Survey Shows Self-Employed, Small Business Owners Want Congress to Enact Immigration Reform
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 15, 2013
CONTACT: Kristofer Eisenla, Luna Eisenla Media
kristofer@eisenlamedia.com | 202-670-5747 (mobile)
New Survey Shows Self-Employed, Small Business Owners Want Congress to Enact Immigration Reform
National Association for the Self –Employed Surveys Over 400 Members Nationwide; Over 77% Find Reform an Important Issue to Their Business
WASHINGTON – As the debate over immigration reform heats up in Congress, The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) , the nation’s leading resource for the self-employed and micro-businesses, today released an online survey of over 400 of its’ members nationwide on the issue. The survey, conducted between February 25 – March 18, 2013, shows that America’s smallest businesses – the self-employed and micro-businesses (with ten or less employees) – find the issue of immigration reform important, want Congress to develop a balanced solution and are willing to comply with new reform regulations.
“Our survey clearly demonstrates that small business owners and self-employed Americans want Congress to come up with a sensible, bipartisan immigration reform solution. Not only do small business owners overwhelmingly want to comply with new reform measures, but also want Congress to come up with a balanced approach for how to pay for things such as a verification process,” said Kristie Arslan, President and CEO of the NASE .
Some of the key findings from the online survey of 432 NASE members on the issue of immigration reform that was released today included:
Over 77% indicated that immigration reform was important responding to the question: “How Important is immigration reform to you and your business”. 26.6% responded “extremely important; 26.4% responded “very important”; 24.3% responded “slightly important”. When asked “When should an employer have to comply with an employment verification system”, 58.8% of respondents replied that “anyone who has either full or part time employees”. 79% of the respondents indicated “No” that they would not pay to outsource employment verification on the immigration status of all new hires, should it become mandatory. “We want to comply with any new immigration requirements as long as they are not burdensome and impact our businesses and bottom-lines,” said Stephen McNeilly, owner of ServiceProz, Inc., and a member of the NASE Member Council. “The E-Verify system we currently already use takes too long to verify employment. We need a system that is efficient, easy to use and isn’t complex.”
The survey’s complete top-lines are available online at NASE’s website here .
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The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) is the nation's leading resource for the self-employed and micro-businesses, bringing a broad range of benefits to help entrepreneurs succeed and to drive the continued growth of this vital segment of the American economy. The NASE Small Business Locator helps identify and connect our nation’s smallest businesses. The NASE is a 501(c) (6) nonprofit organization and provides big-business advantages to hundreds of thousands of micro-businesses across the United States. For more information, visit the association's website at NASE.org