Thread: WA-County plans to verify worker citizenship

County plans to verify worker citizenship
Commissioners want to avoid hiring illegal immigrants
Tuesday, September 22 | 8:51 p.m.

BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN


Three weeks after cracking down on any public contractors who hire illegal immigrants, Clark County commissioners are moving to hold their own work force to the same standard.

The commissioners asked Tuesday for a proposal by Jan. 1 to start feeding the Social Security numbers of new deputies, secretaries, janitors and other county workers into the federal E-Verify database.

The free service matches a worker's number to the assigned name, photo and citizenship status.

Like most employers, the county currently collects workers' numbers at hire and mails them to the federal government.

The "E-Verify system is just a more modern system," Commissioner Tom Mielke said.

Also Tuesday, Commissioner Marc Boldt said the commissioners shouldn't have implied, in their earlier action, that illegal immigration is responsible for the county's unemployment rate.

The Sept. 1 resolution mentioned the local unemployment rate as a reason to check contract workers' identities electronically.

"It almost made the reader believe that we have high unemployment because we have undocumented workers," Boldt said. "And that's not true."

Representatives of the League of United Latin American Citizens had met Boldt to ask for evidence of a link.

"Many municipalities are having problems with unemployment," said Maria Rodriguez-Salazar, a local LULAC leader. "And it has nothing to do with illegal immigrants. It has to do with greedy people who made some bad decisions."

Mielke, the commissioner who pushed the E-Verify system, disagreed.

"What few jobs we have are being used by undocumented or illegal people," he said.

Mielke and Boldt are Republicans. Commissioner Steve Stuart, a Democrat, also voted for both resolutions.

Tuesday's E-Verify action came up as part of a major overhaul of the county's human resources handbook. Among the other changes:

• Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is now forbidden by county policy as well as state law.

• Employees who warn managers about violations of state or federal law or threats to public safety can now seek "whistleblower" protection, as well as those who report "gross waste" of public money.

• Workplace "harassment" now includes "suggestive facial expressions," "leering," and "any physical interference with work or movement."


http://columbian.com/article/20090923/N ... 45/-1/NEWS

The commissioners asked Tuesday for a proposal by Jan. 1 to start feeding the Social Security numbers of new deputies, secretaries, janitors and other county workers into the federal E-Verify database.

In this sentence I would delete the word 'new' and insert 'all'.

Well at least some in the liberal state of Wash. is waking up...they had better the state has gone to ......well you know!!