We reported earlier this week that the state of California had banned the use of E-Verify for the state’s employers.  It has since been pointed out and confirmed that state has not banned the use of E-Verify, but instead banned anyone in the state (i.e. state, county, local governments) from mandating its’ use.

We apologize for the oversight on our behalf.

Author’s Note as of 10/20/2011: There has since been an update on this story which can be found at http://www.employeescreen.com/iqblog/update-on-new-e-verify-law-in-california/

This comes from TLNT’s John Hollon.

For better or for worse, California always seems to want to go its own way.

So it is with the controversial federal E-Verify system that “provides an automated link to federal databases to help employers determine employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers.”

While states such as Arizona, Louisiana, and South Carolina are passing laws to mandate the use of E-Verify as a check against illegal immigration, California is going the other way.

According to the Los Angeles Times, ” (state) legislation signed into law … prohibits the state, cities and counties from mandating that private employers use E-Verify,” forcing cities and other local municipalities that have been working to comply with the E-Verify requirements to reverse course and undo what they have previously done in order to comply with state law.

Gripes about reliability of E-Verify system

And the reason for the E-Verify ban in California, at least publicly, is the gripe that many have had about it nationwide — the unreliability of the federal E-Vertify system. According to the newspaper:

The state ban (of E-Verify) received broad support, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Farm Bureau Federation, which questioned the accuracy of the databases used by the federal system.

Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Sunnyvale), who introduced the bill, said he felt that mandatory E-Verify was an unnecessary burden on businesses.

“It was costly, time-consuming. It’s unfair for big businesses and definitely for small businesses,” he said. “Why make a flawed system mandatory?”

Fong said the system often misidentifies U.S. citizens and legal immigrants. One such worker is Jessica St. Pierre, 22, who said she was fired from her job at a telecommunications company because her name was not correctly entered into the E-Verify system. It took her four months to get another job.”

SHRM’s problems with E-Verify

The Society for Human Resource Management has lobbied for a national verification system, but has specifically criticized the reliability of E-Verify, outlining “problems with the system, including identity fraud — which poses substantial problems for employers who are held accountable for enforcing the law — mistakes in data accuracy and burdens on legal U.S. workers.”

In addition, “A SHRM survey showed that 92 percent of employers want to participate in an electronic verification program provided ‘the system is accurate, efficient and easy to use.’ ”

Despite the public pronouncements, California’s ban of E-Verify is less about the reliability of the federal system and more about a state (and a legislature) that is overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats making a political statement against imposing sanctions that might limit opportunities for illegal workers.

But no matter what the reason behind the E-Verify ban, California’s legislative actions will surely reignite the national debate about immigration, E-Verify, and the long-standing inability of the federal government to fairly and consistently enforce workplace immigration laws.

For more of the Los Angeles Times story, click here.

About the author: John Hollon is Vice President for Editorial of TLNT.com, and the former Editor of Workforce Management. He has written extensively about human resources and talent management, including here at TLNT. Contact him at john@tlnt.com, and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/johnhollon

Employers beware.  The Iceman cometh. Last week the Obama administration announced that it would audit another 1,000 employers throughout the United States to determine if they are have illegal workers on their payrolls.

The Wall Street Journal reports that this wave of ICE audits now brings this fiscal year’s total to 2,388 (beginning Oct. 1) which has already eclipsed last year’s total of 2,196.

The Journal warns, “For employers, the audits can lead to both civil and criminal penalties. The possibilities range from fines and being barred from competing for government contracts to criminal charges of knowingly employing illegal workers, evading taxes and engaging in identity theft.”

See WSJ Article

The best way for an employer to stay in compliance with federal regulations is to be vigilant in their I-9 practices. Every employee must have an I-9 form on file.

Many employers are moving towards the use of the government’s E-Verify system or other third party systems which allow for the complete electronic automation of the I-9 process; preparing and signing the form, submitting the form to the Social Security Administration, and auto archiving.

