USA Today Needs to Check Its Facts: The Priority is the Economy

Catherine Singley, Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation
National Council of La Raza (NCLR)

Earlier this week, our friends at the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) reacted to this week's USA Today article on construction jobs, undocumented workers, and E-Verify. IPC's blog post examines the dubious Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) numbers quoted by the USA Today article and calls CIS's calculations "fuzzy math." As it relates to E-Verify, the IPC blog author notes, "...numerous reports--from the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security Administration's Inspector General, and a Department of Homeland Security contractor, among others--indicate that trying to implement E-Verify on a national scale would be a costly mistake that would ensnare U.S. citizens in database errors and wouldn't actually stop undocumented immigrants from getting jobs. Rushing E-Verify into nationwide implementation would simply force unemployed Americans to jump through hoops in order to prove that they are entitled to work in the United States."

Our friends at Media Matters also examined USA Today's allegation that the belief that E-Verify is "riddled with errors that could result in millions of workers being wrongly identified as not authorized for work" has been originated by "business groups and immigrant advocacy groups." Like IPC, Media Matters contends that, in fact, federal government reports have led "business groups and immigrant advocacy groups" to this conclusion. One report that critiques E-Verify was a September 2007 assessment of the E-Verify pilot program commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The report stated that "the database used for verification is still not sufficiently up to date to meet the IIRIRA requirement for accurate verification, especially for naturalized citizens." A second report by the Government Accountability Office stated that, "About 7 percent of the [employee] queries cannot be immediately confirmed as work authorized by SSA , and about 1 percent cannot be immediately confirmed as work authorized by USCIS because employees' information queried through the system does not match information in SSA or DHS databases."

Given E-Verify's shameful track record of wrongly denying jobs to U.S. citizens, it is unthinkable that groups like CIS would wish this kind of red-tape nightmare upon U.S. workers and businesses at a time when creating jobs is America's number one priority. As of February 2009, the unemployment rate was 7.3% for White workers, 13.4% for Black workers, and 10.9% for Latino workers. While it is impossible to predict who will get the estimated three million new jobs from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), one thing is certain: The American public can no longer afford to play blame games--this country is ready for tangible results. It is time that everyone got that priority straight.

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IIRIRA is the abbreviation for the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
SSA is the abbreviation for the Social Security Administration.
USCIS is the abbreviation for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Comments

[DelawareBob]

Let's start off by saying that E-Verify is still in effect! Yes, without E-Verify, 300,000 jobs could go to ILLEGAL ALIENS, you know, those who, by law, should not be in this Country.

Now I can't say the ILLEGAL ALIENS are completely to blame for the shape of our economy, but they are a BIG part of the problem. The ILLEGAL ALIENS send BILLIONS upon BILLIONS out of this Country every year, money we will NEVER see again. Does this help our economy?

How about the BILLIONS the American taxpayers fork out for the ANCHOR BABIES, the schooling of them, the medical care and the list goes on, and on, and on.

Then you have these activist groups, the Catholic Church and the ACLU that want AMNESTY for these ILLEGAL ALIENS. It would be absolute suicide for this Country if AMNESTY were granted to the 20 million or so ILLEGAL ALIENS. We have more and more people out of work everyday and they want to add another 20 million to this Country? I say, "NO"!

If AMNESTY were ever granted to these 20 million ILLEGAL ALIENS, you can bet big money that 3 years from now, there would be ANOTHER 3-5 million ILLEGAL ALIENS demonstrating on our soil for AMNESTY.

The bottom line is, NO ILLEGAL ALIEN HAS A RIGHT TO BE IN THIS COUNTRY FOR ANY REASON!

[Norski]

Is that the best that those who oppose E-Verify can do? Complain about a rapidly evolving system based on a year and a half old report where the largest complaint was that the system needed some updating? Or that sometimes the answer was not available immediately? Sounds like the same people who complain that a microwave cooks food too slow. Or people who think that job searching with a ten year old resume is okay.

According to more recent reports a lot of updating over the past year and a half has significantly improved the system. And anyone who is rejected by the system has the right of appeal, so if they are a Citizen or Legal Resident and get rejected and the Company does not give them time to fix things up they can sue. That should make the Trial Lawyer's mouths water. Delaying E-Verify delays this potential get-rich opportunity those select few who can qualify. And besides, if someone's Social Security information were messed up would it not be better to find that out now when job hunting rather than at retirement when it is too late to fix things?