Immigration: High-Tech Methods, New Rules, Needed For Employment Verification, HR Groups Say

An effective state-of-the-art electronic system for verifying the work authorizations of new employees is essential for any effort at immigration reform and stemming the tide of illegal immigration, a coalition of human resource management groups said March 7 in Washington, D.C.

The Human Resource Initiative for a Legal Workforce said that the current system for verifying employment eligibility places excessive burdens on private employers while failing to address a growing problem of identity theft by unauthorized workers.

HR Initiative representatives said that the group intends to lobby for reform of the current verification system and will suggest to Congress that the government's existing Basic Pilot system for electronic verification of worker status should be replaced, rather than expanded.

Partners in the HR Initiative are the American Council on International Personnel, College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, HR Policy Association, International Public Management Association, and the Society for Human Resource Management.

Call for Technology, Clear Answers

Announcing a collaborative effort to address an immigration "crisis," SHRM president Susan R. Meisinger said that the HR Initiative's goal in a debate over immigration reform will be to urge that "whatever Congress does results in an effective and accurate employment verification system."
Meisinger and Lynn Shotwell, executive director of ACIP, said that the current employment verification system and the I-9 form used by employers should be replaced by an electronic system that reduces the administrative burden on private employers and offers security against identity theft that is not provided by current law.

Employers are presently required to examine employee documents and to complete I-9 forms using procedures that are often confusing and poorly understood by managers, Shotwell said. The I-9 form refers to 29 different documents which may be supplied by employees, and managers often are forced to make subjective judgments about the genuineness or adequacy of documents provided by employees.

Companies attempting to verify employment authorization are understandably concerned, Meisinger said, that while failing to verify eligibility is unlawful, questioning employment documents too aggressively can lead to a charge that the employer is discriminating against individuals because of their national origin or citizenship status.

Employers need employment verification methods with "ease, effectiveness and results," Meisinger said. Shotwell said the key is developing a computer-based system that will allow employers to obtain clear, simple, and prompt answers about the work eligibility of employees.

Basic Pilot Program Not the Answer

An estimated 13,000 employers now use the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Basic Pilot system for employment verification, the HR Initiative said. Under the program, an employer can enter an individual's Social Security number or I-94 card number (issued when an individual seeks entry into the U.S.) into a Web-based system. The system checks databases maintained either by the Social Security
Administration or the Department of Homeland Security to determine whether the employee's name and number match, and whether the individual is authorized to work in the U.S.
But Basic Pilot has shortcomings, the group said. The system relies on separate government databases that may be outdated and that may reflect discrepancies unrelated to immigration status or employment authorization, like the use of married names and confusion over the recording of family surnames.

Meisinger said that an estimated 15 percent to 20 percent of employment verifications under Basic Pilot have to go through a second check, and the system has not yet been proven effective. The program is not suitable for expansion to cover the estimated 5.6 million employers in the United States, she said, and the HR coalition is convinced that
Congress should not try to force all employers into the Basic Pilot program.

Shotwell noted that Basic Pilot only checks that a name matches entries in government databases. The system cannot verify that the individual seeking work is really the individual named.

Swift & Co. was a participant in Basic Pilot, Shotwell noted, but after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted widely publicized raids at Swift facilities in Dec. 2006, it became clear that hundreds of employees whose employment eligibility Swift confirmed through Basic Pilot had actually purchased or misappropriated the identities which were checked against government databases (240 DLR A-9, 12/14/06).

The ICE raids at Swift's plants showed that Basic Pilot is not a satisfactory answer, Shotwell said. But technological advances in computerization, background checking and biometrics are available and should provide the resources for a more effective system of employment verification.

The coalition is proposing the creation of an advisory board to obtain technological ideas and proposals from the private sector and to provide information to Congress about improved verification methods.

Meisinger said that employers are looking for leadership from the federal government on immigration control and employment verification, stating that an effort in state legislatures to set standards would increase costs for employers without advancing the cause of immigration control.

The human resource groups that formed the HR Initiative are "galvanized" to urge reform by Congress, Meisinger said. The group plans a campaign of advertising and has already begun talking to members of Congress about "common sense" standards for employment verification.

Reproduced with permission from Telecommunications Monitor, March 8, 2007

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