A Republican-backed bill that would require all employers to verify their employees’ right to work in the U.S. is raising red flags among Valley agricultural groups.

The bill, HR 1147, sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, cleared the House Judiciary Committee on a 20-13 vote this week. The bill would require all employers to use E-Verify, an electronic system designed to determine whether documents workers submit are fraudulent.

According to www.agri-pulse.com, Democrats on the committee argued that the requirement would devastate agricultural employers who heavily rely on illegal immigrants for labor.

The vote once again exposed the rift in the Republican Party on the immigration issue.

Moderates like Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, think immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally but have worked for several years without committing crimes should have a chance to attain legal status.

It doesn’t hurt that Valadao represents a majority Latino district.

Other House Republicans — especially ones without a large Hispanic population in their district — have taken a harder line.

Agricultural groups said that Smith’s bill, if passed without any additional measures, would be a disaster for the Valley’s agricultural employers.

Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League, said the result would be that most agricultural workers would have to be fired.

Cunha said he favors workplace authorization for agricultural workers to allow them to stay on the job in the event HR 1147 were to become law.

Cunha also said that, for agriculture, a guest worker program is a “non-negotiable” part of immigration reform. Such a program was included in the Senate reform bill that cleared the Senate in 2013 but has gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled House.

Dino Giacomazzi, Hanford dairy operator and Kings County Farm Bureau president, shared many of Cunha’s sentiments.

“You can’t impose [HR 1147] on agriculture without a solution to the labor problem,” Giacomazzi said. “It’s not like there’s a pool of people sitting around for these agricultural jobs.”

United Farm Worker spokesman Luz Pena noted that her group, after long negotiations that included the Nisei Farmers League, signed on to the 2013 Senate package.

“We want comprehensive immigration reform,” she said. “If the Republicans want to pass E-Verify, then who would they suggest is going to harvest America’s food?”

According to Agri-Pulse, Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Robert Goodlatte, R-Virginia, said the committee would consider a separate agricultural guest worker bill “as soon as possible.”

“The American people are demanding immigration enforcement prior to any legal immigration reforms,” Goodlatte was quoted as saying.