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Dangerous Business:Implications of an EEVS for Latinosand the U.S. Workforce

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The issue of implementing a nationalemployment eligibility verificationsystem (EEVS) has emerged from theimmigration debate. However, it isclear that such a system has dramaticimplications for the entire U.S.workforce. Without extensive standardsfor maintaining quality data andvigorous worker protections, such asystem would have dangerousconsequences for millions of U.S.citizens and lawful workers.Furthermore, evidence strongly suggeststhat an EEVS would be especiallyharmful for Latino* workers. Two bills– the “Secure America ThroughVerification and Enforcement (SAVE) Actof 2007” (H.R. 4088), sponsored byRepresentatives Heath Shuler (D-NC)and Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and the “NewEmployee Verification Act of 2008”(H.R. 5515), sponsored by

Representative Sam Johnson (R-TX) –would mandate that every employer usean electronic program to check everyworker’s identity and work eligibilityagainst federal records held in theSocial Security Administration (SSA)and Department of Homeland Security(DHS) databases. An EEVS wouldresemble the voluntary Basic Pilot/E-Verify program, which is fraught witherrors and employer abuse, even at itscurrent experimental stage. It isimportant for policymakers tounderstand the significance of theseproposals, because massively scaling upthe flawed Basic Pilot/E-Verify modelwithout serious attention to thereliability of data or the protectionsavailable to workers would expand ahighly unreliable program at a seriouscost to millions of U.S. citizens andlawful workers.

Background

* The terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” are used interchangeably by the U.S. Census Bureau and throughout thisdocument to identify persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central and South American, Dominican, andSpanish descent; they may be of any race.

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) – the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization inthe United States – works to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans.

Contact Catherine Singley at csingley@nclr.org for more information.

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The EEVS process would determine employmenteligibility by matching workers’ identificationinformation with federal records. If anindividual’s name and Social Security numbercorrespond with the information in federaldatabases and the individual is authorized towork, the EEVS would automatically confirm theindividual’s eligibility. On the other hand, if theinformation an individual provides does not matchfederal records exactly, the EEVS would send theemployer a “nonconfirmation” of eligibility basedon the records mismatch. Proponents of EEVSpraise the records mismatch notification as aneffective tool for preventing undocumentedimmigrants from obtaining work. However, thereality is that a mismatch can also occur if thedatabase – not the individual – supplies erroneousinformation. SSA’s Office of the Inspector Generalestimates that an alarming 17.8 million SocialSecurity records contain discrepancies that couldcause an EEVS to produce “incorrect feedback”

about work eligibility. Of those erroneous andoutdated records, 12.7 million belong to U.S.citizens.1 The DHS database is notorious forsimilar, if not more egregious, inaccuracies. Giventhese rates of error and current hiring rates, anEEVS would refuse to confirm about 11,000 peopleper workday, which translates to more than 25people per congressional district each workday.2

SCENARIO: Melissa Johnson, a native-born U.S.citizen, changed her surname from Moran toJohnson when she got married last year. Withoutupdating her SSA records, Melissa filled out an I-9tax form for her employer using the name Johnson.Since SSA is unable to match Melissa’s SocialSecurity number with her married name, the EEVScannot confirm Melissa’s work eligibility. It isunlikely that the system would provide Melissa areason for the nonconfirmation and she would haveto formally contest the EEVS finding with SSA.

Even minor database errors would deny millions of lawfulworkers – including U.S. citizens – their right to work.

By placing the burden of verification on theemployer, an EEVS opens the door to human error.An employer’s typo or a job applicant’s poorhandwriting is enough to confound an electronicverification system and block citizens and otherauthorized workers from employment. Especiallylikely victims of data entry mistakes are workerswhose names are nontraditional or “ethnic.” Moreoften than not, these individuals – who areprobably U.S. citizens or lawful workers – happento be descendants of immigrants or areimmigrants themselves. An employer is morelikely to confuse the record of a worker who hasthree or four names – which is particularly true ofAmericans of Hispanic and Asian ancestry – thanthe record of a worker who has two names. Thesame applies for people with hyphenated or

accented names. Indeed, in its evaluation ofBasic Pilot/E-Verify, SSA reports that lawfulworkers and U.S. citizens born outside the U.S.are 30 times more likely than native-born workersto be wrongly flagged as ineligible to work.

