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Small Businesses Support Immigration Reform & Want Effective E-Verify System
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 16, 2013
CONTACT: Kristofer Eisenla, Luna Eisenla Media
kristofer@eisenlamedia.com | 202-670-5747 (mobile)
Small Businesses Support Immigration Reform & Want Effective E-Verify System
NASE Survey: 77% Find Reform an Important Issue to Their Business
WASHINGTON – As U.S. Senate Committee’s consider comprehensive immigration reform legislation today, including an E-Verify requirement, Katie Vlietstra, Director of Government Affairs for The National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE), the nation’s leading resource for the self-employed and micro-businesses, responded that “America’s smallest businesses are not only ready and willing to comply with an E-Verify requirement, but want a process that works at verifying if an employee can work legally in this country.”
“We must work towards a fair, balanced and sensible approach to modernizing our immigration system,” said Vlietstra. “This must include simple and effective verification systems for small business owners to comply by verifying the legality of any potential employee to work in this country. Small businesses are willing to comply, but must have an efficient and effective process of doing so.”
The NASE conducted a survey of its membership between February 25 – March 18, 2013, showing 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.
Some of the key findings from the online survey of 432 NASE members on the issue of immigration reform 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