EXCLUSIVE — A Senate Republican has taken action to bar U.S. companies permanently from hiring workers who are not authorized to live or work in the United States, taking the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown one step further.Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) on Thursday will introduce legislation to make the Mandatory E-Verify Act of 2026 permanent and required for all U.S. employers, regardless of business size, Britt’s office shared with the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.“If you come to this country illegally, you shouldn’t be here to begin with, and you shouldn’t be working in the United States,” Britt, a Senate Judiciary Committee member, said in a statement. “This legislation builds on Republicans’ historic success in securing our border after four years of disastrous, America Last policies under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, by eliminating the largest magnet for illegal immigration.”
E-Verify is a web-based system for employers who choose to enroll in the program to instantly check a job applicant’s work documents against federal records. It has been around for 30 years and was created by Congress in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
However, despite pushes by lawmakers through the years, it has not been made a national requirement, the result of big business lobbyists’ ongoing efforts to maintain a cheaper, illegal workforce.
