Senate Vote: REAL ID Amendment
Summary: Requires employers to use REAL ID cards to verify workers before hiring
Result: Motion to Table Failed
A vote against the motion was counted as a + vote (in line with LCCR's position)
View individual member votes on this bill by state:
Bill Name: AgJOBS Act of 2007
Bill Number: S. 1639
Issue: Immigration
Date: 06/27/07
Roll Call No. 234
During consideration of S. 1639, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (a successor to S. 1348, a measure that had been blocked several weeks earlier by immigration restrictionists), Sen. Max Baucus, D. Mont., offered an amendment that would delete several provisions in the bill that relied on the REAL ID Act of 2005. The leadership moved to table, or kill, this amendment.
LCCR opposed the motion to table the Baucus amendment.
LCCR strongly opposed the REAL ID Act, an extremely burdensome and potentially discriminatory federal ID law, and opposed its proposed expansion in S. 1639.
Under S. 1639, all employers would be required to verify both the identity and the employment eligibility of all potential employees (citizens and immigrants alike). Beginning in 2013, for most Americans, this requirement could only be satisfied by presenting a REAL ID card or a U.S. passport.
A growing number of states, however, have stated that they will not comply with the REAL ID Act, due to its outrageously high costs and administrative burdens. As a result, Americans living in such states would literally no longer be able to obtain new jobs in 2013 unless they (a) obtained U.S. passports (which currently cost $97) or (b) joined the estimated 12 million "undocumented workers" already present in our country.
For these reasons, LCCR supported the Baucus amendment and opposed the motion to table it.
Result: The motion to table the Baucus amendment failed (45-52).
