Industry fights measure to bar contractors for immigration violations

Companies that hire illegal aliens could be banned from receiving federal contracts for 10 years under an amendment to the Senate-passed supplemental defense spending measure. Contractor groups are fighting to keep the language out of the final bill.

Under the provision, employers that violate immigration laws would be barred from receiving federal grants, contracts or cooperative agreements for a decade if they already do business with the government, or for seven years if they do not hold existing contracts or agreements.

The General Services Administration could waive or shorten the debarment period if it were found to be in the interests of national defense or security. Companies that participate in an electronic employment eligibility verification program, jointly run by the Homeland Security Department and the Social Security Administration, would be shielded from penalties.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., first introduced the provision as an amendment to a minimum wage bill, where it passed unanimously in January. "Contractors need to be held accountable for not hiring Americans," Sessions said at the time. "Government contractors should set an example because they are being paid with tax dollars."

The minimum wage bill itself did not move forward in the Senate, leading Sessions to present the amendment with the supplemental spending measure. That legislation, which the Senate approved by a narrow margin just before leaving on its Easter break, provides additional funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hurricane relief, veterans' health and agriculture disaster aid.

To fight the debarment proposal, the 10 industry associations that form the Acquisition Reform Working Group wrote lawmakers and are pressing their case on Capitol Hill in hopes that the measure would not survive the House-Senate conference process and be signed into law.

"We agree that companies should not hire illegal workers, and we support the criminal penalties already in place to deter and enforce such behavior," the coalition wrote. "However, we strongly disagree with the concept of utilizing the federal procurement process as the primary enforcement mechanism for such violations."

The associations in the coalition are the Aerospace Industries Association, American Consulting Engineers Council, American Council of Independent Laboratories, AeA, Contract Services Association, Electronic Industries Alliance, Information Technology Association of America, National Defense Industrial Association, Professional Services Council and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Contract Services Association said the measure would conflict with federal acquisition regulations that say suspension and debarment procedures should not be used for punishment outside the scope of acquisition rules.

"If implemented, this legislation would politicize this well-established procedure, and it would work against the government's interests in efficiently and effectively obtaining goods and services from the private sector," said Barry Cullen, president of the association.

A spokesman for the group dismissed the employment eligibility verification system as a poor tool for employers, citing studies based on 1980s and 1990s data that found problems with the system. "It is apparent that there are significant problems with the Basic Pilot system … we believe that using this flawed system is by no means a solution to this amendment," the spokesman said.

Chris Bentley, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which runs the program, said the system operates smoothly. Based on the latest figures, he said, employers get an instantaneous confirmation of an employee's eligibility to work in 92 percent of cases. In the remaining 8 percent of cases, an answer is returned within 10 days, he said, and during that time the employee can begin work while the case is settled.

Bentley said the system could handle a surge in verifications if a large number of employers joined suddenly. "The infrastructure is in place to handle an expansion of the program at a very rapid pace," he said, but it would require hiring additional personnel to do manual verifications for those cases not resolved instantly through computer-based checks.

"The service, and the department, is confident that we'll be able to meet any expansion that may come down the road as far as usage of the program," he said, adding, "If we were looking to add 8 million potential employees, we'd look to have some structured, phase-in approach to do that."