Thread: Lawmakers ponder next step for E-Verify

fcw.com
Lawmakers ponder next step for E-Verify
By Ben Bain
Published on June 10, 2008

The House has begun to debate the effectiveness of the Homeland Security Department’s electronic employment eligibility verification system, E-Verify. Some lawmakers are considering making it mandatory for all employers while others are pushing for an alternate system.

Proponents say E-Verify allows employers to accurately confirm whether or not employees can legally work in the United States. However, critics say errors in the Social Security Administration database against which queries are checked could cause the system to wrongly reject employees.

Others contend that DHS should focus on national security and not on tracking the employment eligibility of American workers.

About 69,000 employers have voluntarily registered to use E-Verify to confirm that their employees can legally work in the United States. The program began in 1996 as a pilot effort, and several states have made the process mandatory.

“E-Verify is not perfect — no system is — but it is a very good system that has safeguards to ensure that employers’ and employees’ rights are being protected in accordance with the law,â€

In checking on the status of a class action lawsuit against Pilgrim's, I read a quote from Mr. Atkinson, a spokesman for Pilgrim's. He said that E-verify would not detect stolen ID.

If it simply verifies the person is eligible to work in the US, it does almost nothing against those who are using someone's ID. If, and I don't know for sure, that is true, just how much good is E-verify. Might it just be a government sanctioned loophole for employers?

That is correct: E Verify just verifies that the U.S. Social Security number submitted is valid; it has no way of detecting fraud (i.e., whether the S.S. # was stolen).

I wonder if it shows that more than one person is using the SS#?

I believe the main problem for E-Verify stems from the precautionary measures originally taken--for all the right reasons--to protect the privacy of the Social Security information of individual citizens. For this reason, other governmental agencies are evidentally not allowed to access this information, period. When the Dept. of Homeland Security wished to be allowed to do so, Sen. Charles Grassley (Senate Finance Committee past Chair) spoke with some sadness of all the work that had gone into making sure people's S.S. information remained private. Now we evidentally will be required to choose between either maintaining this original system of privacy or making our legal employment verification system truly effective.

And yet Senator Grassley was on Dobbs today pushing the e-verify, he said the Dems did not want to bring it to the floor as they are pandering to special interest groups who do not want this passed.

Sen. Grassley's objection was to giving the Dept. of Homeland Security or other U.S. agencies access to private Social Security information. My point was that, in order to expand E-Verify so that it also could detect fraud such as S.S. # theft, we would have to give up the individual privacy which lawmakers such as Sen. Grassley carefully have built into our S.S. system. If it were not for the massive influx of illegal immigrants which our government has allowed, we would not be faced with this unfortunate choice. It's great that Sen. Grassley is using his considerable influence to back the use of E-Verify, even if its effectiveness now is still limited.

If it doesn't do more than just verify that a SS# is valid, it is almost useless these days. Why is it being touted as a solution to the problem?
IF illegals and those who traffic in fake ID's know this, and I'm sure they do, why bother?

Privacy is a big concern and I'm all for it.

Why not put more people to work in the SS department and have employers submit a list of numbers, along with a brief description of the prospective employee.

When I decided perhaps I should actually replace my lost SS card, the lady at the SS office punched in my number and within minutes - maybe 2- she said, 'Yes, Ms. So and So, you were born on such and such, in such and such county, in Texas. Your Mother's maiden name was, your Father's name was. Just minutes.

Now if they submitted a number and gave the age and sex of the person applying, that would go a long way. If you are submitting a number of a female born in 1949, and the applicant is a male, 30 years old. You know there's a problem.

Yes, it would take a little time and money - but it is costing us much more not to do it.

LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW — 6/11/08
Grassley introduces legislation that would reauthorize E-Verify, allow employers to verify all employees

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced legislation (S. 3093) on June 5, 2008, reauthorizing the E-Verify program (formerly the called the Basic Pilot program), a web-based tool operated by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration that allows employers to verify the work eligibility of new employees. The program is slated to sunset (automatically expire unless renewed) in November 2008. Grassley's legislation would also make improvements to the program, including additional information sharing between agencies within the Department of Homeland Security.

"Nobody could have imagined the sophistication of the documents that illegal aliens use to work in the United States, which has made the E-Verify program an even more important and useful tool for employers," Grassley said. "With a comprehensive immigration bill highly unlikely this year, we need to enhance the tools that are already on the books and make sure they remain available for employers who want to do their part to comply with the law."

Grassley introduced amendments to the 2006 and 2007 comprehensive immigration bills that would have changed the verification and appeal procedures and would have improved the ability of the federal government to punish employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers.

The Basic Pilot program was first authorized in 1996 and allowed only five states to participate. The program was reauthorized in 2001 and then expanded in 2003. The last expansion allowed employers in all 50 states the opportunity to voluntarily use the program. Currently, more than 64,000 employers participate in E-Verify with approximately 1,000 new enrollments weekly. More on E-Verify can be found at the following website.

Provisions of Grassley's legislation would;

-make the E-Verify program permanent;

-require all contractors of the federal government to use the E-verify program;

-give employers the option to verify the status of all employees, not just new hires and allow the Department of Homeland Security to require companies to use the E-Verify program if a pattern of illegal hiring is found;

-require USCIS to provide a monthly reports to Immigration and Customs Enforcement listing the non-authorized checks E-Verify finds that should be investigated;

-require USCIS to create a pilot project that will provide opportunities for small businesses and other rural areas without internet access to use the E-Verify program;

-require employers to re-verify employees who are in the United States on temporary status; and

-formally change the name of the program from the Basic Pilot program to the E-Verify

http://hr.cch.com/news/employment/061108a.asp

Originally Posted by Texas2step

Sen. Grassley's objection was to giving the Dept. of Homeland Security or other U.S. agencies access to private Social Security information. My point was that, in order to expand E-Verify so that it also could detect fraud such as S.S. # theft, we would have to give up the individual privacy which lawmakers such as Sen. Grassley carefully have built into our S.S. system. If it were not for the massive influx of illegal immigrants which our government has allowed, we would not be faced with this unfortunate choice. It's great that Sen. Grassley is using his considerable influence to back the use of E-Verify, even if its effectiveness now is still limited.

I understand as of now they will not even tell someone if someone else is using their SS#...now the way I see it, they do not have to share personal information, all they have to do is tell someone their is more than one person using that SS #, if it is your SS# you need to go to the SS office and prove it ( people have 90 days to do this, I did it in one week), then Homeland Security can go to the businesses that are paying taxing into those funds and arrest the people that are using an Americans SS#.......eventually you will get the fraud pretty much stopped, some way this must be done...they just can not keep letting illegals steal our identities..


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