USA Today: Use of federal database for ID checks hits some bumps
USA Today has a story about problems with a federal database used to “verify” the identity of employees. Increasingly, companies are being forced by Department of Homeland Security regulations and state requirements to use DHS’s employment eligibility verification system first called Basic Pilot, but now renamed E-Verify. “About 107,000 of the USA’s 7.4 million employers use the system, called E-Verify, up from 11,000 in 2006, the Homeland Security Department says.”
The increase in regulation has come after the Bush administration sought in summer 2007 to create a mandatory national employment eligibility verification database, but the bills died in Congress. In June 2008, Bush signed an Executive Order 13465 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 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.
USA Today reports on errors in the database checks that lead to initial rejections for individuals who are legally eligible to work in the US. “Intel, one of the largest U.S. employers, found that 12% of its 1,360 workers hired between January and July 2008 were initially rejected. Intel challenged the 143 rejections and all of the workers were found to be legal U.S. residents, the company said in a letter to the federal government.”
This is not surprising to people (I’m included) who have been highlighting problems with these federal databases. We have cited to several federal government evaluations that note these problems. 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, likely leading to a “tentative nonconfirmation” of employment eligibility.
And in September 2007, an independent analysis (pdf) commissioned by DHS found, “the database used for verification is still not sufficiently up to date to meet the [Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996] requirement for accurate verification, especially for naturalized citizens.” “Large differences in the error rates for U.S.-born and foreign-born employees remain. Furthermore, foreign-born citizens are more likely than noncitizens to have erroneous tentative nonconfirmations,” and face problems with their employment applications.
Some other problems reported by USA Today:
- Some employers fail to tell workers they were rejected, making them miss a chance to appeal. Others use E-Verify illegally by checking job applicants. Checks must be done after someone starts working. Workers have eight days to appeal a preliminary rejection and cannot be fired in that time.
- E-Verify does not keep people from using fraudulent IDs to get work authorization.
The Obama administration is reviewing the E-Verify program, but USA Today notes that new DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano recently said, “I’m a strong supporter of E-Verify.” Also, as Arizona’s governor, Napolitano signed (pdf) “a 2007 law requiring all employers in the state to use E-Verify.”
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