Everyone get the image of Top Gun’s Iceman, Val Kilmer?

On July 22, 2010 the Department of Homeland Security published a final rule on the acceptance of electronic signatures and storage of the Form I-9.  The rule, scheduled to take effect August 23, 2010, allows employers to prepare, sign, scan and store the form electronically as long as certain criteria is met.  See below.

In this final rule, DHS makes minor modifications to 8 CFR 274a.2 to clarify certain provisions that:

• Employers must complete a Form I-9 within three business (not calendar) days;
• Employers may use paper, electronic systems, or a combination of paper and electronic systems;
• Employers may change electronic storage systems as long as the systems meet the performance requirements of the regulations;
• Employers need not retain audit trails of each time a Form
• I-9 is electronically viewed, but only when the Form I-9 is created,completed, updated, modified, altered, or corrected; and
• Employers may provide or transmit a confirmation of a Form I-9 transaction, but are not required to do so unless the employee requests a copy.

SHRM’s Allen Smith, J.D. writes that, “Several commenters on the interim final rule requested guidance on the storage of ancillary documents used to verify an employee’s identity and eligibility to work in the United States. DHS clarified that employers may, but are not required to, copy or make an electronic image of a document used to comply. It cautioned, though, that employers should apply consistent policies and procedures for all employees to avoid discrimination.

DHS noted that the Form I-9 and verification documentation may be stored in a separate Form I-9 file or as part of an employee’s other employment records. In addition, only the pages of the Form I-9 containing employer- and employee-entered data need be retained. Other pages of the current form are instructions for completing the Form I-9 and need not be retained.

DHS agreed with comments that suggested that it is unnecessary to require an audit trail to record every time a Form I-9 is simply viewed or accessed but not modified. When the Form I-9 is created or modified, though, a secure and permanent record must be created establishing the date of access, the identity of the individual who accessed the electronic record and the particular action taken.

In response to comments, DHS also amended the interim final rule to require an employer to provide or transmit a confirmation of the transaction only if an employee requests it. Several commenters had objected to the interim final rule’s requirement that a printed transaction record be given to the employee even absent a request.
One commenter noted that some companies process thousands of new employees annually; another noted that in the modern work environment many employees work off site. These commenters expressed concern that requiring paper receipts could be a significant burden to businesses. DHS officials did not think the requirement was unduly burdensome but amended the interim final rule in response to the comments.

If requested, a receipt when completing an electronic record should be provided within a reasonable period of time, but it need not be provided at the time of the transaction.

But DHS cautioned that providing the option of electronic preparation and storage does not alter the requirement that the employer physically examine any documentation provided by the employee in the presence of the employee prior to completing the Form I-9.”

Utah-based employers with 15 or more employees should take note that effective July 1, 2010 they must use a “status verification system” to verify the employment eligibility of new employees. Utah S.B. 251 makes mandatory the use of the government’s E-Verify portal which determines legal right to work status through the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security.

For more information on the Electronic Employment Eligibility process, please visit us at http://employeescreen.com/employmenti9.asp

There has been a lot of negative news about E-Verify since the program has been launched.  Most recently, we told you that the program designed to weed out illegal workers was in fact missing 50% of all illegal workers because it couldn’t detect identity fraud.

But before you give up on the program, I think it is important to weight both sides of the equation.  Check out DHS’ response.  In our experience with the Electronic Employment Eligibility process, we find that while at times flawed greatly improves an organization’s ability to hire legal workers and comply with federal guidelines.

Recently, some media reports have used statistics that appear to call into question the effectiveness and accuracy of E-Verify. I’d like to set record straight. A report by the independent research firm Westat, using a sample from a three month period in 2008, concluded that E-Verify was accurate 96 percent of the time. Since then, the Obama administration has taken significant steps to further improve E-Verify.

Read the report for yourself here.

What else did this report tell us about E-Verify?

