Less than 1 % of O.C. employers use E-Verify

By CINDY CARCAMO
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
January 16, 2010

Less than 1 percent of employers in Orange County use E-Verify, a federal program that allows employers to check the eligibility of employees to work in the United States.

E-Verify is voluntary for most employers. However, those with federal contracts are required to use the authorization system for all new employees, with few exceptions. Employers are prohibited from using the program to prescreen employees.

More than 179,000 employers are enrolled in E-Verify, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In fiscal 2009, more than 8.5 million record searches were run through the program.

Businesses granted federal contracts must use E-Verify, a system to weed out employees not authorized to work in the United States.

E-Verify was authored back in 1996 by Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona. Calvert had been pushing for years to make the system permanent, wrote Register columnist Dena Bunis, but opponents say the databases the web-based program relies on contain too many errors.

Here's how the system is supposed to work, wrote Bunis: After an employer offers someone a job, they input the person's Social Security number into the E-Verify system. In more than 96 percent of the cases, within a few seconds the computer tells the employer the number matches the name and all is well. If that doesn't happen, a so-called tentative nonconfirmation comes back and then the employee has to call the Social Security Administration or Department of Homeland Security and find out what's wrong.

Use the search tools on the Data tab by clicking the link below:

http://www.ocregister.com/news/verify-2 ... tml?data=1

You can sort through the 1,435 Orange County employers who have enrolled in the system. You can search by city, business name or category of business.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/verify-2 ... oyers.html