Feds' program to detect unauthorized workers doesn't detect unauthorized workers

Once again, research has shown that the federal E-Verify program is not ready for prime time, and it is certainly not ready for Pennsylvania. E-Verify is the feds' online database program that is supposed to tell businesses if an employee is work-authorized. One small problem: A majority of the time it doesn't detect unauthorized workers.

Last month Westat released the results of a study commissioned by the federal government. A majority of the unauthorized workers that Westat put through E-Verify came back as eligible to work. In other words, E-Verify can't do the one job that its intended to do.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who is writing the Democrats' immigration bill and has fought expanding E-Verify because of its flaws, said Wednesday that the fact that E-Verify was inaccurate so often shows that it is not an adequate tool.

"This is a wake-up call to anyone who thinks E-Verify is an effective remedy to stop the hiring of illegal immigrants," Schumer said.

E-Verify has long been a target of derision for civil rights advocates, particularly because the databases used in E-Verify are riddled with errors. These errors lead to eligible workers being denied work because E-Verify says they are not authorized to work. The errors disproportionately affect naturalized citizens.

The federal government claims that the error rate is low, with Westat reporting a .7 percent error rate. Of course, that's 1.5 million Americans over the age of 15, so apparently the Obama administration's message to those 1.5 million Americans is, "Sucks to be you."

The companies that are actually using E-Verify report a much higher error rate. Intel has said that 12 percent of legal workers it put through E-Verify came back as ineligible. A major, multinational employer reported a 15 percent error rate. And a fast food franchise in Arizona with 24 restaurants has said that 75 percent of the legal immigrant workers it put through E-Verify came back as unauthorized.

Meanwhile, here in PA, some legislators think it would be a swell idea to bring this flawed program to the commonwealth. Rep. John Galloway (D-Bucks County) and Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler County) are pushing to get a vote on bills to require state contractors (HB 1502) and all construction businesses (HB 1503) to use E-Verify. These bills already passed out of committee and are being teed up for a vote on the floor of the House.

Regardless of the state of the economy, it's never a good idea to implement state policy that hurts workers. It's especially damaging in this economy with a 10 percent unemployment rate. E-Verify creates barriers to employment and can't even do the one job it's intended to do, weed out unauthorized workers. E-Verify is bad for workers, bad for business, and bad for Pennsylvania.

Andy in Harrisburg

Queremos due process y fair treatment

That's my Spanglish in the headline. Of course, I relied on Google Language Tools for "queremos" ("we want"), which I thought was "quieremos". Ay, dios mios.

Working in immigration, we learn to take the good with the bad. Over the last week, there's been some good and some bad.

On Monday, as the result of a Freedom Of Information Act lawsuit by the ACLU, the Department of Homeland Security released new information on the deaths of people who were in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DHS revealed additional deaths that had not previously been reported, including the death of Felix Franklin Rodriguez-Torres, bringing the total number of deaths of people in ICE custody to 104 since 2003. Felix died of testicular cancer in 2007 after the staff at a privately-run detention center gave him minimal treatment, and his story is chronicled in today's New York Times.

And these are the people that the Pennsylvania State Police and the city of Philadelphia think they can work with. A few weeks ago, the city began its participation in ICE's Secure Communities program, which the state will implement in all 67 counties over the next four years. PPD will send the fingerprints of arrestees to PSP, who will then send them along to ICE to check their status. Supposedly, only prints from those charged with serious crimes will be sent through the pipeline. But we're suspicious since that's what ICE's 287(g) program was also supposed to do but instead has been deporting people picked up on minor crimes or even no crimes.

In January, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a scathing report on a different ICE initiative, the 287(g) program, which has trained over 60 state and local police departments to enforce immigration laws within their jurisdictions. The report concludes that this program lacks "internal control standards."Rather than targeting immigrants suspected of serious criminal behavior, as is its mission, 287(g) has largely netted immigrants caught committing minor offenses like traffic violations. (It is perhaps not a coincidence that many local police departments enrolled in 287(g) are facing accusations of and lawsuits about racial profiling.) Some might believe this is a desirable outcome. But it's not what the program aspires to do, and it has lead to a glut of deportation proceedings that are clogging and bankrupting prisons.

Regan Cooper, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration & Citizenship Coalition (PICC), believes the same thing will happen with the program Philly has enrolled in. "The stated goal of 287(g) is to screen people with serious offenses throughout the system," she says. "Everyone likes that. But the stated goal is different from what actually happens. We're worried that the same will be true of Secure Communities."

As a result, immigrants don't trust their local police, and victims and witnesses will not cooperate with investigations.

Finally, our legislative department, which is me, had to get into the action and released a statement on Monday on several recent reports on immigration. The Cato Institute- not exactly a liberal commune- released a study (pdf) on August 13 showing that an enforcement-only policy toward persons without papers would actually decrease Americans' household income.

I had to get this out there, along with a report (pdf) from late-July by the Immigration Policy Center, because at the end of July FAIR, an anti-immigrant group with connections to hate groups, put out a report claiming that persons without papers cost PA taxpayers blah-blah-blah millions of dollars.

One problem: unFAIR didn't consider the economic impact that these folks put back into the economy of Pennsylvania. And unFAIR failed to mention that 91 percent of the costs of this particular group of immigrants comes from the education of children, 73 percent of whom are US citizens. All of this was pointed out brilliantly by IPC.

This had to get out there because state legislators throw unFAIR's numbers around, and the media, including some in the capitol press corps, uncritically report them.

FAIR's numbers are bogus. We can have a reasonable discussion about immigration and even disagree at times. But legislators fail our democracy when they poison the debate with fraudulent facts.

Andy in Harrisburg