Opposition mounts to making DHS E-Verify system mandatory
thehill.com
By Gautham Nagesh
09/15/11 05:40 AM ET

Opposition to forcing all businesses to use a Department of Homeland Security system to check the legal status of new hires is growing ahead of Thursday's markup of legislation by the House Judiciary Committee.

The Legal Workforce Act from Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) would make DHS's E-Verify system mandatory for all businesses. Federal contractors are currently required to run the Social Security numbers of new hires through the system to ensure they are legally allowed to work in the U.S.

Smith argues the legislation would free up millions of jobs that would otherwise go to illegal immigrants. But critics, including the ACLU, small businesses and immigration advocates, argue the system isn't even that effective at detecting illegal immigrants because they often use false documents.

Agricultural producers in particular are concerned about the potential loss of their labor pool, which is why Smith introduced a bill last week that would grant 500,000 temporary agricultural work visas.

“Representative Smith continues to press for a mandatory E-Verify system despite growing objections from agriculture, small business and foes of big government," said National Immigration Forum executive director Ali Noorani.

"This coupling of bills by Mr. Smith is a transparent attempt to buy off the agricultural industry which relies on undocumented workers to pick the crops we eat and package them for market."

Aside from the potential economic impact of eliminating millions of undocumented workers from the labor pool, privacy advocates are concerned about the impact of making the system mandatory.

ACLU legislative counsel Chris Calabrese told The Hill that Smith's bill would allow the government to use E-Verify for other purposes aside from just verifying the employment status of new hires so long as it was in protection of critical infrastructure.

The accuracy of the system is also disputed by the ACLU and other critics, who contend the 99.5 percent approved figure quoted by Smith is inaccurate. In the past, U.S. Customs and Immigration has indicated that between 2 percent and 3 percent of candidates are not immediately deemed eligible.

Some portion of those workers are illegal and are therefore being screened out effectively, but there remains a statistically significant number of cases in which a worker is legally allowed to work in the U.S. but not approved by E-Verify.

Calabrese said those cases can occur because of clerical errors, name changes or a host of other reasons. He suggested workers affected by such errors are often forced to wait for the necessary corrections and give up the employment opportunity in question during the interim.

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