Thread: E-Verify Results Demonstrate Accuracy and Efficiency

E-Verify Results Demonstrate Accuracy and Efficiency

Testimony before the Rhode Island Senate Labor Committee
Providence, Rhode Island

May 14, 2008

Statement of
Jessica M. Vaughan
Senior Policy Analyst
Center for Immigration Studies
Washington, DC


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Mr. Chairman and members of the Labor Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding Sen. Cote’s bill to implement phased-in mandatory use of the federal electronic work authorization system, E-Verify, for all employers with three or more employees.

I know you have heard a great deal of testimony regarding this bill. I want to focus on just a few key points about E-Verify that we know from experience and from the extensive independent evaluations that have been done by Westat and the GAO. I also want to share some new information from testimony last week before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee in Washington and from the Verification Office of USCIS, the agency that administers the program.

E-Verify works. The employers who use it – who now number 221 in Rhode Island,1 which is about triple the number at this time last year – report overwhelmingly that it does help them avoid hiring illegal workers, and that it is much better than the current I-9 system, which is more vulnerable to document fraud and employer abuse.

E-Verify is easy to use. My own organization uses it and, like other small businesses, we have encountered no problems with the system. The tutorial takes about 30 minutes to complete, if you take your time. No special software or security system is required.

E-Verify is accurate. 98 percent of eligible workers are confirmed to work instantaneously. Fewer than one percent of eligible workers need to update their records to be confirmed.2

It is true, as some have testified, that the Social Security Administration database used by E-Verify does have some records with incorrect information (an estimated 17.8 million out of 435 million). However, the auditors noted that many of the records with discrepancies belong to individuals who are not in the work force, such as elderly, children, or deceased individuals, and thus would not be relevant to E-Verify. That same audit actually complimented the Social Security Administration for the accuracy of the database.3

According to Verification Office officials, minor typographical errors rarely result in a tentative non-confirmation, or “yellow light,â€

E-Verify is helping, but the traitors will find a way around.