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LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW — 03/02/10

Westat report reveals that E-Verify inaccurately identifies undocumented workers as work authorized 54 percent of the time

Fifty-four percent of undocumented workers with cases submitted through the federal government’s E-Verify system receive an inaccurate finding of being work authorized, according to Westat, a contract research organization that evaluated the program for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The finding are not surprising, said Westat, given that since E-Verify’s inception it has been clear many undocumented workers obtain employment by committing identity fraud that cannot be detected by the system. Westat’s findings on the E-Verify program can be found here.

E-Verify correctly identified legal workers 93.1 percent of the time, Westat confirmed; the inaccuracy rate for authorized workers is less than one percent. E-Verify’s total inaccuracy rate is approximately 4.1 percent. It was estimated that in approximately 96 percent of E-Verify cases submitted from April through June 2008, E-Verify’s finding were consistent with the worker’s true employment authorization status (an estimated 93.1 percent of all cases were cases in which an authorized worker was found to be employment authorized and 2.9 percent were unauthorized workers who were not found to be employment authorized).

The report did found that E-Verify has made progress towards meeting certain goals:

• Employer compliance with program procedures has increased;

• E-Verify reduces discrimination against foreign-born workers in the hiring process;

• Employers are generally satisfied with the program and feel it is non-burdensome;

• The efficiency and timeliness of the system has improved;

• The number of employers who voluntarily participate in the program has increased; and

• Protections for workers’ privacy and civil rights have been strengthened.

However, Westat did report various challenges:

• Employers do not always follow the requirement to terminate employment when E-Verify is not able to confirm that an employee is work authorized;

• Communication between E-Verify users and SSA and USCIS is not optimal; and

• Foreign-born workers with employment authorization are more likely to incorrectly receive tentative nonconfirmations than are US-born workers.

Most US workers are not processed through E-Verify. The evaluation team estimated that it is likely that information was submitted to E-Verify for no more than 12 percent of all new hires in the nation in April through June 2008. This limited usage means that most jobs are offered by employers that do not use E-Verify, thus providing potential job opportunities for workers whose employment was terminated by E-Verify employers.

The Westat report found that E-Verify has grown rapidly since its inception; there has been an eightfold increase in the number of queries run from 2005 to 2008. In FY09, 8.5 million queries were run and an average of 1,000 employers enrolled each week.

E-Verify, administered by DHS’s Citizenship and Immigration Services Bureau, in partnership with the Social Security Administration, is a free, voluntary, web-based program that allows employers to verify that their new hires are authorized to work in the United States. Westat’s evaluation used several sources of data from September 2007 to June 2008.

For more information on this and other topics, consult CCH Employment Practices Guide or CCH Labor Relations.

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