E-Verify Database for Legal Working Status Required for Govt. Contractors, Proposed Bill for All US Workers
Last week, President George W. Bush issued an executive order mandating that nearly 4 million current and future contract employees of the federal government be subject to checks through an online government database run by the Department of Homeland Security called E-Verify to confirm their legal working status. The new order would subject private entities contracted by the federal government to the same requirements of government agencies; currently, federal agencies must use the program, but it is voluntary for private companies.
The government expects the new mandate to cover around 170,000 contractors and subcontractors, employing around 3.8 million employees. In the first year alone, the costs for the checks will be significant, an estimated $100 million. The order, however, exempts employees working on contracts outside the United States, employees hired before November 6, 1986, employees for contracts valued at less than $3,000, and subcontracts for materials only for commercially available products.
Certain members of Congress have also taken this opportunity to push forward legislation that would make using E-Verify mandatory not only for federal employees, but also for all employees in the United States hired by private employers. Heath Shuler (D-North Carolina), one of the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, has introduced the bill to make the check a regulatory requirement across the United States.
Proponents of Shuler's legislation see it as a way to crack down on allowing undocumented immigrants access to jobs in the United States. However, the consequences of imposing this widespread mandate would surely create much more trouble than the Department of Homeland of Security bargained for.
Consider the process by which the verification is completed: the employer runs the employee's social security number through a database controlled by the DHS. If there is no match or the company finds an error in the employee's record, the employee has the opportunity to contest the finding by providing documentation in support of their working status. Of course, appealing comes with all the complexities of any bureaucratic process in the government.
Of course, if the database were error-proof, employees would have little to worry about. As one could easily guess, that is not the case. The DHS touts the social security database's error percentage at a very small 0.5%; other estimates find the error or mismatch percentage at a higher 4%. Sure, these are small numbers. But when you're dealing with the entire working population of the United States, the actual numbers of those who may have to contest their legal working status is absurd. If the low estimate, DHS's estimate, held, it would be 765,000; if the high estimate, a more realistic one, held, 6.12 million employees would face needing to navigate the DHS bureaucracy in order to simply work. Errors wouldn't necessarily include legal immigrants with proper work visas; legal U.S. citizens could very easily face the nightmare of having to prove their legal working status based on a simple computer error.
However, these are just estimates. When you look at the current rate of mismatch or error in the DHS E-Verify program as it applies to government employees, the database denies 5.8% of submissions. Of these, only half a percent choose to contest, while a 5.3% choose to walk away.
According to DHS, then, this 5.3% of employees are considered "illegal immigrants." Surely, some are. But a study quoted in Reason Magazine estimated that a full one-third of employers who choose to voluntarily use E-Verify use it to "pre-screen" employees, making their hire contingent on being immediately included in the database. This means no appeal is possible, because the company would not give them the chance to provide documentation.
Any way you look at it, the move to push through this legislation would create headaches for immigrants looking to work in the United States and give some companies every reason to avoid hiring them-a classic lose-lose situation.