Much like the drunk who looks near the street lamp for a lost key because that's the only place where there's light, House and Senate conferees have granted a three-year extension of life support to the still-tottering E-Verify system -- the only legit e-game in town for confirming employment eligibility. Congressional gamblers also double-downed on their E-Verify bet by approving an additional $137 million in the Homeland Security funding bill for the beleaguered program.
Immediately the decision provoked controversy. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions has said that three years is not enough. The bill, according to Sessions, should have made E-Verify a permanent weapon in the government's employer-sanctions arsenal and should have placed into law the Obama-approved, Bush-era regulation -- effective since September 8 -- that requires inclusion of mandatory E-Verify workforce testing in new federal procurement contracts.
Others upset by the Congressional action include E-Verify opponents who would scotch the system because it has not yet proven itself ready for prime time. E-Verify does not detect borrowed or stolen identities. It still flags about 4% of all queries as tentative non-confirmations (TNCs) of employment eligibility, adversely affecting a worker population of some nine million. As the General Accountability Office (GAO) has reported, E-verify has caused the Social Security Administration electronic database to fail twice last summer for "extended" periods, causing GAO to worry about proposals that would make E-Verify mandatory for all employers:
[F]ederal legislation has been proposed to, among other things, require the use of the E-Verify program by employers across the nation. If such legislation is enacted, agency officials estimate that the number of queries to E-Verify could quickly surpass 60 million per year—nearly 10 times the number of requests in fiscal year 2008.
Even more troubling, as reported in the Harvard Law & Policy Review, is the risk of an increase in unlawful employment discrimination and worker firings. Already wrongful termination lawsuits are blaming E-Verify as the trigger for job losses. Courts may therefore soon determine whether the DHS-endowed employer immunity from civil liability in its Memorandum of Understanding for good-faith reliance on the E-Verify database will close scrutiny.
One federal court has issued a temporary restraining order (at p. 16) in a comparable employer-sanctions enforcement setting (involving the now repudiated Social-Security No-Match regulation) where the Homeland Security Department purported to grant immunity against civil liability for an employer’s good-faith reliance on a government-prescribed immigration-enforcement regimen.
President Obama is expected to sign the Homeland Security authorization, including the revivification of E-Verify. Time will tell whether the expected increase in litigation and adverse impacts on employers and lawfully authorized workers will have been worth Congress' expensive bet on the problem-plagued E-Verify program.
It sounds as if Mr. Paparelli has cornered the market on every negative "reason" E-verify ought be terminated. Interesting however I do not observe proposed alternative. Ought we return to the land of yesteryear before I-9 forms and employers theoretically NEVER held to the standard of minimum wages, workman's comprehensive insurance, payroll deduction?
Jobs are the magnet. When legitimate jobs are not to be found the bottom feeding employers lie cheat and thieve from those with no opportunity to complain. Make E-verify work for ALL.
Posted by: Tim Houghtaling | October 25, 2009 at 06:40 PM
The American people are now aware that E-Verify would have been stripped from immigration enforcement bills by our legislators? Sen.Harry Reid D-NV, Nancy Pelosi D-CA failed in their objective to table the law, as public outcry positively terminated any chance? But now the battle lines have been drawn between--THE AMERICAN WORKERS Vs. A MULTITUDE OF PARASITE BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS AND THE OPEN BORDER LOBBYISTS. The 15 million unemployed citizens and legal residents now know who are the enemy that we are up against? The American public must stop the demand for undying influx of impoverished labor. The magnet is businesses who draw the illegal cheap job hunters across the borders into the clutches of exploiting employers. I have heard from countless US workers, who have been dropped to make way for cheaper labor in every category of jobs, including higher career positions.
American workers have been paying a price for at least two decades, because thousands of companies had resisted paying for health care? Instead that when maimed workers specially in manual forms of labor are carted to the nearest emergency hospital for treatment. The outcome being the employer is resolved from any responsibility and the taxpayer absorbed the medical debt. WHEN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FORCE OUR INCOMPETENT POLITICIANS TO INTRODUCE E-VERIFY AS A PERMANENT ADDITION TO THE IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT ARSENAL, ILLEGAL ALIENS WITHOUT JOBS WILL LEAVE IN DROVES. But their must be substantial penalties for not using E-Verify, such as heavy fines and prison for many violations. Internal ICE enforcement on a grand scale must become a daily event, as they investigate violations within the working communities. ONE CERTAIN WAY TO HALT THE ILLEGAL ALIEN INVASION, IS BY CHANGING THE CIVIL LAW TO CRIMINAL AS A CLASS ONE FELONY FOR ENTERING AMERICA WITHOUT PERMISSION?
A new poll by Zogby International has found people across our border believe an amnesty that would grant legal status to illegal immigrants would prompt more people to enter the U.S. illegally, the Center for Immigration Studies (CRS) stated. Another new survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports reveals that 56% of Americans say that federal immigration policies encourage illegal immigration, and 64% believe that local law enforcement should conduct raids in places where illegal aliens gather to find work. Only 19% opposed the raids compared to 24% who opposed such raids back in April.
A commentary from a blogger in:
Berwick, Pennsylvania about a once a thriving manufacturing town. There were 30,000 people employed at "American Car and Foundry" which used to manufacture munitions, tanks and railroad cars during the war. There were also many clothing and shoe manufacturers in town which employed several thousand people. Since the signing of the NAFTA agreement, every one of those businesses is GONE! G-O-N-E!!! There are thousands of unemployed people there with no hope of finding work since the majority of them are above 50 years of age and the fact remains it is a rural/semi-rural area.YET, there are scores of illegals coming into that same town collecting welfare and living in "HUD" homes which were lost by retirees living on a fixed income who could no longer afford their property taxes due to the increase in oil, gas, food, and cuts in their pensions and health are!
Call and blast your Senators and Representative at 202-224-3121 in Washington. Overwhelming the switchboard with your calls, as it is having an outstanding effect of--MILLIONS of angry voters. THEY ARE BEGINNING TO LISTEN AND REACT? INFORM THEM DO YOUR DUTY OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES ON RE-ELECTION DAY? Tell them you want a PERMANENT E-Verify for--EVERY WORKER, a secure double layer fence and--REAL--enforcement against sanctuary state policies. Read undisclosed facts, statistics and lawmakers immigration enforcement grades at NUMBERSUSA. UNEARTH the corruption in government at JUDICIAL WATCH. Your voice is needed to halt OVERPOPULATION and American Worker survival. Demand NO-MORE-AMNESTIES. They should--GO--home and come through the front door, like millions of honest legal immigrants?
Posted by: Brittancus | October 23, 2009 at 12:08 PM