Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt plans to introduce legislation that would require every employer in the United States, regardless of size, to use the federal E-Verify system before hiring workers. The bill, called the Mandatory E-Verify Act of 2026, aims to close a gap that has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to find work in the country for decades.
Britt, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, shared details of the legislation with the Washington Examiner ahead of the bill's formal introduction. Eight Republican senators have already signed on as co-sponsors: Ted Budd of North Carolina, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, and Ted Cruz of Texas.
The lineup signals broad support within the Republican conference for a measure that has been debated, and blocked, for years.
The bill would make the E-Verify hiring-verification system a permanent, nationwide requirement. Right now, some states and certain federal agencies require employers to run new hires through the system, but there is no universal federal mandate. Britt's legislation would change that by applying the rule to every business in the country, from large corporations to small shops.
Beyond the mandate itself, the bill would enhance both civil and criminal penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants. It would also prevent states from blocking employers who want to use E-Verify, a provision aimed at jurisdictions that have resisted enforcement. And it would add fraud-prevention measures to the E-Verify system itself.
Britt framed the measure as a direct follow-up to Republican border-security efforts. In a statement, she tied illegal employment to the broader immigration crisis:
"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."
That "magnet", the availability of jobs for people who entered the country illegally, has been a central conservative argument for mandatory E-Verify for years. The logic is straightforward: if employers cannot legally hire workers who lack authorization, the economic incentive to cross the border unlawfully shrinks.
Congress created E-Verify in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The system allows employers to check a new hire's work eligibility against federal records. It has been around for three decades, yet Congress has never made it mandatory for all employers.
Britt pointed to the system's track record. She said E-Verify was used more than 43 million times in 2025 alone, a figure that suggests widespread voluntary adoption but also highlights the gap between voluntary use and universal compliance.
The senator did not mince words about why a national requirement has never passed. The Washington Examiner reported that big business lobbying has played a role, with industry groups working to maintain access to a cheaper, illegal workforce. That dynamic, corporate interests quietly benefiting from illegal labor while publicly saying little, has frustrated immigration hawks on the right for years. It is one reason the issue cuts across the usual partisan lines and into uncomfortable territory for some Republican donors.
Republicans have shown increasing willingness to force difficult votes on enforcement-related legislation, daring opponents to go on the record against common-sense measures. Britt's bill follows that playbook.
The numbers behind the bill tell a stark story. The Center for Migration Studies of New York estimated that roughly 8.3 million illegal immigrants were employed in the United States as of 2022. Britt's office said that figure is believed to have grown to 10.8 million as of last year.
If accurate, that means more than ten million jobs in the American economy are held by workers who are not legally authorized to fill them. Britt's office argued that mandatory E-Verify would benefit legal workers directly, because businesses could no longer undercut them by hiring illegal immigrants willing to work for less than minimum wage.
That wage-suppression argument resonates with working-class voters who have watched entry-level pay stagnate in industries like construction, agriculture, meatpacking, and hospitality, sectors where illegal labor is concentrated. For years, the left has dismissed this concern or redirected it into debates about minimum-wage legislation. The Britt bill takes a different approach: enforce the law that already exists, and let the labor market correct itself.
Britt put it plainly:
"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."
Five organizations that advocate tighter immigration policies have backed the bill: the Heritage Foundation, the National Immigration Center for Enforcement, NumbersUSA, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and the Immigration Accountability Project. That coalition spans the major institutional players in the immigration-enforcement space and gives the legislation a ready-made network of grassroots and policy support.
The co-sponsor list itself is notable for its geographic and ideological range within the GOP. It includes senators from the Deep South, the Mountain West, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Sun Belt. Cruz and Cotton bring strong conservative credentials. Graham and Capito represent more establishment-oriented wings of the party. Lankford, who drew fire from some conservatives over a bipartisan border deal that collapsed, may see the bill as an opportunity to reaffirm his enforcement bona fides.
As Republicans look to expand their congressional majorities heading into the next election cycle, immigration enforcement remains one of the party's strongest issues with voters. A mandatory E-Verify bill gives every member a clean, popular vote to take home to constituents.
The question hanging over the Mandatory E-Verify Act of 2026 is whether it can succeed where similar efforts have stalled. The system has existed for thirty years without becoming a universal requirement. Lawmakers have pushed for a national mandate repeatedly, and each time the effort has run into resistance, not primarily from Democrats, but from business interests that rely on cheap, unauthorized labor.
That resistance has operated quietly. Few companies or trade associations publicly argue against verifying workers' legal status. Instead, the opposition has taken the form of lobbying to delay, water down, or simply never schedule votes on E-Verify mandates. The result is a system everyone acknowledges works but nobody is required to use.
Britt signaled she intends to break that pattern. She said she would "work diligently to usher this legislation through the Senate and get it to President Trump's desk." The framing positions the bill as part of a broader enforcement agenda, not a standalone proposal that can be quietly shelved.
Whether Senate leadership gives the bill floor time will be the first real test. Republican gains in recent cycles have given the party more leverage to advance enforcement priorities, but the business lobby remains powerful, and some senators from agriculture-heavy states may face cross-pressures.
At its core, the bill targets a specific failure: the federal government created a tool to prevent illegal hiring, then never required anyone to use it. For thirty years, employers who wanted to follow the law could check their workers' status voluntarily. Employers who preferred not to know, or who actively sought unauthorized labor, faced no real consequence for skipping the system.
The enhanced penalties in Britt's bill aim to change that calculation. By raising both civil fines and criminal exposure for employers who hire illegal immigrants, the legislation shifts the risk. Right now, the cost of getting caught is low enough that many businesses treat it as a manageable expense. Stiffer penalties could change the math.
The provision blocking states from preventing employers from using E-Verify is aimed at a different problem, jurisdictions that have actively discouraged or prohibited cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. It mirrors broader Republican efforts to push back against state-level resistance to federal authority on enforcement matters.
Britt made the political case as well as the policy one:
"We should enforce the law and ensure jobs go to Americans, not illegal aliens. E-Verify works, evidenced by the more than 43 million times it was used in 2025 alone. This is a common-sense bill that everyone should be able to get on board with."
The bill's formal text has not yet been released, and several details remain unclear. The specific civil and criminal penalties that would be enhanced have not been spelled out publicly. The fraud-prevention improvements to E-Verify have not been detailed. And the methodology behind Britt's office's claim that illegal immigrant workers reached 10.8 million has not been disclosed.
Those details will matter as the bill moves through committee. Critics, from both the left and the business lobby, will scrutinize the penalty structure, the implementation timeline, and the burden on small employers. Supporters will need to show that the system can handle universal adoption without creating delays or false positives that harm legal workers.
The broader political landscape favors action. Immigration enforcement polls well across party lines, and the issue of illegal workers taking jobs from American citizens and lawful immigrants hits a nerve that transcends ideology. Republican efforts to lock in structural advantages across multiple fronts suggest a party that sees this moment as an opportunity to deliver on promises that have gone unfulfilled for a generation.
For thirty years, Washington had a tool to verify that every new hire in America was legally authorized to work, and chose not to require it. If Britt's bill forces a vote, every senator will have to explain which side of that choice they're on.