Immigration Analysts Call For Employee Identity Verification

By Leah Valencia, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service

Tuesday immigration policy researchers stated that illegal immigrants are responsible for the majority of identity theft crime and that little is being done by the Obama administration to stop them.

“What is striking to me... is how astonishingly uninterested in this crime the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration is,” said Stewart Baker, the former Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy. “There is no inclination on the part of either of those institutions to enforce the rules.”

The remarks came during a panel discussion hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies at the National Press Club. Panelists urged employers to verify the identity and citizenship of it’s workers by using government systems such as E-Verify and Social Security Number Verification Services, explaining that 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security card to obtain employment.

“We are finding that foreign born individuals commit more varieties of identity frauds than Americans do,” CIS National Security Policy Director Janice Kephart said. “E-Verify is snuffing out counterfeiters relatively well.”

E-Verify, which is a voluntary online system operated by the DHS and SSA where employers can verify the identity of new hires by comparing information from an employment eligibility form to a database, has been a centerpiece in current immigration reform debates. Lawmakers have considered mandating all employers use E-Verify as opposed to the brute force of mass deportations.

However, when E-Verify was written into the Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act in 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the system would have cost at least $12 billion over 10 years to implement. In 2005 the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that E-Verify could not detect identity fraud if, “An unauthorized worker presents an employer with either valid identity documents belonging to another person, or reasonably well-made counterfeit documents containing valid information about another person.”

“If I were to take your name, your social security number and your date of birth... I could steal your identity through E-Verify and get through, It is not totally fool-proof,” Author of a CIS backgrounder Ronald Mortensen said.

E-Verify was scheduled to expire September 30, 2009 but on Monday Congress passed a Short-Term Funding Resolution that included a 31-day E-Verify extension.

“The difference between now and the future will be that the administration is behind it,” Kephart said. “They have now been convinced that it is a good program and they are willing to go forward with it.”

1.3 million illegal immigrants fled U.S.

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) states that there was a significant decline in the illegal immigrant population over the past few months. At a news conference held by the Center today, Steven Camarota, the director of Research at CIS, said rates of legal immigration continued to rise unchanged, while the illegal immigrant population decline by 11 percent, or 1.3 million people.

Camarota gave two causes for this significant decline. First, he said increased illegal immigration enforcement deterred new people from entering, and caused some leave on their own. He pointed to how only the illegal immigrant population was affected, while the legal population was unaffected to explain the effectiveness of enforcement. Secondly, the poor state of the economy in the U.S. caused the population to decline as well. He said the statistically significant decline in illegal immigrant population means new enforcement measures are working well.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said the 11 percent decline is very significant, but warned against a possible increase in immigration when four laws against illegal immigration expire soon. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) said the new report speaks highly of efforts in the past few years to "stand up" for the "rule of law" and reduce illegal immigration.