• 93.8 percent of workers screened by E-Verify were authorized for employment—and the system instantly and accurately confirmed more than 99 percent of these eligible workers.
• The remaining 6.2 percent were not eligible for employment. Out of this estimated 6.2 percent, approximately half were told they are work authorized when they were not—just 3.3 percent of the overall population screened by E-Verify.

To be clear, this means that only an estimated 3.3 percent of all workers screened by E-Verify were incorrectly told they were work authorized.

Read More

It’s been fairly smooth sailing for the E-Verify, the government program that allows employers to check the legal right to work status of an employee in the United states, since it was made mandatory for federal contractors last year.  That is until now, where it is being reported that this system is failing to catch more than half of all illegal workers.  The technology is not the problem, nor are Social Security Administration’s or Department of Homeland Security’s databases.  The issue lies in its inability to detect identity fraud.  In other words, if the employee fills out their I-9 Form and presents documents that contain valid information (such as a social security, passport or drivers license number), the system simply can’t tell that they belong to someone else.

I suppose this is a better problem to have then the system regularly spitting our tentative non-confirmations for legal workers, but still something that will have to be addressed in some fashion.

Report: E-Verify Misses Half of Illegal Workers

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer – Thu Feb 25, 3:09 am ET

WASHINGTON – The system Congress and the Obama administration want employers to use to help curb illegal immigration is failing to catch more than half the number of unauthorized workers it checks, a research company has found.

The online tool E-Verify, now used voluntarily by employers, wrongly clears illegal workers about 54 percent of the time, according to Westat, a research company that evaluated the system for theHomeland Security Department. E-Verify missed so many illegal workers mainly because it can’t detect identity fraud, Westat said.

“Clearly it means it’s not doing its No. 1 job well enough,” said Mark Rosenblum, a researcher at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.

E-Verify allows employers to run a worker’s information againstHomeland Security and Social Security databases to check whether the person is permitted to work in the U.S. The Obama administration has made cracking down on employers who hire people here illegally a central part of its immigration enforcement policy, and there are expectations that some Republicans in Congress will try in coming weeks to make E-Verify mandatory.

E-Verify correctly identified legal workers 93 percent of the time, Westat said. However, previous studies have not quantified how many immigrants were fooling the E-Verify system. Much of the criticism of E-Verify has focused on whether U.S. citizens and legal immigrants with permission to work were falsely flagged as illegal workers.

More

I recently spoke with Stu Lawrence from our channel partner, Form I-9 Compliance to discuss the federal mandate that all federal contractors must utilize E-Verify to confirm their employee’s right to work status in the United States.  This mandate is set to take effect on September 9, 2009.

Check out our podcast with Stu (below).

For more information on I-9 forms and the Electronic Employment Eligibility Process, please visit us at http://employeescreen.com/employmenti9.asp

This is a reminder that all Federal Contractors are mandated to use E-Verify to confirm employee’s right to work status in the United States, effective September 8, 2009.

How to Comply
Employers must establish an account with the Department of Homeland Security by completing a Memorandum of Understanding. An account can be set up directly with DHS or through an approved channeling agent. Once the MOU has been approved, access to the E-Verify database will be activated. The employer must then have the employee complete an I-9 form and query the database within the first 48 hours of a new hire’s start date to determine if they have a legal right to work in the United States.

There are only two possible results of the query: Confirmation of the person’s legal right to work or a Tentative Non-Confirmation. In the event of a Tentative Non-Confirmation, employees are given 8 business days to resolve the issue with the Social Security Administration and, or DHS.

See July 8, 2009 release from the Department of Homeland Security

The following is being reported to us via the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS)

On August 19th the below Proposed Rule (provided in part) was published in the Federal Register announcing the rescission of regulations which would have placed onerous requirements on employers relating to the receipt of no-match letters from the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Essentially, under the amendments proposed by DHS, receipt of a no-match letter may have been sufficient, by itself, to put an employer on notice, and thus impart constructive knowledge, that employees referenced in the letter may not be work- authorized.  Employers should note however that DHS’ rescission of these regulations is because instead they will focus on immigration compliance through E-Verify, IMAGE and other verification programs.

