http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/88706.php

Published: 08.15.2005

Quick, free service spots job seekers' fake papers
By Lourdes Medrano
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

At the meat-processing plants of Bar-S Foods, rumors of impending raids by immigration agents once sent illegal workers fleeing to avoid deportation.

"It made for a very unstable work force," said Marty Thompson, the company's vice president of human resources.

The sudden loss of workers and random immigration audits prompted the Phoenix-based company to sign up for a federal program that detects fake documents commonly used to get work.

The company, part of an industry that has long attracted its share of workers living in the country illegally, became one of the first to test the Basic Pilot Employment Verification System.

The voluntary program, which debuted eight years ago in five states, allows employers to check the legitimacy of personal data from potential hires through a government Web site.

Chris Bentley, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the verification system is a quick way for employers to get a handle on the problem of fake documents. In a matter of seconds, companies can check employee documents against Social Security and Homeland Security databases.

But even as the national debate over illegal immigration reaches a fever pitch, relatively few companies use the free program to screen out ineligible workers.

About 4,500 of the nation's 5.5 million companies with paid employees that the Census Bureau counted in 2002 routinely use the verification system. The number of users in Arizona is about 100, Bentley said.

Citizenship and Immigration Services has done some outreach to inform companies about the program, Bentley said, but many are just now learning about it because it was expanded to Arizona only last December in the final segment of a nationwide phase-in.

Said Paula Stuht, economic development director for the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce: "It's not that we haven't promoted it; it's just that it's not on my radar."

John Dougherty, the chamber's director of governmental affairs, said employers want to comply with the law. But the existing verification system is largely unknown to employers, he said, and may not be the best answer to the complex questions surrounding illegal immigration.

"This is a Band-Aid solution. … We support comprehensive immigration reform," Dougherty said.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said relatively few companies take part in the program because the federal government doesn't require participation.

"This is something that should have been mandatory years ago," said Mehlman, whose Washington, D.C., group favors a crackdown on illegal immigration.

The government does not hold employers responsible because of powerful business interest groups that benefit from the cheap labor of illegal workers, Mehlman said. And advocates of illegal immigrants have long contended that any screening system would discriminate against immigrant workers, he added.

If all companies were required to use the verification system, it would "create a level playing field for the vast majority of employers who want to abide by the rules," he said. Many employers hire illegal workers to stay competitive, Mehlman said. Implementing a uniform system would minimize any chance of discrimination against employees, he added.

"The employer-sanctions law passed in 1986; we shouldn't still be testing pilot programs in 2005," he said.

It was 19 years ago that Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which outlawed the employment of illegal immigrants and created fines for employers who knowingly hire them. The law, which mandated that employers check for worker eligibility but not that they authenticate workers' documents, quickly spawned a cottage industry of inexpensive counterfeit Social Security and permanent-residency cards.

Immigration reform plans put forth recently in Washington attempt to address the problem of fake documents. One bill, introduced by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and another introduced by Republican Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas, both call for a mechanism through which employers can verify the legal status of new employees.

For Thompson of Bar-S, taking the extra step to keep ineligible workers off the company's staff is about being a good corporate citizen. The company participated early on because some of its 1,500 workers are in Texas and California - which along with Florida, Illinois and New York were the first to test the verification system. It was expanded to Nebraska in 1999.

Thompson said his company simply submits a Social Security number on the secure government Web site. If a job applicant is providing false information, it's rejected almost immediately.

He said he wishes the government would follow up on the rejected workers, who probably go on to get jobs with companies that don't check employment eligibility. But he still sees the program as an effective tool.

"By getting into this program, we were assured that we were hiring legal workers," Thompson said, adding that the labor pool has shrunk considerably since the company began using the program in 1998.

"It may hurt in getting more people, but that is not a concern," he said. "It's about doing the right thing."