"E-Verify is a proven tool currently used by more than 73,000 employers nationwide, with another 1,000 employers enrolling every week. I'd venture to say that if the system didn't work or was riddled with errors, very few employers would want to use it."
Your logic is false. There's no proof that E-Verify enrollment is increasing due to employer satisfaction with the service. Rather, states such as Arizona, Colorado and Georgia (among others) have mandated E-Verify enrollment of certain employers under State laws. Until the Arizona law mandating that all employers must enroll in E-Verify went into effect in January 2008, the number of participants was less than 30,000 out of more than 6 million employers in the U.S.
Employers are being forced to enroll in E-Verify. The increasing number of users of the system only reflects the amount of fear and coercion that ICE and other components of DHS have created.
"An employee who receives a tentative non-confirmation has a right to contest it and update his or her information while he or she continues working. E-Verify does not require these workers to be immediately fired."
While E-Verify does not require termination of employees who receive a tentative non-confirmation (TNC), it's been established by your own studies that many employers use the TNC as a basis to terminate an employee. The fact that the employee has a right to contest the TNC doesn't mean that employers are honoring that right - they simply terminate.
E-Verify is a needless waste of taxpayer money, and I hope that Congress allows the legislation authorizing it to expire in November 2008. There are other tools to verify employment authorization (such as the Social Security authorization database) that are less onerous and less likely to result in termination of innocent workers.
July 9, 2008 4:53 PM
Anonymous said...
Mr. Chertoff, Please fight to KEEP to E-Verify program!
Citizens demand enforcement of our immigration laws no matter what "games" politicians are playing with our sovereignty. We will not accept anything less.
Thank you.
July 9, 2008 6:56 PM
Anonymous said...
Inadvertently, I think, this post (especially the table) points to something often lost on those who complain the loudest about "illegal immigration" - many of those here illegally are not breaking criminal laws. Those who cross the border without permission, yes, are criminals. However, most people who are not here in the country legally overstayed their (student, work, travel, etc...) visas. They are breaking laws, but they're administrative ones, not CRIMINAL ones. (Whether they should be criminal laws is another issue.) So think twice before you paint all "illegals" as "criminals."
July 10, 2008 10:12 AM
Lee said...
Keep up the good work Michael!!! Keep the raids coming, no legal employee should fear the enforcement of our laws. I'm an immigrant, i went through the right channels, now i'm a citizen. The process does work....eventually.
cheers!
July 17, 2008 1:41 PM
Opponents of immigration enforcement continue to propagate mythical objections to the Department's enforcement efforts. Some have claimed we are unfairly targeting low-level employees and not the employers who hire them. Others have misstated the facts about our E-Verify system, claiming it is riddled with errors and harms legal workers at the expense of identifying illegal ones.
For the benefit of journal readers, I'd like to take a few minutes to separate these myths from the facts.
1) Has the Department stepped up its worksite enforcement efforts?
Yes. As you can see in the table below, arrests in worksite cases have jumped from a total of 850 in 2004 to 4,940 last year, including 863 arrests based on criminal charges. We have already exceeded the number of criminal arrests this year and expect that figure to continue to rise.
Fiscal YearWorksite Criminal ArrestsWorksite Administrative Arrests2004165 685 2005176 1,116 2006716 3,667 2007863 4,0772008 (as of May 31)8753,000Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 2) Is it true that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is only arresting low-level employees and not managers and supervisors?
No. Of the 863 criminal arrests in worksite cases last year, 92 were in the company's supervisory chain. Already this year, ICE has arrested 80 individuals in the supervisory chain. This follows the arrests of 389 illegal aliens on administrative immigration violations, the most ever arrested in a single-site worksite enforcement operation. Additionally, 302 of those arrested have been charged with criminal offenses, including identity theft, false use of a Social Security number, illegal re-entry into the United States, and other crimes.
Of course, when comparing employer to employee arrests, it's important to keep in mind that in most companies there will be a larger number of employees than employers and top-level managers. Moreover, cases against supervisors and employers are more complex, and often depend on proving knowledge and intent. Therefore, it often takes time to build a criminal case against an employer, but the charges and penalties will likely be more serious as a result.
3) Are these worksite enforcement efforts random or do they unfairly target well-established employers, as some have suggested?
