An E-Verified Employee Explains Why the Legal Workforce Act Must Pass

By Joe Guzzardi
September 20, 2011

I’m E-Verified. Three years ago, a Washington, D.C.-based, non-partisan public policy organization hired me to join its consulting staff. After I formally accepted the offer, the human relations department processed the information I submitted on my I-9 form to determine whether I am legally authorized to work in the United States. E-Verify, the Internet program jointly managed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration, confirmed within seconds and at no cost to my employer that my data matched their records.

Much of what I have just explained may not jive with what you’ve recently read about E-Verify. As the House Judiciary Committee marks up Chairman Lamar Smith’s Legal Workforce Act, which would make the program mandatory and would drastically reduce the numbers of employed illegal aliens, lobbyists who favor more immigration have launched a widespread and impressively deceptive campaign against the bill.

The American Civil Liberties Union and National Immigration Law Center, for example, predict that because of what they claim are high error rates, Americans and legal immigrants are at risk of losing their jobs. Yet, according to the latest statistics from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 98.3 percent of employees are just like me—instantly confirmed. Only 1.7 percent receive tentative letters of non-confirmation of which 0.3 percent promptly resolve the errors, often minor in nature. Of the 1.43 percent that are not work authorized, the overwhelming majority are illegal aliens.

Earlier this year, the Migration Policy Institute predicted that the cost to employers to implement E-Verify would be exorbitant. In his recent editorial, former Georgia U.S. Representative Bob Barr wrote that E-Verify’s aggregate cost to businesses would reach $6 billion. I’d love to see Barr take a pencil to a piece of paper and do the math. Remember: E-Verify is free.

These unsubstantiated, hysterical criticisms come from open borders advocates determined to keep the American job market open to illegal immigrants. Knowing their time is growing short to defeat E-Verify, they’re desperate to spread misinformation.

Here are some facts regarding Smith’s bill about which you have probably read little or nothing. The Legal Workforce Act helps those who need it the most—the 19 million Americans who don’t have a college degree, black and Hispanic Americans whose unemployment rates exceed 20 percent. Mostly unskilled, their lives are devastated by the 7 million employed illegal aliens.

As mandatory E-Verify eliminates cheap illegal labor, Americans will take those jobs and earn the higher wages employers need to offer to attract new employees. Consider Swift & Company, a national meat-packing business. When ICE arrested nearly 1,300 of Swift’s workers, the company raised wages and hired local U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.

Under Smith’s new bill, unscrupulous employers who fail to comply will finally get their just reward. According to the Legal Workforce Act, the penalties for employers who refuse to use E-Verify or who intentionally work around it will be significantly increased. Fines can be levied up to $25,000 per alien worker and a minimum one-year prison sentence may be imposed on an employer who engages in a “pattern or practice” of violations.

The Legal Workforce Ace is the first, long overdue step to prevent aliens from taking scarce U.S. jobs and get Americans working again.

Joe Guzzardi has written editorial columns, mostly about immigration and related social issues, since 1986. He is a Senior Writing Fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization and his columns are syndicated in various U.S. newspapers and websites. Contact him at [email protected].