would be phased in over five years with exemptions for certain small businesses.

Combat fraud and identity theft.

The proposal also mandates a fraud‐resistant, tamper‐resistant Social Security card and requires workers to use fraud‐and tamper‐resistant documents to prove authorization to work in the United States. The proposal also seeks to establish a voluntary pilot program to evaluate new methods to authenticate identity and combat identity theft.

Protections for all workers.

The President’s proposal protects workers against retaliation for exercising their labor rights. It increases the penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers to skirt the workplace standards that protect all workers. And it creates a “labor law enforcement fund” to help ensure that industries that employ significant numbers of immigrant workers comply with labor laws.

Increasing monitoring and accountability of employers.

Since January 2009, ICE has audited more than 8,900 employers suspected of hiring illegal labor, debarred 8,590 companies and individuals, and imposed more than $100.3 million in financial sanctions—more than the total amount of audits and debarments than during the entire previous administration.

Expanding E-Verify.

Employer enrollment in E-Verify, which allows employers to verify electronically that an employee is eligible to work in the U.S., has more than doubled since January 2009, with more than 416,000 participating companies representing more than 1.2 million hiring sites. More than 20 million queries were processed in FY 2012. Thus far in FY 2013, over 4.8 million queries have been run through the system.

Deporting criminals.

The President proposal expands smart enforcement efforts that target convicted criminals in federal or state correctional facilities, allowing us to remove them from the United States at the end of their sentences without re-entering our communities. At the same time, it protects those with a credible fear of returning to their home countries.

Streamline removal of nonimmigrant national security and public safety threats.

The President’s proposal creates a streamlined administrative removal process for people who overstay their visas and have been determined to be threats to national security and
public safety.

Improve our nation’s immigration courts.

The President’s proposal invests in our immigration courts so judges can more efficiently process current and future cases. By increasing the number of immigration judges and their staff, investing in training for court personnel, and improving access to legal information for immigrants, these reforms will improve court efficiency. It also allows DHS to better focus its detention resources on public safety and national security threats by expanding alternatives to detention and reducing overall detention costs. It also provides greater protections for those least able to represent themselves.

Prioritizing convicted criminals and violent offenders for deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has set clear enforcement priorities so that individuals who are a threat to our public safety and national security, such as convicted criminals, are the highest enforcement priority. These efforts are producing real results.

• In 2012, approximately 55 percent or 225,390 of the people removed were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors — almost double the removal of criminals since 2008.

• DHS has also issued guidance to law enforcement personnel and attorneys regarding their authority to exercise prosecutorial discretion where appropriate to ensure greater consistency in the treatment of low-priority cases.

• In addition, DHS worked to better target their resources by reviewing, on a case-by-case basis, deportation cases pending before the immigration courts in order to focus on the highest enforcement priorities by clearing out the backlog of low-priority cases.

President Obama has repeatedly said it makes no sense to remove hardworking young people who were brought to this country through no fault of their own and have grown up in the United States often with no memory of the countries they came from. In June 2012, DHS announced that certain young people who were brought to the U.S. as young children, do not present a risk to national security or public safety, and meet several key criteria may be considered for temporary relief from deportation from the country or from entering into removal proceedings. This is neither a path to citizenship nor is it a permanent fix—only Congress can provide that through common sense immigration reform. But in the absence of any action from Congress, the Administration will continue to focus its immigration enforcement resources on securing the border, keeping our communities safe, and prosecuting criminals, not young people who are ready to contribute to the country they grew up in. On August 15, 2012, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services formally launched the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process. To learn more about the DACA process, visit: www.uscis.gov/childhoodarrivals.

President Obama explains changes to immigration enforcement for “DREAMers:”