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E-Verify System to Find Illegal Workers Expanded

DHS Secretary Napolitano Defends E-Verify’s Accuracy

May 16, 2009 Lyda Phillips

The federal E-Verify system of checking employees work status is growing rapidly and is an essential part of the effort to crack down on employment of illegal aliens.

The Department of Homeland Security intends to target employers who violate immigration laws and is also working to aid law-abiding employers in their good-faith efforts to hire legal workers, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee May 6.

E-Verify Targets Employers of Illegal Workers

E-Verify (formerly the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program) is an online system operated jointly by the DHS and the Social Security Administration. Participating employers can check the work status of new hires online by comparing information from an employee's I-9 form against SSA and Department of Homeland Security databases.

E-Verify is free and voluntary for all employers, with very limited exceptions.
More than 122,000 employers are enrolled in the program, with more 6.5 million queries run so far in fiscal year 2008, according to Napolitano.
The growth is continuing at a solid clip, due in large part to state laws requiring the use of E-Verify. Currently, an average of 1,000 employers sign up for E-Verify each week.
Approximately 96.1% of all cases queried through E-Verify are automatically found to be employment authorized, Napolitano testified, up from a 79% immediate confirmation rate in 2002.

Critics Say E-Verify Is Inaccurate

“While Basic Pilot/E-Verify often is portrayed as the magic bullet that would curb the hiring of unauthorized workers, since its inception in 1997 the program has been plagued by multitude problems that adversely affect both workers and businesses,” a statement from the National Immigration Law Center said in February 2009.

“Numerous entities … have found that Basic Pilot/E-Verify has significant weaknesses, including (1) its reliance on government databases that have unacceptably high error rates and (2) employer misuse of the program to take adverse actions against workers," the statement said.

Because of such complaints from immigration rights and employer groups about high numbers of errors in the system, DHS and SSA are “continuously enhancing E-Verify processes to decrease mismatches, improve the system’s usability and the accuracy of its databases, strengthen training and monitoring of employers and protect employees against discrimination and other abuses,” Napolitano said.

Legal Workers Protected

E-Verify enhancements include:

System changes to reduce typographical errors;
A photo screening tool, added in concert with the State Department, to combat document fraud;
Establishing a monitoring and compliance branch to oversee that employers are using E-Verify correctly to protect employee rights;
Adding new database checks to further reduce initial mismatches; and
Establishing a new process for employees to call a toll-free number to resolve mismatches for naturalized citizenship cases.

“As I said, I am a strong believer that robust employer enforcement must be a critical part of our nation’s immigration system,” Napolitano said. “[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] will continue to seek out employers who want to comply with our nation's immigration laws and provide them with the training and tools they need to minimize the risk of unwittingly hiring illegal workers.”

The copyright of the article E-Verify System to Find Illegal Workers Expanded in Business Management is owned by Lyda Phillips. Permission to republish E-Verify System to Find Illegal Workers Expanded in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.