US’s E-Verify fails to check half of undocumented immigrant workers

United States, February 26: The latest scheme, E-Verify system, is unable to check nearly half of the illegal workers in the US.

The scheme has been launched by the Obama administration to help assist employers in the US in finding the undocumented immigrants on employment rolls. But a latest report has found that this system is inefficient in caching hold of more than half of the unauthorized workers and E-Verify lets go identity fraud undetected.

The system misses to catch illegal workers and clears undocumented workers nearly 54 percent of the time.
The report has been issued by Westat, a company that conducted research and evaluations of the system for the US Homeland Security Department.

The system is not doing its job well enough, stated a researcher at the Migration Policy Institute, Mark Rosenblum. Migration Policy Institute is a Washington think tank.

The system of E-Verify, an online tool, uses the information of a worker against the databases of Social Security and Homeland Security to find whether a worker is allowed to work in the US or not. It’s failing in its prime motive of cracking down on employers involved in hiring workers illegally.

Hence, it is argued widely that E-Verify is not an adequate tool since it does not stop hiring of undocumented immigrants workers. It is a wake-up call, lamented Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, to those who think E-Verify as an effective remedial measure to curb hiring of immigrants arrived in the US illegally.

The report by Westat was based on the data from the year 2008 and was made online at the Homeland Security Website on 28th January, 2010. The summary along the report mentioned it quite clearly that its accuracy is just half of the time.

Meanwhile, E-Verify is being regarded as significantly more effective that the I-9 paper forms commonly used by several employers in the US, the summary of the E-Verify system mentioned.

The USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) has come up with a facility of anti-immigrant identity fraud unit in New York (Buffalo) to help address the issue, Bill Wright, an official spokesman for the agency stated.

Its developing a way to help legal workers in the US screen themselves before potential employers through E-Verify. USCIS is a part of the US Homeland Security Department. At present, nearly 184,000 US employers are using E-Verify.