Program to verify workers’ immigration status shows promise
Lawmaker concerned that the program could provide inaccurate results once it is expanded to more employers.
Immigration officials earlier this week said a program that uses no biometric identifiers is potentially the solution for conducting background checks on workers' immigration status.
The Citizenship and Immigration Services unit within the Homeland Security Department is conducting a test run of the program, in which 10,000 employers have volunteered to participate, an agency official told members of the House Small Business Subcommittee on Workforce, Empowerment and Government Programs on Tuesday. The project, called the Basic Employment Verification pilot, has been largely successful, said Robert Divine, CIS' acting deputy director.
The test is a run-up to a nationwide system where a short list of employees' identifying information, such as immigration control numbers and dates of birth, will be checked against a national database to yield an approval or denial for work. Divine told lawmakers that the identification program will serve as the beginning of the fix some are saying is needed for enforcement of immigration laws at worksites.
"USCIS will forward enforcement leads to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Worksite Enforcement in accordance with referral procedures developed with ICE," Divine said in his testimony. He said the pilot project, which eventually will turn into the Employment Eligibility Verification System and encompass up to 7 million employers, also can uncover those workplaces that intentionally try to dupe the system.
For immigration enforcement and investigation officials, there is just one problem: Following up on every entry that does not match up in the verification system will create a massive workload. The pilot program could blossom into a full-scale EEVS within two years, Divine said, though he could not offer an estimate of how much it will cost.
"You're talking about a huge investigatory effort," said one Customs and Border Protection management official. He said he anticipates a huge jump in CBP's workload if the verification system is fully implemented nationwide.
The official, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that at the now defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service, a similar program was initiated in the late 1980s. It allowed employers to call a hotline to check on potential employees' Social Security numbers. Eventually, it was scrapped after continuous complaints about callers put on hold or repeated busy signals.
The current CIS identification project is different, however, in that it is closer to a credit check, where more than just a Social Security number is reviewed. The program also will rely more heavily on technological innovations rather than switchboard operators, Divine said, and will yield quicker responses to inquiries.
Already, 12 percent of employees run through the system fail to immediately receive electronic verification, he testified. Eventually, once a claim is processed with the basic pilot system, results are more than 98 percent accurate, he said.
Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., who testified at the subcommittee hearing as both an advocate of stricter immigration regulations and as a former business owner, expressed concern that inaccuracy could increase as the pilot grows to cover millions of businesses.
"If you expand the program very quickly, that may affect accuracy," he said. "No program will ever be perfect."