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.”

Revamping Employment Verification System Necessary, Says Schumer

By Sam Wechsler - Talk Radio News Service

The current system used to verify an employee's citizenship status is severely flawed and must be changed or replaced, said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) during a hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security. Keeping illegal immigrants from finding work in the U.S. would drastically decrease their presence in the U.S., he said.

E-Verify, the system now in place, relies on a name, date of birth, and social security number in order to determine whether an employee is a legal citizen. An employer checks the information provided by an employee against a government database. As long as an illegal alien can retrieve a legal citizen’s information, either by stealing it or receiving it from a legal friend, he or she can game the system.

In addition, ten percent of all workers that E-Verify claims are illegal aliens are actually legal citizens, said Michael Aytes, Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Schumer called for a system that would be flawless. “The only way the American people will have faith that our comprehensive immigration reform bill will stop illegal workers from obtaining jobs is if we implement an employment verification system that is tough, fair, easy to use, and effective and which relies upon a non-forgeable biometric identifier,” he said.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) pointed out that some unemployment issues could be solved by replacing employed illegal aliens with actual U.S. citizens. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) was more concerned with the fact that oftentimes illegal aliens are grossly mistreated by corrupt employers.

Gutierrez said, “incorporating an effective employment verification system is our only hope for truly ending illegal immigration. We can do this, and we must do it this year. In the the end, this is not a question of whether or not we can craft an effective system; rather, it is a question of political will.”

Sorting out the fact from fiction in electronic employment verification systems

The House Judiciary Committee oversaw a hearing on electronic employment verification systems and the safeguards needed to protect privacy and prevent misuse within them. Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) presided over the hearing, while Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.), and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) served as the primary witnesses. Both Lofgren and Conyers wanted a thorough explanation of the E-Verify system and the New Employee Verification Act (NEVA), sorting out the fact from the fiction.

Conyers said that the main purpose of the hearing was to figure out a way to improve the E-Verify system. E-Verify was created as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 in order to verify the employment eligibility of both U.S. citizens and noncitizens at no charge to the employer. Calvert and Shuler highlighted the benefits of using E-Verify. Calvert said that all employers are required to check all potential new employees, inversely protecting everyone from discrimination. Shuler explained the high performance rate, saying that out of 1,000 employees 942 would be cleared automatically, 53 would be correctly mismatched, and the remaining five would successfully fight their mismatch. This gave the system an error rate of only half a percent.

Johnson and Giffords argued the flaws of E-Verify and explained the benefits of NEVA. Johnson said that in order to create an effective, secure, and reliable system, the system must prohibit unlawful employment, protect workers, partner with employers, reduce the risk of identity theft, and protect Social Security. Giffords agreed with him and said that NEVA fulfills each of these guidelines making it the best alternative to the E-Verify system. She stressed that if Congress does nothing to improve the system, “we will have failed.”

Blurry line between immigration and security

Among differing views concerning the subcommittee’s jurisdiction, the House Subcommittee on Border Maritime and Global Counterterrorism met to analyze the current state of security found at the United States’s borders and ports of entry. Multiple witnesses expressed support for Rep. Heath Shuler’s (D-N.C.) Secure America with Verification and Enforcement Act (SAVE Act,) an act that would increase the number of border patrol agents, enlarge specialized enforcement programs, and mandate the Employment Verification Program (E-Verify) among employers.

Members of Congress representing border regions spoke on the security challenges that must be met along the border and at ports of entry. They described border patrols in their districts as underfunded and understaffed while emphasizing the need for a more efficient force to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking and a program to attract and retain border patrol agents. Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) added that agents "only need a basic Chevrolet" along the border, a reference to the inappropriate allocation of funds. Witnesses also promoted E-Verify as a way to deter continued illegal immigration.

The fine line between border security and illegal immigration was highlighted by disagreements pertaining to the jurisdiction of the subcommittee. Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) withdrew a question regarding amnesty for illegal immigrants after Chairwoman Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) reminded him that the subcommittee’s focus was security. Ranking member Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) said that a comprehensive solution necessitates discussion on a wide range of topics. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, stated that many of the topics in question are under discussion within the Judiciary Committee and that it is careful not to infringe on the jurisdiction of the Homeland Security Committee.

Committee compares employee verification systems

Today the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing to discuss various employee verification systems that determine worker eligibility for jobs throughout the United States.

The various measures included Rep. Heath Shuler’s (D-NC) Secure America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act, which would expand the use of E-Verify, a searchable online database of citizen identities and official documentation numbers. Another proposal was Rep. Sam Johnson’s (R-TX) New Employee Verification Act (NEVA), which cosponsor Rep. Gabrielle Gifford (D-AZ) said was the more “realistic” approach that rejects the use of E-Verify. Gifford said that since E-Verify was mandated in Arizona in 2007, it has been found “complicated, unreliable, and burdensome” and “mandating E-Verify nationwide for all employees would be disastrous.” She also pointed out that not all employers have the Internet access that E-Verify requires to screen applicants.

Shuler said that E-Verify has resulted in a match for 93 percent of new employees, and of the 7 percent who were not matched, less than one percent “bothered to contest the results.” He called the system “easy to use” and said it is “currently being updated and expanded” to meet increased demand.