MIRA Blog

‘“E-Verify is a successful program to help ensure that jobs are reserved for citizens and legal workers.  The ‘E’ in E-Verify could just as well stand for ‘easy’ and ‘effective.’”

There are many things wrong with Representative Lamar Smith’ s (R-TX) statement about his new bill, the Legal Workforce Act, that would mandate the use of E-Verify.  Successful, easy and effective are all three things that E-Verify is not.

‘“E-Verify is a successful program to help ensure that jobs are reserved for citizens and legal workers.  The ‘E’ in E-Verify could just as well stand for ‘easy’ and ‘effective.’”

There are many things wrong with Representative Lamar Smith’ s (R-TX) statement about his new bill, the Legal Workforce Act, that would mandate the use of E-Verify.  Successful, easy and effective are all three things that E-Verify is not.

E-Verify is an electronic employment verification system and under Smith’s new bill, all employers would be required to check the employment eligibility of everyone who applies for a job, even allowing verification before hiring.  This will lead to discrimination of Asians, Latinos and foreign-born workers as error rates for naturalized U.S. citizens are 30 times higher than for native-born citizens (the rate jumps to 50 if you’re a lawfully present nonimmigrant!).  Not to mention that to correct these errors takes longer than 90 unpaid days and trips to the Social Security Administration that often last longer than 4 hours.

It’s true that, if workers are fired because of an error in E-Verify, they can sue for their wages.  But given the long and complicated process in federal courts, a great majority will never get any compensation.  The bill has no punishment for employers as long as they are shown to use the program in good faith, while employees with false documents will face fines and jail times.

Rep. Smith wants to take the eight million undocumented workers’ jobs and give them to legal workers.  But E-Verify doesn’t catch 54% of the unauthorized workers that are run through its system.  Chances are that most undocumented workers aren’t going to leave the country because E-Verify is in place; they’ll just be paid under the table — reducing tax revenues and their earnings, increasing their chances of being treated unfairly, and making things harder for employers that do follow the rules.

There’s a reason why in 10 years only 4% of the nation’s employers signed up for E-Verify and that’s because it doesn’t work.  This failure proves that enforcement-only immigration policies can’t stand by themselves; they need to be a part of comprehensive immigration reform.

If you want to know more, check out the National Immigration Law Center.