E-Verify: Fact and Fiction
Led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the cheap labor/open borders lobby employed a massive disinformation campaign to derail efforts to include E-Verify requirements in the economic stimulus bill. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose membership benefits from hiring illegal aliens, along with other lobby groups repeatedly made false and misleading assertions about the E-Verify program.
FICTION:
E-Verify is cumbersome and costly to American businesses.
FACT:
Most verifications are carried out in about two minutes, either online or by phone. There is no cost to employers who use the system. Today, more than 100,000 U.S. employers are currently enrolled and using E-Verify and 13 states have enacted laws encouraging or requiring use of E-Verify for state contractors, state employees, and, in some cases, for all.
FICTION:
E-Verify is fraught with errors. Opponents of E-Verify claim the system has a 4 percent error rate, which could result in thousands of eligible workers being denied jobs.
FACT:
E-Verify has a 0.4 percent (four-tenths of one percent) error rate. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, which runs E-Verify, reports that 96.1 percent of verifications are approved on the first try. Of the remaining 3.9 percent, most delays are due to discrepancies between information presented by job applicants and information in the Social Security Administration database, such as unreported name changes due to marriage. The majority of these discrepancies are resolved within 24 to 72 hours and do not prevent eligible workers from being hired.
FACT:
The interest groups that oppose E-Verify do so for one reason: E-Verify works! E-Verify is the single most effective tool to discourage illegal immigration and hold employers accountable, which is why the illegal immigration lobby wants it eliminated.
Sign Our Petition to Reauthorize E-Verify! Tell President Obama to Put American Workers First!
March 2009
