Something for Congress to do
Since it appears we're going to have a lame-duck Congressional session, it's possible to clean up a little bit of unfinished business while they're at it. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the future of the E-Verify system is in doubt:
The E-Verify program, which allows employers to check the immigration status of new employees, has been steadily improving and is now 99.5 percent accurate, according to a new paper by the Center for Immigration Studies. This voluntary program is already screening more than one in ten new hires nationwide, and as of September 13, 2008, has processed 6.21 million queries.
E-Verify is set to expire on November 30, 2008, unless it is re-authorized by Congress. The House of Representatives has already passed a reauthorization bill by a vote of 407-2, while the Senate has not yet taken action.
To help inform debate over E-Verify, the Center for Immigration Studies has produced a thorough evaluation. The Backgrounder, entitled “If It’s Fixed, Don’t Break It: Moving Forward with E-Verify,” is authored by Janice Kephart, Director of National Security Studies at the Center and a former counsel to the 9/11 Commission. The report covers the many facets of the E-Verify debate: statistics regarding usage, cost, and effectiveness; legislative history; executive orders affecting the program; the relationship of E-Verify to worksite enforcement; and past improvements to the program as well as future goals.
Among the report's findings:
As of the first half of FY 2007, only one-half of one percent of eligible employees screened had to take additional steps to obtain work authorization; overall, the system is 99.5% accurate.
More than 93 percent of employees are verified within five seconds; another 1.2 percent are verified within 24 hours. A new Photo Screening Tool and a streamlined procedure for naturalized citizens to receive authorization are increasing accuracy and efficiency for employers and employees; naturalized citizens no longer need to take remedial action at Social Security.
About 5 percent of new employees are not confirmed as work authorized, mirroring the same percentage of illegal aliens estimated to be in the labor force.
When E-Verify became web-based in 2004, 1,533 employers had signed up. As of September 13, 2008, there are 85,816 employers representing over 446,000 sites and over 6.21 million queries processed. Currently, about 1,000 new employers join per week.
Eleven states require use of E-Verify in certain circumstances (AZ, CO, GA, ID, MN, MO, MS, NC, OK, RI, and UT). (Emphasis in original.)
Generally I'm one who falls on the side of state's rights but in this case the national security aspect of the program outweighs the concerns of those who think each state should do its own thing. Since the program is a joint operation of the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration, as long as we have Social Security there's good reason to continue the program.
As the CIS noted above, the program is still languishing in limbo but the lame-duck session will give Senators an opportunity to correct the oversight. Normally I'm foursquare behind those items the national Chamber of Commerce desires but not in this case - they've been fighting E-Verify tooth and nail.
It's bad enough the federal government does little to nothing about all the duplicity found in Social Security records - one who has their personal identity stolen will likely see their Social Security number used by a number of others who wish to maintain their residence in the country. But not keeping a program that serves as a disincentive for employers to hire those in the country illegally (generally at the expense of those citizens on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder) seems a poor way to help the working man. Ironically, it's a Democratic Senator (Robert Menendez of New Jersey) who's holding up progress on this reauthorization - is he beholden to his country or what I assume is his ancestry?
We have 17 days to act on this, or at least until the 110th Congress comes to an end. Let's keep E-Verify in place and protect honest, hardworking Americans.