Thread: Bush Orders Contractors to Check Employees Legal Status!!!

Bush orders contractors to check legal status of employees

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer
12 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush has signed an executive order requiring contractors and others who do business with the federal government to make sure their employees can legally work in the U.S.

Bush signed the order Friday and the White House announced it Monday.

The federal government has had some embarrassing moments when illegal workers have been discovered to be working for contractors they've hired, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a news conference. For that reason it's trying to get its own house in order, Chertoff said.

"The federal government should lead by example and not merely by exhortation," he said.

The order says federal departments and agencies must require contractors to use an electronic system to verify that the workers are eligible to work in the U.S.

Homeland Security operates the Web-based E-Verify system, which Chertoff said 1,000 employers a week are signing up to use. The system allows employers to check Social Security numbers provided by employees. The order would affect hundreds of thousands of workers, at the least, and potentially millions, Chertoff said.

Bush's order is aimed at cracking down on hiring of illegal immigrants. But people who overstayed visas or came to the country legally but do not have permission to work, such as some students or those awaiting work permits, also could be snagged with the system.

"It is the policy of the executive branch to enforce fully the immigration laws of the United States, including the detection and removal of illegal aliens and the imposition of legal sanctions against employers that hire illegal aliens," the executive order says.

The order comes as a worker verification bill has essentially stalled in Congress. A Democratic immigration enforcement bill would require employers to check the citizenship and legal status of all their employees.

"I think it's a great decision. I think it's what the American people have been asking for, common-sense, basic things that are not Draconian or dramatic. Employer verification addresses the real problem and that is illegal employment," said Rep. Brian Bilbray, a California Republican who heads the Immigration Reform Caucus, a group of lawmakers who support tougher immigration laws.

Most employees fill out I-9 forms and submit accompanying documents that employers generally look over to determine whether the worker is legitimate. With E-Verify system, employers enter a name and Social Security number into a computer using the Internet..

E-Verify checks various government databases to make sure the number is legitimate and that it goes with the name that was submitted. If the there are problems, the person is tagged as a potentially illegal worker and must resolve the discrepancy.

The issue of using E-Verify has run into opposition over the years from business groups who say the system is burdensome and civil libertarians who say it will lead to discrimination and job losses by U.S. citizen workers misidentified as illegal workers.

Concerns about the system's effect on privacy was to be the topic of a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. Several members of Congress were to testify at the hearing.

Chertoff said the system gives correct results 99.5 percent of the time and legal workers are able to resolve problems in less than two days.

But Tim Sarapani, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said with Americans starting new jobs 55 million times a year, a 4.5 percent error rate can be a problem.

Also Monday, Chertoff said Homeland Security is awarding Boeing Co. contracts to build two sections of Arizona "virtual fence" that would are a version of a prototype known as Project 28 that failed to perform as expected. Chertoff said Boeing will use fixed towers, radar, remote-controlled cameras, sensors and other technology in two areas of Arizona.

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On the Net: Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080609/ap_ ... mmigration

Wonder why Jorge after all these years decided to do this? Would love to know the true reason.

The order is aimed at cracking down on hiring of illegal immigrants. But people who overstayed visas or came to the country legally but do not have permission to work, such as some students or those awaiting work permits, also could be snagged with the system.

If they don't have permission to work or have expired visas, they are supposed to get snagged DUH!!

About time too!

But Tim Sarapani, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said with Americans starting new jobs 55 million times a year, a 4.5 percent error rate can be a problem.

A "mere 4.5 percent error rate" is alot better than 4.5 million illegal aliens working here illegally!

ACLU Statement on President Bush’s Directive Mandating Employment Verification for All Governmental Contracts (6/9/200


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: (202) 527-0040 or media@dcaclu.org



Late last week, President Bush issued a National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive that requires all governmental contracts to go through an employment verification process, checking potential employees against their Social Security file. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has been plagued with errors for individual records, resulting in massive backlogs in SSA field offices for the elderly and disabled. Adding employment verification to the SSA’s duties would only exacerbate problems the agency is already facing.



The following can be attributed to Timothy Sparapani, Senior Legislative Counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union:



"The President's immigration announcement will effectively create a ‘No-Work’ list, preventing eligible Americans from working. This policy will vastly increase, not decrease, the incidence of identity thefts because they are turning American workers' identities into black market commodities. This will not decrease immigration, but it will cause enormous turmoil and economic distress for the poor workers who wrongly lose their jobs due to erroneous government data or whose identity is borrowed by an undocumented immigrant who is desperate to work.

"Once again it is shown that the President's immigration policy boils down to nothing more than simply wishing upon a star. Who will handle this massive expansion of a pilot program that even reports commissioned by DHS said was a disaster in the making? Which government workers will respond to the requests of the thousands of government contractor employees who will be wrongly terminated because government data errors caused them to lose their jobs?"



Sparapani will testify tomorrow before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law on the effects of implementing a mandatory electronic employment verification system in the United States. Six members of Congress will also testify before the subcommittee, marking the growing significance of this issue to both members of Congress and the American people.



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http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/workplac ... 80609.html

If the ACLU is whining about this, then it must be a good (if belated) thing.

I WILL BELIEVE THIS WHEN THEY START SENDING EMPLOYERS TO SERIOUS PRISON TIME.....AND WHEN ALL THE ILLEGALS ARE GONE. PROMISES PROMISES. WE HAVE HEARD SO MANY PROMISES.

Remember how we were invited by the DOT to send them our comments on the Mexican truck program?

Well, the female reporter stated on Lou Dobbs tonight that there is an open comment period for this Federal contactors e-verify order. I didn't catch which department but I'm assuming it's DHS that will accept comments from the public. I just checked the Lou Dobbs transcipts and they haven't been updated for today as of yet, but I'm hoping a link will be provided there tomorrow. If not, we NEED to get that comment link and let em know we approve but we want ALL employers to use e-verify on current employees and future hires.

On the DHS website:

Agencies responsible for federal acquisition regulations (FAR) will send a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to the Federal Register today soliciting public comment on proposed changes to these regulations. Comments will be accepted for 60 days.

http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1213039922523.shtm

Could somebody (not me) with a computer that doesn't take 10 minutes to load a page (mine is SO slow) maybe try and find us a link to the comment thing?

Populist wrote:

If the ACLU is whining about this, then it must be a good (if belated) thing.

Most definitely!

This is what it is, the feds are tired of being embarrassed by illegal aliens getting caught working for the federal government. I don't really see any sinister plan in the works here. This is probably just a situation where Chertoff performed a little bending of King George's ear and forced him to listen to reason.

It's a start and at least it's a signal that enforcement not "reform" is what's on the table now...boy LA RAZA must be fuming, ha, ha, ha.