No. Our efforts focus on three priority areas. We target employers who have built their business model on hiring an illegal workforce. We also focus on disrupting the infrastructure that supports illegal immigration, which includes aggressively targeting those who engage in identity theft, document fraud and/or human smuggling. And we want to ensure that our nation's critical infrastructure sites, like our airports, seaports, military bases and nuclear facilities are staffed with individuals authorized to work in the country. The vast majority of ICE's worksite enforcement efforts fall into at least one of these categories.
4) Does ICE conduct its worksite operations in cooperation with state and local authorities?
Yes. When ICE conducts an enforcement action, it coordinates with state and local law enforcement and those responsible for public safety in a manner that will not compromise the operation. ICE goes to great lengths to identify and address any humanitarian concerns of the individuals it encounters. ICE's worksite enforcement operations are the result of long and careful criminal investigations, not random targeting or haphazard planning.
5) Is the Department's E-Verify program riddled with errors and does it hurt legal workers at the expense of identifying illegal workers?
No. E-Verify is a proven tool currently used by more than 73,000 employers nationwide, with another 1,000 employers enrolling every week. I'd venture to say that if the system didn't work or was riddled with errors, very few employers would want to use it.
Under E-Verify, almost everyone who is authorized to work in the United States is immediately verified by the system. Only about 0.5 percent of those queried who are ultimately confirmed as legal workers receive what is called a "tentative non-confirmation" and need to correct their records.
An employee who receives a tentative non-confirmation has a right to contest it and update his or her information while he or she continues working. E-Verify does not require these workers to be immediately fired.
Of course, many non-confirmations relate to employees who are not legally authorized to work in our country – estimated to be around 5 percent of all workers sent through the system. But those who employ illegal workers have no grounds to complain when the system uncovers that illegality.
6) Can worksite enforcement alone solve our nation's immigration problems?
An enforcement-only approach will not fix this problem. We must find a way to meet our nation's temporary workforce needs in a legal manner while also securing the border and enforcing the interior. Ultimately, this will require Congress to act on comprehensive reform. Nevertheless, our Department will not turn a blind eye toward illegality. We will continue to meet our obligations to the American people under the law, which includes enforcing the rules at worksites.
4 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment form"E-Verify is a proven tool currently used by more than 73,000 employers nationwide, with another 1,000 employers enrolling every week. I'd venture to say that if the system didn't work or was riddled with errors, very few employers would want to use it."
Your logic is false. There's no proof that E-Verify enrollment is increasing due to employer satisfaction with the service. Rather, states such as Arizona, Colorado and Georgia (among others) have mandated E-Verify enrollment of certain employers under State laws. Until the Arizona law mandating that all employers must enroll in E-Verify went into effect in January 2008, the number of participants was less than 30,000 out of more than 6 million employers in the U.S.
Employers are being forced to enroll in E-Verify. The increasing number of users of the system only reflects the amount of fear and coercion that ICE and other components of DHS have created.
"An employee who receives a tentative non-confirmation has a right to contest it and update his or her information while he or she continues working. E-Verify does not require these workers to be immediately fired."
While E-Verify does not require termination of employees who receive a tentative non-confirmation (TNC), it's been established by your own studies that many employers use the TNC as a basis to terminate an employee. The fact that the employee has a right to contest the TNC doesn't mean that employers are honoring that right - they simply terminate.
E-Verify is a needless waste of taxpayer money, and I hope that Congress allows the legislation authorizing it to expire in November 2008. There are other tools to verify employment authorization (such as the Social Security authorization database) that are less onerous and less likely to result in termination of innocent workers.
July 9, 2008 4:53 PM
Mr. Chertoff,
Please fight to KEEP to E-Verify program!
Citizens demand enforcement of our immigration laws no matter what "games" politicians are playing with our sovereignty. We will not accept anything less.
Thank you.
July 9, 2008 6:56 PM
Inadvertently, I think, this post (especially the table) points to something often lost on those who complain the loudest about "illegal immigration" - many of those here illegally are not breaking criminal laws. Those who cross the border without permission, yes, are criminals. However, most people who are not here in the country legally overstayed their (student, work, travel, etc...) visas. They are breaking laws, but they're administrative ones, not CRIMINAL ones. (Whether they should be criminal laws is another issue.) So think twice before you paint all "illegals" as "criminals."
July 10, 2008 10:12 AM
Keep up the good work Michael!!! Keep the raids coming, no legal employee should fear the enforcement of our laws. I'm an immigrant, i went through the right channels, now i'm a citizen. The process does work....eventually.
cheers!
July 17, 2008 1:41 PM