Received today in an email from my father after I asked both my parents to contact their Reps re: the E-Verify/Stimulus Package Issue:
“I called Speaker Nancy Pelosi & Chairman David Obey and one congress person… HTH L, D ( ps so did mommy )
Ask your loved ones to make a couple phone calls! (I’m not sure what HTH means…L,D = Love, Daddy)
Tags: Advocacy
Stop complaining and take action! Now is the time to let Congress know how you feel! Let your Representative know that incuding E-Verify in the stimulus package is counterproductive to strengthening our economy, and should not be included in the stimulus package. Advocacy is fun and empowering so make your phone calls today!
E-Verify should not be part of the stimulus package!
To: Interested Immigration Advocates
From: National Immigration Forum
ACTION ALERT: CALLS NEEDED TODAY
Stimulus Money with E-Verify Strings Attached Will Hurt, Not Help American Workers and Businesses.
Late last week, the House Appropriations Committee voted to include two provision related to E-Verify (the electronic worker verification system) in the economic recovery bill (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009). One of the amendments, proposed by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) and approved by Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI), would make enrollment in E-Verify a condition for receiving funds provided by the recovery package.
This is a dangerous and risky attempt to expand the E-Verify program in a way that would essentially make its use mandatory for the majority of 7.4 million employers in our country. The E-Verify program has severe and well-documented failings which include:
If Congress wants to solve the economic crisis and put Americans back to work, it should focus on economic stimulus measures. Immigration enforcement should be the subject of a comprehensive package of immigration reforms. Congressional leadership should not allow Representatives with a narrow focus on punishing immigrants to use the urgently-needed economic stimulus to advance their agenda.
The Obama Administration has recently suspended for review a rule that would require all federal contractors to enroll in E-Verify. Congress should not work at cross purposes with the Administration on this issue. The New American and Latino voters who turned out in record numbers in the last election helped change the balance in Congress. Their vote should be respected, and Congress should deal with immigration as a problem that needs to be solved comprehensively, not made worse by endless new enforcement measures.
CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU TODAY:
TELL CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP TODAY:
DEMOCRAT MEMBERS OF THE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
John P. Murtha (D-PA) Phone: 202-225-2065 Fax: 202-225-5709
http://www.immigrationforum.org
Executive Order and Federal Procurement Law Challenged
Athough the final rule requiring federal contractors and subcontractors to enroll in and use E-Verify for new (and some existing) employees was due to take effect January 15, 2008, it (73 Fed. Reg. 67,651 (Nov. 14, 2008) has been suspended until February 20, 2009. The delay comes as the result of a challenge filed by the American Council on International Personnel (ACIP), the US Chamber of Commerce, the Society for Human Resource Managment, Associated Builders and Contractors, and HR Policy Association (Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, et al. v. Michael Chertoff, et al., Civil Action No. AW-08-3444 (D.Md.)).
The challenge was based on the burden the rule places on employers and the argument that Congress had specifically prohibited mandating E-Verify in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant REsponsibility Act (IIRAIRA), including -reverification of current employees, among other claims.
An announcement in the Federal Register should be issued shortly (i.e. in the next week), and both parties will file briefs in favor or opposing the rule.
1/14/08 UPDATE: The announcement was published in the Federal Register today. “The applicablity date of FAC 2005-29 is delayed until February 20, 2009″
April 2006 - Undocumented workers and supporters protest a bill which would criminalize undocumented workers
USCIS announced today in a press release on the headlines of the USCIS.gov website that “The Bratton Corp., a construction products supplier from Kansas City, Mo., employing about 200 people in Kansas City and Pasadena, Calif., is the 100,000th employer to participate in E-Verify.”
Congrats Bratton! It’s interesting to see the marketing tools that the government is employing to hype up E-Verify. Although I write about and research the shortcomings and dangers of an electronic verification system which could negatively affect human resources departments and employees on a grand scale, I do think that the program has its virtues. If employers have a reliable, quick, and easy way to verify the identity and authorization of their employees, and are held accountable for staffing unauthorized workers, they are more likely to comply. That said, I am frusterated that DHS has invested so much in designing this well-structured verification program without devising an equally well-structured program to address the heart of the problem: creating pathways for the 12 million shadow immmigrants to integrate legally into our workforce.
Even if every employer in the US is enrolled in E-Verify, there will always be an underground workforce of unauthorized workers unless Congress addresses them directly.
Tags: E-Verify
Avoiding Liablity for Employing Unauthorized Workers
I was reading about the August 15, 2007 DHS Final Rule which was published about Social Security No-Match letters giving employers guidance on their obligations to respond in order to benefit from the “safe harbor” provisions limiting (or eliminating) an employer’s liablity. According to the Rule, once an employer receives a Social Security No-Match letter stating that a discrepancy exists between the employee’s name and social security number provided on a W-2 form and the information that the SSA has in its database, the DHS argued that a “reasonable person” should infer a workers unauthorized status, and employer can be held liable for employing unauthorized workers. However, if the employer follows the procedures outlined in the Rule, the employer receives ”Safe Harbor” which relieves the employer from that liablity. Once the employer recieves the letter, it must
a) check its records within 5 days to determine whether it was the result of a clerical error, and if so it must correct the records, notify the agencies of the error, and verify that the corrected information matches the Agencies records. Employers must resolve the discrepancy within 30 days of receipt of the letter.
b) if the employer cannot resolve the discrepancy, it must notify the employee, and confirm that the employer’s information is correct. If the information is incorrect, the employer must contact the Agency and correct the inforamtion. If there is no discrepancy and the information submitted by the employer, the employer must direct the employee to contact the Agency to correct the discrepancy. 30 days is also the reasonable timefram to remedy the discrepancy.
If the No-match issue isn’t resolved within 90 days of receipt, the employer may complete a new Form I-9 (with certain restrictions). If the employer determines that the employee is unauthorized, DHS will not infer constructive knowledge by the employer because it followed the designated procedures in response to the No-Match letter, and has “safe harbor.”
After the Final Rule was published on August 15, 2007, a lawsuit was filed by the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Roofing Contractors Association, AFLCIO, the ACLU, and other business organizations challenging some aspects of the Rule because inaccuracies in the SSA database could result in the termination of lawful workers and impact small businesses. A temporary restraining order was issued based on the irreparable harm that would result if the Rule were to go into effect, and the liklihood of the Plaintiffs’ success in the suit.
Here’s the part I thought was really cool about this lawsuit against DHS:
On November 23, 2007 DHS requested the court to delay proceedings so that it could reissue a revised rule to correct the disputed Rule. The revised rule (issued March 21, 2008) clarified the timerframe that an employer was required to notify the affected worker to five days after conducting its own internal records review. On October 28, 2008 the DHS issued a Supplemental final no match Rule which eliminated the five buisness day notification requirement. I need to find out what happened on November 21, 2008.
I posted this to explain the content of the disputed No-Match rule, understand why it is so controversial, and express my fascination with the idea that we can sue government agencies when they issue regulations that harm people or businesses (and that the agencies actually have to listen to the Courts!!). Pretty cool!
Tags: democracy, DHS, employment compliance, No-Match, rulemaking
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