E-Verify: Will it die or become mandatory under Obama?
Filed under: Applicant background screening, Security and law, Special Report
A rule issued by the federal government requiring many employers to use the E-Verify employment verification system is scheduled to take effect on January 15. But a pending lawsuit claims the rule is against the law.
The rule, issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), will require most employers with federal contracts to use E-Verify for new hires, as well as current employees assigned to work on new contracts.
Covered employees included those with contracts valued at more than $120,000, lasting longer than 120 days and involving work done in the U.S.
A coalition of business groups, including the Society for Human Resource Management and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed a lawsuit at the end of last month to block the regulation. They claim E-Verify was enacted as a strictly voluntary program, and that requiring companies to use it violates the law Congress passed to authorize it.
We’ll keep you posted on the outcome of the suit. For now, though, the rule’s effective date has been pushed back to Feb. 20.
State mandates
E-Verify is already mandatory for some or all employers in 11 states: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Utah.
The laws vary from state to state: Some only apply to companies that contract with the state government, while the mandates in Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri and South Carolina apply to all companies.
Arizona’s rule was recently challenged by businesses and immigration advocacy groups, but it was upheld in court.
Will E-Verify last?
Meanwhile, the future of the E-Verify program itself is uncertain.
Funding was set to expire last November, before Congress extended it until March 6. That was after a five-year extension was passed by a wide margin in the House of Representatives but failed to make it through the Senate.
President-elect Obama has expressed support for E-Verify. We’ll keep you posted on whether that translates into another extension for the program.
Comments
6 Comments on E-Verify: Will it die or become mandatory under Obama?
-
sheburns on
Tue, 13th Jan 2009 3:43 pm
-
Keith Hamm, SPHR on
Tue, 13th Jan 2009 5:16 pm
-
hambym on
Wed, 14th Jan 2009 8:17 am
-
Debbie on
Wed, 14th Jan 2009 9:44 am
-
Randall Barker SPHR CELS on
Wed, 14th Jan 2009 10:30 am
-
adam s on
Tue, 3rd Feb 2009 1:04 am
Congress should enact a law that requires all employers e-verify all employees, and if they are not citizens, have no green cards or work visas… no work.
Of course there will be those who pay under the table, but this would make it less appealing for the undocumented immigrants to come here, if they couldn’t work.
The law seems pointless if it only applies to federal contracts, except of course that means your tax dollars won’t be paying any undocumente immigrants, but all your other dollars at hotels, restaurants, fast food chains, construction companies, etc will continue to go to them.
Of course all those service industries need workers, and apparently US Citizens aren’t applying. We are a consumer culture, not a worker bee culture!!!! We want our fast food but we don’t want our kids working for minimum wage when we can just hand them $$ from our wallets, except that for some those wallets are shrinking.
Meanwhile Newt G tells us there is a war in Mexico that everyone is ignoring; a war between the law and the drug lords, funded by US pot smokers and drug users.
I signed us up for this. I thought it would be a simple verification program and that eventually I’d have to do it anyway, so I might as well start early. It isn’t as easy at it looks, takes a long time to do, doesn’t replace I9 requirements and only adds to the hiring process. So I decided that, since it is “voluntary”, I would opt out of the program until it becomes mandatory. Imagine my surprise to find out that I CANNOT opt out!!! Once you’re registered, you’re in it as long as they want you.
I’ve been using E-Veirfy for almost 2 years, and do not want to see it go away. It takes less than 2 minutes, if te individual has no issues. If there are issues, the timelines are quite reasonable for resolving them.
It eliminates questions of document authenticity putting the burden of proof on the issuing goverment entities not the employer. It also affords greater assurance of a maintaining a ‘stable’ workforce. I have witnessed neighboring company’s devastated by a INS visit which removed 20 – 30% of their workforce inspite of their having met all the requirements of I-9. With E-Verify, an extra level of assurance exists that the workforce is not at risk of removal.
Remember, no other tool at employer’s disposal is as useful in meeting the need to test work eligibility. Under I-9 provisions, you merely had to accept any ‘reasonably representative’ documents, and were in graver danger if asking too many questions. Such circumstances would cause illegals to flock to the doors of hiring employers. Unable to turn them away legally, many companies became saturated with illegal employees which undermined any effort to secure borders or maintain jobs for lawful workers.
Take away E-Verify, and you can expect more illegals, more discrimination lawsuits, and less employer benefit.
Much of HR related work is a pain, but this is well worth the effort.
I was warned about e-verify before I signed up. In theory it is a wonderful idea. In practice though it fails over and over again. Until they can control the number of illegal immigrants flooding the country and the workplace the I-9′s are still the best way to go to ensure employees are eligible to work in the United States.
Our company signed up for E-Verify as a third party agent so we can help our clients know who is or isn’t authrorized to work in the U.S. I think it’s a great program, takes just a few minutes to enter the required info and the return info is returned in an instant. We think E-Verify is great!
E-Verify was introduced as a voluntary program and it should stay a voluntary program. No one should be forced to use it. Business should never be subject to the whims of politicians. Let it die once and for all.
As far as illegals taking over jobs. No bleeding heart sympathies here. If a poor uneducated peasant threatens your job, then go and get an education. Don’t make the illegal a scapegoat for your own failings.