Safe-Harbor Procedures for Employers Who Receive a No-Match Letter: Rescission

SUMMARY: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposes to amend its regulations by rescinding the amendments promulgated on August 15, 2007, and October 28, 2008, relating to procedures that employers may take to acquire a safe harbor from receipt of no-match letters. Implementation of the 2007 final rule was preliminarily enjoined by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on October 10, 2007. After further review, DHS has determined to focus its enforcement efforts relating to the employment of aliens not authorized to work in the United States on increased compliance through improved verification, including participation in E-Verify, ICE Mutual Agreement Between Government and Employers (IMAGE), and other programs.

DATES: Comments must be submitted not later than September 18, 2009.

What led up to the Rescission of the Rule?
As stated in the Federal Register. Over the years, employers have inquired of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, and now DHS, whether receipt of a no-match letter constitutes constructive knowledge on the part of the employer that he or she may have hired an alien who is not authorized to work in the United States. On August 15, 2007, DHS issued a rule describing the legal obligations of an employer following receipt of a no-match letter from SSA or a letter from DHS regarding employment verification forms. See 72 FR 45611. The rule also established “safe-harbor” procedures for employers receiving no-match letters.

On August 29, 2007, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and others, filed suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. AFL-CIO, et al. v. Chertoff, et al., No. 07-4472-CRB, D.E. 1 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 29, 2007). The district court granted plaintiffs’ initial motion for a temporary restraining order against implementation of the August 2007 Final Rule. AFL-CIO v. Chertoff, D.E. 21 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 31, 2007) (order granting motion for temporary restraining order and setting schedule for briefing and hearing on preliminary injunction). On October 10, 2007, the district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction. AFL- CIO v. Chertoff, 552 F.Supp.2d 999 (N.D. Cal. 2007) (order granting motion for preliminary injunction).

The court raised three issues regarding DHS’s rulemaking action implementing the No-Match final rule: Whether DHS had (1) supplied a reasoned analysis to justify what the court viewed as a change in the Department’s position–that a no-match letter may be sufficient, by itself, to put an employer on notice, and thus impart constructive knowledge, that employees referenced in the letter may not be work- authorized; (2) exceeded its authority (and encroached on the authority of the Department of Justice (DOJ)) by interpreting the anti- discrimination provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), Public Law 99-603, 100 Stat. 3359 (1986), INA section 274B, 8 U.S.C. 1324b; and (3) violated the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C 601 et seq., by not conducting a regulatory flexibility analysis. DHS subsequently published a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM) and supplemental final rule to clarify certain aspects of the 2007 No-Match final rule and to respond to the three findings underlying the court’s injunction.. See e.g. 73 FR 15944 (Mar. 26, 2008), 73 FR 63843 (Oct. 28, 2008). Neither the SNPRM nor final rule, however, changed the safe-harbor procedures or applicable regulatory text. The implementation of the rule remains enjoined.

Basis for the Administration’s Policy Change?
As stated in the Federal Register notice.  On January 20, 2009, President Barack Obama was sworn into office. Shortly thereafter, on January 21, 2009, Janet Napolitano was sworn in as the Secretary of Homeland Security. Following the transition, the Secretary conducted a review of existing programs and regulations to determine areas for reform or improved efficiency. Pursuant to this review, DHS has determined that improvements in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) electronic employment verification system (E-Verify), along with other DHS programs, provide better tools for employers to reduce incidences of unauthorized employment and to better detect and deter the use of fraudulent identity documents by employees. As discussed below, DHS therefore has concluded that rescinding the August 2007 No-Match Rule and 2008 Supplemental Final Rule will better achieve DHS’s regulatory and enforcement goals.