E-Verify: Facts, Faults, and Future. |
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December 2008 In an article dated June 30, 2006 in the New York Times, Immigration Agents brought a 40-Count Federal indictment against Maximino Garcia and Garcia Labor Company. These charges were brought by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, a part of The Department of Homeland Security. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents, sought out Garcia Labor because it had a contract with ABX Air, a cargo airline that flies express shipments for DHL. From 1999-2005, Garcia Labor sent more than 1000 illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans, to sort freight at ABX Air. In one month alone, Garcia Labor Company had 186 employees that did not have valid Social Security Numbers. According to Brian M. Moskowitz, special agent for the Department of Homeland Security speaking to Mr. Garcia, said, "You had people who you really don't know, having access to the underbelly of an airplane." Maximino Garcia, President & Co-Owner of Garcia Labor Company was sentenced in the US District Court to 15 months imprisonment followed by three years supervised release and fined $25,000. Garcia was ordered to forfeit $12 Million, representing the proceeds of the crime on March 1, 2007. Facts In the year 2000, an estimated 8.5 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States. By 2007, that number jumped to 11.8 million. The Center for Immigration Studies reported $10 billion of the 2002 federal deficit was directly related to unauthorized immigrants living and working in the US. The largest costs associated with illegal immigrants annually are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); food assistance programs and free lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion). With these numbers increasing annually, the US government took action to establish a user-friendly system to quickly identify unauthorized immigrants seeking employment. The result is the E-Verify system (previously known as The Basic Pilot Employment Verification System). E-Verify is an online certification system that is operated by the (DHS) Department of Homeland Security and (SSA) Social Security Administration. Congress established the program as part of the (IIRIRA) Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. According to a recent CNN news report (CNN-E-Verify Update), there are over 92,000 enrolled in the program. Over 6.5 million queries have been performed so far in the fiscal year 2008. The database holds over 444 million records from the Social Security Administration, and over 60 million records from the Department of Homeland Security. On June 9, 2008, President Bush amended Executive order 12989, and now all federal departments and agencies are requiring federal government contractors to use an electronic system to verify employment eligibility. At this time, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chernoff designated E-Verify as the certification system to use. Effective January 15, 2009, all federal contractors and subcontractors must begin using the E-Verify system. Any company awarded a contract with the federal government will be required to enroll with E-Verify within 30 days. How does it work? Once an employer agrees to participate and is signed up to use the E-Verify program, the employee's I-9 form information is entered into the system by the employer or third-party verifier. The employer (or its third party verifier) has a three-day window to check the new employee's work authorization. There are three results that could be received: 1) Employment Authorization- Employee is authorized to work If an employer gets a tentative Non-Confirmation, first the employer must confirm that the correct information has been entered into the system. If a tentative Non-Confirmation is the result still, the employee is given information about how to challenge the results with the Social Security Administration and/or the Department of Homeland Security. The employee will have eight days to resolve the issues, if the results are not contested. If the issues are not resolved, then the employee may be terminated. Faults What are the faults of the E-Verify system? The E-Verify system cannot detect if a stolen Social Security Number (and associated name) is being used by more than one person in more than one location in the US. Because E-Verify does not detect identity theft, there is a new photo tool with E-Verify that is supposed to help address this problem. Foreign-born, work-authorized employees are much more likely to receive (Tentative Non-Confirmations) than US-born workers. According to the Westat report, Foreign-born work-authorized employees are thirty times more likely to receive false positives than US-born employees. No pre-employment screening is permitted. Therefore, the potential still exists to hire an ineligible employee before knowing the truth. Future Several states have enacted laws requiring the use of E-Verify in some capacity. These states include: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah. Arizona, Mississippi, and South Carolina require all employers to use the system while the others are required to use it for public or private employers and contractors. On the other hand, Illinois is currently in a lawsuit with the Federal government about prohibiting its employers from enrolling in any type of electronic verification system. It is clear that the future of employment eligibility verification will involve some form of electronic verification. As the number of states and legislation requiring E-Verify participation increases, and the number of illegal immigrants continues to rise, many employers will find that they have no choice but to register and to use this, or other electronic employment verification systems. HR ProFile is a third party designated agent of the E-Verify service and can help you with your I-9 compliance process. Please call us today at 1-800-969-4300 to learn more. Sources: Siskind, Greg. IRCA, E-Verify, and Immigration Compliance Laws in Tennessee and Arizona. Lockhart, Gregory G. US Attorney General, Southern District of Ohio, Department of Justice. President of Garcia Labor Companies receives 15-month sentence for conspiring to provide illegal workers to National Sir Cargo Firm. March 1, 2007 Fredrickson, Byron. PA. Introduction to E-Verify. June 2006 Border Trade Alliance. E-Verify-States Leading charge toward Mandatory use of Federal System to verify Employee Citizenship Status. Published by policy. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Statement for the Record: E-Verify. Hastings S. Paul. Publications: Immigration News: recent E-Verify Developments. May 20, 2008. Electronic Privacy Information Center. Spotlight on Surveillance. E-Verify System: DHS Changes Name, but Problems Remain for U.S. Workers. July 2007. Knickerbocker, Brad. Illegal Immigrants in the US: How many are there?. The ChristianScience Monitor Hoffer, Micheal; Rytina, Nancy; Baker, Bryan. Estimates of Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States. DHS Office of Immigration Studies, January 2007. Camarota, Steven. The High Costs of Cheap Labor, Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget. August 2004. USCIS, Executive order 12989 Press Release. November 13, 2008. DHS. E-Verify. October 15, 2008. Findings of the web basic pilot evaluation. Westat. September 2007. |
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