SCENARIO: In the tradition of his Latin Americanancestors, José, a native of New York, has twolast names; one is his mother’s and the other ishis father’s. Born José Manuel Rivera Gonzalez,his co-workers know him as José Rivera. Whenhis new boss enters his full name into an EEVS,she accidentally leaves out “Gonzalez.” Becauseof this mistake, the EEVS is unable to matchJosé’s records and consequently misidentifies himas ineligible to work.

Data entry errors would affect all types of workers, butwould acutely impact workers with “ethnic” names.

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Evaluations of Basic Pilot/E-Verify found that 47%of employers used the program to screen workersbefore they hired them, which violates theprogram’s rules.3 Moreover, under the currentproposals, employers are required to informworkers of a database mismatch, but evidenceshows that 685,000 employers (9.4% ofapproximately seven million employers) would notdo so.4 Preemployment screening is an extremelyharmful practice, because people who areauthorized to work but have errors in theirrecords are denied jobs without ever knowing thata database error was the culprit, and withouthaving an opportunity to correct the error. Themore prevalent the belief that the EEVS createsbothersome procedures when there are errors, themore incentive employers have to use the systemas a screening device without bothering to inform

job applicants of records mismatches. Whetherdeliberate or accidental, employer misuse of anEEVS is easy and likely, especially if an EEVS wereto be implemented quickly with no road map andlittle enforcement capacity. This could costmillions of workers access to jobs every year.

SCENARIO: Mark D’Angelo is a certified highschool chemistry teacher. Even though his statehas a shortage of science teachers, Mark is turneddown for a job by four different school districts.It isn’t until Mark’s fifth interview that a schoolprincipal notifies Mark that the EEVS has beenunable to confirm his work eligibility. Only afterbeing denied four job opportunities due tounlawful screening is Mark finally aware of themismatch and able to contest thenonconfirmation with SSA.

Employer misuse of the system would penalize lawfulworkers before they have a chance to correct their records.

Worker verification is not a new practice. TheBasic Pilot/E-Verify is only the latest phase of along history of misguided efforts to addressundocumented immigration in the context of theworkplace. By imposing sanctions on employerswho knowingly hire undocumented workers, theImmigration Reform and Control Act of 1986(IRCA) set in motion a pattern of employerdiscrimination on the basis of nationality andcitizenship status.5 According to acongressionally mandated General AccountingOffice (GAO) report, areas with high Latino andAsian populations experience higher levels ofdiscriminatory employment practices.6 Employers

have engaged in a wide range of unlawfulselective hiring and reverification practices toweed out workers with a “foreign” appearance orsurname. For example, some employers use theunlawful practice of preemployment screening,mentioned above, to screen only “foreign” or“ethnic” applicants. In other cases of abuse, someemployers demand extra or “better” documentsthan legally required from people they believe tobe immigrants. Others implement unlawful “citizenonly” policies to avoid a potentially longer andmore costly verification for these “error-prone”workers.7 Ironically, Congress anticipated theseabuses before the 1986 law went into effect;

A national EEVS would result in large-scale discriminationagainst workers who are perceived to be “foreign.”

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however, instead of including measures to preventdiscrimination in the system in the first place,the law created – and subsequently underfunded –an office in the Department of Justice to addressabuses after the fact.8

SCENARIO: Amy Gonzalez is a U.S. citizen andhas lived in Georgia her entire life. She isconsidering a career change from customer serviceto advertising. However, now that a mandatory

EEVS is in place throughout the country, thebusiness-owners in her town are getting nervous.To avoid getting hit with government sanctionsfor hiring undocumented workers, companies havedecided to play it safe by hiring only people whoare clearly not “ethnic,” which is a violation ofthe EEVS obligations. Since Amy is HispanicAmerican, it is now nearly impossible for her tofind an employer who will invite her for aninterview.

