Thread: R.I.: Panel hears two bills on E-Verify program

Panel hears two bills on E-Verify program

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, March 24, 2010

By Richard C. Dujardin

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE –– Two competing bills relating to the E-Verify employment system that tries to weed out undocumented workers drew advocates for both sides at a hearing before the House Committee on Labor Tuesday night.

One bill would make the E-Verify system mandatory for all Rhode Island firms with more than two employees, regardless of whether the firms have any contracts with the state. The other would reverse Governor Carcieri’s order of two years ago requiring firms to use the system as a condition of doing business with the state.

As has been the case for each of the other years where the use of the electronic database has come before lawmakers, advocates of the system argued that the E-Verify system was a common-sense approach that would help prevent unscrupulous employers from hiring illegal undocumented workers while assuring that jobs go to people in the state who are here legally.

Opponents argued that even with a 96-percent rate of accuracy, the system is not accurate enough to prevent otherwise legal residents from being denied jobs because of mistakes that they said can take weeks to correct.

Rep. Jon D. Brien, the Woonsocket Democrat who is behind the bill to expand the E-Verify system to every employer with two or more employees, characterized the proposal as a “jobs bill that will help to ensure that jobs go to those who are work eligible.â€

Not if they increase the penalties at the same time.