Bush Expands Mandatory Employment Eligibility Verification
The Los Angeles Times reports on a new executive order from President Bush that requires all companies doing work for the government to use the government’s controversial employment eligibility verification system. DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff predicted the order would affect “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of workers.” The newly amended Executive Order 12989 reads:
Sec. 5. (a) Executive departments and agencies that enter into contracts shall require, as a condition of each contract, that the contractor agree to use an electronic employment eligibility verification system designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security to verify the employment eligibility of: (i) all persons hired during the contract term by the contractor to perform employment duties within the United States; and (ii) all persons assigned by the contractor to perform work within the United States on the Federal contract.
This is another attempt by the Bush administration to force employers to use the “voluntary” employment eligibility verification system called E-Verify. In summer 2007, the Bush administration sought to create a mandatory national employment eligibility verification database, but the bills died in Congress. After that, the Department of Homeland Security attempted to impose mandatory use of the voluntary system through an administrative rulemaking. DHS sought to require more than 200,000 federal contractors to check use E-Verify when hiring employees. This was an increase of more than 1,076 percent over the 17,000 employers that were then registered in the program. DHS is still fighting a lawsuit over this rulemaking.
The goal of employment eligibility verification is ostensibly to prevent undocumented immigrants from obtaining employment in the United States. However, it could instead prevent millions of Americans from obtaining lawful employment. The burden is upon the individual to prove that he or she is eligible for employment, and the individual is at the mercy of a government system filled with errors and difficult to contest.
It is notable that the databases used to check employment eligibility under E-Verify have been heavily criticized by the government itself. For example, in December 2006, the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General estimated (pdf) that about 17.8 million records in NUMIDENT (the database used for employment eligibility verification) have discrepancies with name, date of birth or death, or citizenship status. About 13 million of these incorrect records belong to U.S. citizens and these discrepancies would immediately flag these citizens under E-Verify. There are 6 million employers and 143.6 million workers nationwide.
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