Thread: NB: Critics: Why require E-Verify?

Published Tuesday December 30, 2008
Critics: Why require E-Verify?
BY CINDY GONZALEZ
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

About E-Verify The automated, Internet-based resource helps to verify eligibility of new hires.

Participation is voluntary, but State Sen. Brad Ashford is proposing it be made mandatory for state contractors and licensees.

E-Verify works by checking applicant information against Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security databases (about 449 million and 60 million records, respectively).

But E-Verify is unable to detect use or multiple uses of a stolen identity.

The system currently is used by less than 1 percent of Nebraska's employers, although large meatpackers have been signed on for years.

Sources: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. General Accountability Office.
Nebraska meatpackers have been using an electronic system to ferret out undocumented workers for years — long before the recent push by local politicians to tap E-Verify in the fight against illegal immigration.

Indeed, huge operations such as Swift & Co. and Tyson Foods plugged into the online technology virtually from its start in 1997.

Since then, hundreds more Nebraska businesses have signed on voluntarily.

That E-Verify already is entrenched in the industry that lured foreign laborers to Nebraska has critics questioning why the state would spend resources to make the program mandatory. They also cite the system's error rate and the risk of discrimination.

Even supporter Gary Mickelson, a Tyson spokesman, expressed caution over expecting too much.

"It is not a catch-all," said Mickelson, whose company employs about 8,000 in Nebraska.

Still, he and other proponents say, E-Verify is the best tool government has to offer to help ensure an authorized labor force. Free to the employer, the program works by cross-referencing personal data provided by job applicants with federal databases.

State Sen. Brad Ashford, who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee and who plans to ask that E-Verify be mandatory, expects continued debate in the coming legislative session.

The Omaha senator offered these new details of his plan:

• A state team would be assembled to investigate and enforce penalties. The additional staff and training would come at "significant" yet still undetermined cost.

• The law would apply to employers that have a contract, license or grant with the state. Violators would face revocation of funds and the right to do business in Nebraska.

Participants have an incentive: an immunity provision helps protect against criminal prosecution by the federal government.

"My recommendation to clients, generally, is that if the service is available, why not use it, especially if there are safe harbors?" said Omaha attorney Mark Greul, whose firm registered mainly to become familiar with the system so attorneys could advise clients.

Depending on an employer's size, budget and needs, however, the payoff might not be worth the extra training, he said.

Outgoing State Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln agreed: "It might hurt the little guy."

The state would benefit more, Schimek said, by increasing efforts to integrate immigrants who have helped rejuvenate dying communities statewide.

As of December, about 450 employers in Nebraska and 96,000 nationally were registered, said Marilu Cabrera, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that administers E-Verify.

Not all are active. About half of those registered actually use the system, according to a 2008 federal study.

A Lincoln excavating company is an example of a business that signed up under a former human resource director. It remains on the government's list even though it no longer participates.

Although just a fragment (about 1 percent) of the nation's 7.4 million employers and an even smaller proportion of Nebraska's are registered, Cabrera said usage is on the rise. In the last two months, she said, Nebraska employers made 16,234 queries. That compares with 77,309 in all of the previous 12 months.

Nationally, queries doubled between fiscal year 2007 and 2008.

Bill Ekeler, owner of Overland Products of Fremont, Neb., is among the newcomers, signing on just a few months ago.

As part of the E-Verify contract, he had to post a notice that the system was now in use at his light-manufacturing company. Walk-in applicants dropped by about half, he said.

"Word traveled very quickly," Ekeler said.

About $100 million was allocated nationally for E-Verify this fiscal year. On Jan. 15, it becomes mandatory for all federal contractors.

President-elect Barack Obama supports further expansion of the system that launched as the "Basic Pilot" in a handful of states with large illegal immigrant populations. Local businesses with operations in those early states also could participate.

Nebraska was added after the controversial "Operation Vanguard," a short-lived anti-illegal immigration initiative that targeted the state's meatpacking industry.

Electronic verification became available to all several years ago. Mandatory across-the-board implementation would cost more than $1 billion for the next four years, the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated.

If Nebraska passes an E-verify law, it would join a dozen other states that require its use in some form.

Lourdes Gouveia, an immigration expert at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is concerned about the program's error rate. She also sees the proposal as movement toward a "surveillance" state heavy on enforcement tactics.

Mandatory E-Verify in Arizona, Gouveia said, has succeeded in keeping many foreign workers out of the formal economy.

"However, it has also sent them off to a booming informal economy," she said. The growing underground labor force translates into lost income taxes and Social Security receipts.

Concerns raised by critics were echoed by the GAO study. It notes, for example, that although E-Verify catches fictitious names and Social Security numbers, it can't detect stolen ID or a Social Security number in use elsewhere.

Officials have started to enter photos into the system, but currently they're helpful in less than 5 percent of queries.

Privacy laws have stunted further image sharing.

In addition, E-Verify is only as accurate as the government records — 449 million at the Social Security Administration and 60 million at the Department of Homeland Security.

Brides with new last names are typical among mismatches identified in the system. Applicants must rectify the discrepancy or lose the job.

Most employer queries (about 92 percent) still come back within seconds as good, the government reported. Opponents say that the error rate is higher and that qualified workers too often are hassled unfairly.

The GAO study of E-Verify also said the program is subject to employer misuse and abuse. Some bosses don't fire workers with mismatched records, researchers said, and others take advantage of that information to reduce a worker's pay.

High-profile immigration raids two years ago on Swift meatpacking plants in Nebraska and five other states underscored imperfections in the system.

Even though Swift had used electronic verification for a decade, federal officials found evidence of fraud and stolen identities among laborers.

Such shortcomings, said Mickelson of Tyson, are why his company complements the program with additional tools and an independent company that audits hiring practices.

Both sides in the E-Verify debate agree on at least one thing: They say states and cities could be spared divisive debates over such proposals if Congress accepted its role to solve illegal immigration.

Said Ashford: "The many years of inaction by the federal government has made it impossible for us to take no action."


• Contact the writer: 444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com

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