E-Verify: Successfully Protecting American Jobs

From FAIR's Government Relations team

Last week, Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement in the House held a hearing entitled: "E-Verify: Challenges and Opportunities." E-Verify is the federal government program that lets employers voluntarily confirm that new hires are legally authorized to work in the United States.

Gerri Ratliff, the Deputy Associate Director of the National Security and Records Verification of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), testified at the hearing and cited statistics that demonstrate the growth and success of E-Verify. As Homeland Security Today reported, Ratliff testified that: "Not only does the E-Verify Program continue to grow, but it also continues to improve."

Ratliff cited the following statistics about E-Verify:

• E-Verify is now being used to determine work authorization for 1 in 4 new hires across America. That means employers who are using E-Verify are protecting American jobs by ensuring that they hire only legal workers.
• So far in 2009, about 6 million new hires have been checked by E-Verify. That means E-Verify has verified almost as many employees so far this year than E-Verify verified all of last year.
• USCIS expects that E-Verify will run a total of 12.3 million checks in 2009. That means that 12.3 million jobs will go to legal American workers this year, instead of to illegal aliens.

It is pretty hard to argue with the success of E-Verify.