Implementing a nationwide EEVS in a short timespan would likely overwhelm SSA, an agency thatis already struggling to keep pace with its currentdemands. SSA’s primary purpose is to administercritical benefits to the public, includingSupplemental Security Income, disability benefits,and retirement payments. With 751,767 disabilitycases pending, the average waiting time for ahearing decision from SSA is 499 days.9 An EEVSwould further inundate SSA with appeals fromworkers contesting incorrect EEVS feedback. U.S.citizens and lawful workers simply cannot affordto be unemployed while they wait for SSA to cleartheir records. The so-called “No Fly List,”designed to catch terrorists trying to boardcommercial airplanes in the U.S., is notorious forensnaring unlikely suspects – includinggrandmothers and babies – in a mass of red tape.The costs of errors in the “No Fly List” includelong lines and missed flights. Similarly, in thename of blocking undocumented immigrants fromthe workforce, an EEVS is poised to create a “NoWork List” of millions of citizens and lawfulworkers who are unable to work because of a

database or input error. For these individuals, thecost of addressing these mistakes is more than aninconvenience: it is their very livelihood.

SCENARIO: You and your children are U.S.citizens. Your son has just completed four yearsat the state university, making him the firstperson in your family to graduate from college.Although you did all you could to help him payfor school, he now faces enormous student loanbills. Eager for a steady paycheck, he applies fordozens of jobs and finally secures a position.However, a discrepancy in his records makes itimpossible for an EEVS to confirm his workeligibility. His request to fix SSA’s mistake is onlyone of 67 million transactions that SSA willhandle through its 1-800 number this year.10 Tospeed up the process, your son visits the localSSA field office in person, but since the office isopen only during regular business hours, he isforced to take time off from his new job to do so.Without a means to pay his bills, the interest onhis loans compounds, and he enters the workforcewith even higher debt than when he graduated.

Worse than the “No Fly List” debacle, individuals wronglyplaced on a “No Work List” would face more than just an inconvenience.

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1. Accuracy of the Social Security Administration’s NumidentFile, Congressional Response Report A-08-06-26100,Office of the Inspector General, Social SecurityAdministration, December 2006,http://www.socialsecurity.gov/oig/ADOBEPDF/audittxt/A-08-06-26100.htm.

2. Jim Harper, “The ‘EEV’ of Destruction,” TechKnowledge,Issue no. 113, March 12, 2008, Cato Institute,http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/080312-tk.html.

3. Employer Feedback on the Social Security Administration’sVerification Programs, Congressional Response Report A-03-06-26106, Office of the Inspector General, SocialSecurity Administration, December 2006,http://www.ssa.gov/oig/ADOBEPDF/A-03-06-26106.pdf.

4. Findings of the Web Basic Pilot Program Evaluation,Report Prepared by Westat for the U.S. Department ofHomeland Security, September 2007, 76,http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=89abf90517e15110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD.

5. Charles A. Bowsher, Immigration Reform: EmployerSanctions and the Question of Discrimination, StatementBefore the Committee on the Judiciary, March 30, 1990,U.S. General Accounting Office, T-GGD-90-31,http://archive.gao.gov/d38t12/141005.pdf.

6. Ibid., 6.

7. Findings of the Web Basic Pilot Program Evaluation.

8. Cecilia Muñoz, Statement to the Senate Committee onthe Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, BorderSecurity, and Citizenship, Hearing on “ImmigrationEnforcement at the Workplace: Learning from theMistakes of 1986,” June 19, 2006,http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1949.

9. Patrick P. O’Carroll, Jr., Reducing the Disability Backlog atthe Social Security Administration, Testimony before theU.S. House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee onLabor, Health, and Human Services, Education andRelated Agencies, February 28, 2008,http://www.ssa.gov/oig/communications/testimony_speeches/02282008testimony.htm.

10. Michael Astrue, Testimony before the U.S. HouseAppropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Labor,Health, and Human Services, and Education and RelatedAgencies, February 28, 2008,http://www.ssa.gov/legislation/FINAL%20FY%202009%20Statement%20for%20the%20Record.pdf.

Endnotes

To date, Basic Pilot/E-Verify has a track record oferrors and employer misuse. The evidence,together with the well-documented speculationabout the viability of an EEVS, makes it verylikely that the scenarios illustrated above willbecome everyday realities. Expanding this flawed

model across the entire workforce is a dangerousbusiness that would put the livelihood of millionsof U.S. citizens and lawful workers at stake.Congress should not force employers and workersto participate in an EEVS without carefulconsideration, benchmarks, and protections.

Conclusion