Debunking Three More E-Verify Myths

Third in a series on E-Verify.

I’ve explained how E-Verify works. It is an effective way to restrict illegal employment. For some, that’s the best reason to attack E-Verify. Today, I’m going to respond to three more myths that critics rely on.

1. Some claim that E-Verify is burdensome for employers. In fact, it’s a bit less burdensome than ordering books for the first time from Amazon.com. An employer enters data about a new hire into 5 to 8 fields – name, social security number, date of birth, and other data that an employer already records on the Form I-9. Then, for noncitizens using DHS documents, the employer compares the employee’s ID photo to the photo displayed on the screen. That’s it.

Anyone who has seen it done once can do it, and the process takes a few minutes. Understanding the rules that go with the process requires a bit of online training, but that takes at most an hour or two. Plus, E-Verify makes it unlikely that a company will get a Social Security Administration notice at the end of the year indicating that some of its new hires have Social Security Numbers that don’t match their names. So time spent now on verification will save hassles later.

You don’t have to rely on me, though, for assurance that E-Verify is easy to use.
As one commenter to this blog series wrote, “the E-Verify System is a great thing! Every employer should be using it. We use it here at work and it’s EASY, QUICK and COST EFFECTIVE. Absolutely no hassle at all! There is no good reason why any legitimate company employing legitimate people would not want to participate in this program.” In fact, an independent evaluation performed by Westat found that 96 percent of E-Verify employers agreed that the system does not overburden their staff, see page 65 of the report (PDF).

2. Another set of critics claims that E-Verify is discriminatory. They conjure up evil employers who disfavor certain ethnic groups when they apply government hiring rules. But if you’re worried about discrimination in administering ID requirements, E-Verify is the solution not the problem. Employers don’t have discretion to discriminate when they use E-Verify. The computers behind E-Verify don’t pay attention to ethnicity; they just ask whether the applicant’s records are in order. That takes the discretion, and thus the opportunity for discrimination, out of the process.

The other form of discrimination often mentioned in this context is the notion that people who need time to correct problems with their records will be fired, or that employers will only selectively apply E-Verify to some employees. The short answer is that E-Verify prohibits both. Employers must allow workers more than a week to contact Social Security or DHS to cure any problems with the workers’ records. (Once a new hire makes contact with the relevant agency, 95 percent of the time the problem is resolved within 2 days.) Employers who act against a worker earlier can be fined by the Department of Justice for a civil rights violation. The same is true for those who apply E-Verify selectively.

3. The final myth is that E-Verify does nothing about identity theft, so the system is easy to beat. Not true. The criticism might hold water if E-Verify did nothing but check for mismatched names and SSNs. But E-Verify does more than that. We are already implementing measures that make identity theft far more difficult. The system rejects the SSNs of workers who have died. And we are increasingly able to display the photo that should be on identity cards presented by workers. This “photo tool” has already identified hundreds of cases of document and identity fraud and prevented identity thieves from gaining unlawful employment. In the long run, E-Verify should allow employers to verify the photos on all identity documents that are accepted for employment.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments. For more information on E-Verify, visit the E-Verify web page.

Stewart Baker
Assistant Secretary for Policy