Employment Document Verification - Federation for American ...

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system. In response, in 1996, Congress ordered the INS to create a pilot project to test a systemthat would allow employers to access federal databases in order to verify new employees’documents and thus establish their work eligibility.The resulting document verification system is called E-Verify (formerly called the Basic Pilotprogram). Within three working days of hiring a new employee, a participating employerelectronically submits a new employee’s Social Security number, name, and birth date to theSocial Security Administration (SSA) to be checked against its database. If the employee isforeign-born, the data is also sent to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—previouslyto the INS—to verify that the new employee is in a legal work status, e.g. immigrant, temporaryworker, or refugee. Within a few days, a response comes back indicating either that theemployee has been identified and is authorized to work, or that authorization cannot be made. Inthe latter case, the employee must be informed and is given eight work days to contact the SSAand/or the DHS to reconcile any incorrect data in the agency’s database. If the discrepancy is notreconciled after ten days, the employer is notified that the employee is not authorized towork. The employer then must either terminate the employee or become subject to sanctions forknowingly employing an illegal alien, unless it can be proven that the government erred.This verification system is modeled on a program called SAVE, used by state and localgovernmental agencies that administer federal welfare programs. Those agencies have beenrequired since 1986 to verify with immigration authorities that recipients of federal welfarebenefits are not illegal aliens. 1 The Basic Pilot verification program for employers is run by thesame office that administers the SAVE program. 2When the Basic Pilot program was first established in November 1997, it was limited toemployers in California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, and Florida. As a result of a requestfrom the Nebraska congressional delegation, it was later expanded to include that state. In 1999,the INS contracted for an outside evaluation of the program. 3 That evaluation, completed in June2002, found that the employers participating in the program were satisfied with its operation andthat it was achieving its objective with only minor drawbacks.In November 2003, Congress reauthorized the project for an additional five years and expandedits scope to be available to employers nationwide over the next year. The legislation also calledon the DHS to submit a report on how it planned to expand the project to the additional statesand on what steps it has taken to address the drawbacks identified in the evaluation report.“Since its inception, the voluntary Basic Pilot Program has provided a ‘safe harbor’ foremployers in the complicated and often confusing area of employment verification. While thelaw requires employers to verify documents for each hire that indicate authorization to work, thecomplexity of documents, the ease of forgeries and counterfeiting and the steep penalties againstinquiring too far and violating a legitimate worker’s civil rights make this area a potentialquagmire for unsuspecting employers. The Basic Pilot allows employers to quickly and easilycheck with immigration and social security databases to verify eligibility. Many employers relyon this system to fulfill their legal obligations.” --R. Bruce Josten, Executive Vice President,U.S. Chamber of Commerce, October 17, 2003
The Importance of Document VerificationBecause the availability of jobs is a primary magnet that draws illegal immigrants, the key toturning off that magnet and, thereby, reducing mass illegal immigration is to deny jobs tounauthorized workers. Congress recognized this when it adopted the employer sanctions law in1986 and validated that judgment in 1996 with the creation of the verification system. Thebenefits of adopting the E-Verify program as a mandatory requirement nationally would bemany:Denying jobs to illegal workers would deter new illegal immigration, ease pressure at theborder, and, thereby, increase the ability of the Border Patrol to assure border security.When established illegal workers tried unsuccessfully to find a new job, their inability todo so would encourage many of them to return home voluntarily.Employers of new illegal aliens would be much more exposed to the sanctions penalties,and prosecutions would penalize unscrupulous employers.Over time, interior immigration enforcement personnel would become better able totarget employers of underground economy workers, such as sweatshops.Finally, by diminishing the number of illegal workers, a truer measure could be made ofany need for legal temporary foreign workers.Already Arizona is serving as a test lab for the effectiveness of the E-Verify system. Employerparticipation in the program for all new employees has been required by state law since thebeginning of 2008. News accounts from the state document that many workers concerned aboutnot being able to continue to work in the state are leaving the state. News accounts from Mexicoindicate that there has been a surge in Mexican workers returning to Mexico. News accountshave also reported a drop in enrollment of students in English Language Learning programs inpublic schools.It is possible that an era of employment document verification could lead to increased efforts byillegal alien workers to pass themselves off as U.S. citizens in order to bypass the DHS screeningprocess. Because all new employees, regardless of citizenship, have to be cleared by the SSA,some foreigners may be tempted to assume the identity and SSN of a U.S. citizen. Inanticipation of this challenge, policy makers should now be engaged in improving the integrityof the nation’s birth and death record keeping system to prevent identity theft.Policy OptionsAt the federal level, FAIR is working to encourage the government to use the expansionof the Basic Pilot document verification system to include screening of all federalemployees and to require that U.S. government contractors also use the system to screentheir employees. 4 There is no justification for the American taxpayers’ money beingspent to employ illegal alien workers—something that has happened in a number ofrecent instances. 5Similarly, at the state and local level, policy makers should follow the example ofArizona and use the E-Verify program—and encourage their contractors to use it—to
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