As the owner of a company authorized to be a Designated Agent of the E-Verify program, I am angered by those of the program’s critics who either do not understand how the program works or do not care to appreciate the safeguards that are built in to protect legal workers.

The blog article linked below has provided yet another opportunity to clarify some of the common misconceptions perpetuated by the “open borders” crowd.

“… [He] estimated that there was at least an error rate of 4.1 % in the Social Security databases which would result in discrepancies which could block citizens or lawful residents from working….”

“…if the program was fully implemented in Arizona over 27,000 naturalized citizens could be refused work….”

The E-Verify program does not prevent any worker from receiving a job, simply because the employee’s identifying data cannot even be submitted to E-Verify until after the worker is hired.

“Another group that is facing significant problems are married or divorced women. The system requires that women who change their name as a result of divorce or marriage report it to the Social Security administration. They may need to produce old documents such as old social security cards, marriage licenses, divorce papers….”

Social Security law, not the E-Verify system, requires all workers to update their record in the event of a name change. If the E-Verify system returns a “Tentative NonConfirmation” because of a name discrepancy, it is not the fault of the E-Verify system in this event but of the worker. In fact, a nonconfirmation under this circumstance is evidence that the system is working correctly to identify a problem, which could just as easily be the result of fraud or impersonation.

Further, it is the worker’s responsibility to update his/her SSA record promptly when relevant documents are in hand, rather than wait until applying for a new job.

“The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services has had continuing problems with “mismatches” for foreign born naturalized American citizens. Error rates of 10% in this population have been reported.”

This error rate is in dispute. Moreover, many of the “errors” are the result of the naturalized citizens’ failure to update their citizenship status with the Social Security Administration, as required by law; not as a result of system errors.

Regardless, recent and ongoing system improvements continue to reduce the rate of Tentative NonConfirmations for naturalized citizens.

“Many Arizona employees are losing jobs because the system is slow to fix errors in the database if it ever does.”

If a Tentative NonConfirmation is issued by the E-Verify system, the employer is encouraged to review the submission for typos and keying errors. The employee is given the opportunity to challenge the response. If an employee contests, they are instructed to visit a local Social Security office or call the Department of Homeland Security. SSA and DHS records are manually searched and discrepancies are resolved.

The employer is prohibited from taking any action against the employee, based on his/her employment eligibility, until a final determination is made. The employee has eight federal working days to take the required action, while the SSA/DHS can take up to two days to update the E-Verify record. The employee can continue to work during this time.

“Finally, the E-Verify system does not take “seconds”.

The initial response to an E-Verify query is received almost instantaneously, about as quick as it takes a normal web page to load.

The employers must have the employees fill out initial paperwork only after they have hired them.

Actually, there is no “initial paperwork” associated with E-Verify. For years, employers have been required to ask new hires for certain identification documents and record identifying data on Form I-9 and file it away. Employers participating in E-Verify are required to take the extra step of submitting that same information for verification.

E-Verify cannot be used to pre-screen potential employees; a requirement designed to protect legal workers so, of course, the I-9 is completed only after a worker is hired.

The paperwork is sent by the employer to the government and a response is obtained. If there is a mismatch it is the employer’s responsibility to present it to the employee and then the employee must by phone call contact the government.

The writer is trying to deceive the reader into believing that the verification process is tedious and time-consuming. In fact, employers have three days to submit a new employee for verification. My company submits I-9s to E-Verify within a couple of hours of receipt, and often within minutes.

If a Tentative NonConfirmation is received, the employee is promptly presented first with a letter detailing his rights to challenge the response and to continue working while the challenge is pending. The letter also explains what the employee can do if he believes that he is being treated unfairly by the employer.

If the employee elects to challenge the response, he is presented with another letter that provides detailed instructions for completing the appeal. The employee has eight federal working days to follow up.

As I described above, the entire process can take about two weeks at the longest… again, during which time the employee continues to work. The appeal process can be extended beyond the two-week timeframe if necessary to reach a successful resolution.

The employee can be terminated if no resolution is reached within a few days.”

The employee cannot be terminated for any reason related to his employment eligibility while the appeal is pending, and not until a final resolution is reached.

Contempo Magazine Blog » Blog Archive » More Problems Surfacing with the E-Verify System