REPORT: E-VERIFY FALSE POSITIVES ARE A "SEVERE" PROBLEM

USCIS officials were provided details details from an outside firm's report yesterday regarding the accuracy of the e-Verify system, the online government database used by employers to check the work authorization of employees. According to Carolyn Shettle, who led the investigative team for Westat Corp., the problems faced by foreign-born US citizens is severe and that nearly 10% of such naturalized citizens were incorrectly identified by the system as unauthorized to work.

According to the report:

The accuracy of the USCIS database used for verification has improved substantially since the start of the Basic Pilot program. However, further improvements are needed, especially if the Web Basic Pilot becomes a mandated national program – improvements that USCIS personnel report are currently underway. Most importantly, the database used for verification is still not sufficiently up to date to meet the IIRAIRA requirement for accurate verification, especially for naturalized citizens. USCIS accommodates this problem by providing for manual review that is time consuming and can lead to discrimination against work-authorized foreign-born persons during the period that the verification is ongoing, especially naturalized citizens.

The report showed that foreign-born employers were thirty times more likely to be subject to a false identification as unauthorized to work than a US-born employee which leads to the obvious conclusion that USCIS' records are either inaccurate or are not being properly integrated in to the e-Verify system. According to the report:

Foreign-born U.S. citizens are considerably more likely to receive erroneous tentative nonconfirmations than are work-authorized foreign-born persons who have not become U.S. citizens. Among foreign-born employees verified by the Web Basic Pilot, the percentage of ever-authorized employees found to be workauthorized after a tentative nonconfirmation was 1.3 percent for noncitizens compared to 10.9 percent for naturalized citizens. The erroneous tentative nonconfirmation rate for naturalized citizens is unacceptably high. Reducing it will take considerable time and will require better data collection and data sharing between SSA and USCIS than is currently the case.

Tentative nonconfirmations have negative consequences for work-authorized employees for two reasons. First, there are very real costs and burdens associated with adverse actions that some employers take against employees receiving tentative nonconfirmations, even though such adverse actions are prohibited by statute. Second, there are burdens associated with visiting an SSA office and, generally to a lesser extent, contacting USCIS.

The reports findings are highly disturbing because the federal government and a number of states are moving down the path of severely penalizing employers who fail to use the system. Provisions in four appropriations bills currently pending in Congress would require employers doing business with a variety of federal agencies to use e-Verify. And several state governments have passed laws either mandating employers use the system or providing "safe harbors" preventing loss of a business license or access to state contracts only for employers who use the system. One state - Illinois - has been disturbed enough by reports of inaccuracies to actually bar employers in the state from using the system until the false positives are down to less than one percent.

I have obtained a copy of the report and you can download it here.

Comments

[Raj]

USCIS or ICE also sends false information to SSA that individuals are deported

[joe]

A crock of piece of crap...trying to take our freedom and tax money using scare tactics. Protect the border and get over it.

[joe]

A crock of piece of crap...trying to take our freedom and tax money using scare tactics. Protect the border and get over it.

[Mario]

Chalk me up as a "victim" of this flawed e-verify system.
The system claimed that it can't verify that I'm a citizen.

Funny how that works considering :
1)I've voted, which being a citizen is a requirement
2)I have a US passport, which, once again, requires citizenship

I've been wondering why I've had such a difficult time landing a job despite over 9 years experience in my field. I wonder if this e-verify sham of a system is part of the reason why I had so many problems. I also wonder if this e-verify system is the reason why I was laid off after my previous employer was acquired.

[magyart]

I support the SAVE Act which would require all employers to verify social security numbers. A good method of wringing out some of the errors is to put the system to use. It's simple to fix most errors,. Simply visit the local SSA offive.

If you failed to notify the SSA office of your new. married name, thst results in an error. Time to update your file. Citizens can easily correct their information. Illegal aliens must be fired. That's why this bill needs enforced. We must turn off the job magnet.

[Another voice]

This sounds like the no match rule thing, they are trying to implement something that they do not know it actually works. The problemmis that many people will be affected by it.