One of the certain outcomes of Immigration Reform, whenever we get it, will be Employment Verification for all employers. The current program is voluntary, called E-Verify, and once an employer is enrolled in the program every new hire is required to have his or her employment authorization verified by the Immigration Service, including US citizens and permanent residents. Once this program, or one similar to it, is mandated by Immigration Reform, the real fun will start.
Attached to this article is a recent announcement from DHS and SSA about how an employee can correct his or her records if the employer is told the employee is not authorized to work. For all of those US workers with names like Bob Smith who feel this is not their potential problem, I am reminded of testimony in the early 1990s before Congress when the very first employment verification system was considered. The technology expert testifying stated, basically, that the optimum system would “only” have an error rate of 3%. Or as he put it, the system would be correct 97% of the time. Further, this was a 3% error rate for those who are legally in the US including US citizens.
For the current labor force in the US of about 160,000,000, that means that on any given day 4.8 million US workers, permanent residents and other legal workers will have their employers and prospective employers told by DHS and SSA that they cannot work. However, since this analysis is over 20 years old, let’s assume technology has improved so much that only 1% of the legal work forced will be told they cannot work: that is still about 1.6 million workers who could be denied employment on any given day. (note: I realize the entire work force is not applying for a job every day and the number is likely much lower but the point is that a substantial number of legal workers are likely to fall into this situation on any given day).
So, if the current E-Verify system is any indication of what everyone will be subject to once employment verification is mandatory, review the announcements from DHS/SSA below:
On Feb. 23, 2014, E-Verify released an updated Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) Further Action Notice to include information on correcting immigration records. The Further Action Notice directs employees to the Fact Sheet: How to Correct Your Immigration Records after Resolving a Tentative Nonconfirmation in E-Verify for more detailed instructions. The Fact Sheet is available in 18 languages.
Please share the Fact Sheet with employees who receive a DHS Tentative Nonconfirmation (DHS TNC). However, do not reissue the DHS TNC Further Action Notice to an employee who previously received a DHS TNC.
See more employee resources at www.uscis.gov/e-verify/employees.