[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
E-VERIFY: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
ORGANIZATION, AND PROCUREMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 23, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-59
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DARRELL E. ISSA, California
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio JOHN L. MICA, Florida
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
DIANE E. WATSON, California MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
JIM COOPER, Tennessee PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois JIM JORDAN, Ohio
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
Columbia JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois ------ ------
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL FOSTER, Illinois
JACKIE SPEIER, California
STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio
------ ------
Ron Stroman, Staff Director
Michael McCarthy, Deputy Staff Director
Carla Hultberg, Chief Clerk
Larry Brady, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement
DIANE E. WATSON, California, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
JACKIE SPEIER, California ------ ------
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on July 23, 2009.................................... 1
Statement of:
McNeill, Jena Baker, policy analyst for homeland security,
the Heritage Foundation; and Angelo Amador, Executive
Director for Immigration Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.. 44
Amador, Angelo........................................... 58
McNeill, Jena Baker...................................... 44
Ratliff, Gerri, Deputy Associate Director of the National
Security and Records Verification Directorate, U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Human
Security; and David Rust, Deputy Commissioner for
Retirement and Disability Policy, Social Security
Administration............................................. 4
Ratliff, Gerri........................................... 4
Rust, David.............................................. 15
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Amador, Angelo, Executive Director for Immigration Policy,
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, prepared statement of............ 60
McNeill, Jena Baker, policy analyst for homeland security,
the Heritage Foundation, prepared statement of............. 46
Ratliff, Gerri, Deputy Associate Director of the National
Security and Records Verification Directorate, U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Human
Security, prepared statement of............................ 7
Rust, David, Deputy Commissioner for Retirement and
Disability Policy, Social Security Administration, prepared
statement of............................................... 17
E-VERIFY: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
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THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Management,
Organization, and Procurement,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Diane E. Watson
(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Watson, Bilbray, Connolly,
Cuellar, Speier, and Duncan.
Staff present: Bert Hammond, staff director; Adam Bordes
and Deborah Mack, professional staff; Dan Blankenburg, minority
director of outreach and senior advisor; Adam Fromm, minority
chief clerk and Member liaison; Marvin Kaplan and Mitchell
Kominsky, minority counsels.
Ms. Watson. The Subcommittee on Government Management,
Organization, and Procurement of the Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform will now come to order.
Today's hearing will provide an overview of E-Verify and
examine how current challenges are affecting its implementation
and potential for future expansion. The subcommittee is
particularly interested in hearing how the September 2009
deadline for Federal contractors to comply with E-Verify is
impacting their ability to serve our agencies and programs.
In addition, the subcommittee will be examining the overall
efficacy and efficiency to the E-Verify program, including
issues associated with system accuracy, capacity, and usability
by those in the employer community.
Without objection, the Chair and the ranking minority
member will have 5 minutes to make opening statements, followed
by opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other
Member who seeks recognition.
Without objection, Members and witnesses may have 5
legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous
materials for the record.
I want to first thank all the witnesses for appearing here
today to discuss recent developments in the administration's E-
Verify program.
E-Verify is designed to electronically verify information
contained in the Employment Eligibility Verification Form known
as I-9, which all newly hired employees are required by law to
submit to their employer in a free Web-based program operated
by the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizens and
Immigration Services [USCIS], in partnership with the Social
Security Administration. The program is designed to strengthen
the employment verification process and protect against the use
of fraudulent documents on the part of new hires.
According to most recent figures at the subcommittee's
disposal, as of January 2009, a little over 103,000 employers
had registered with E-Verify. In fiscal year 2008, USCIS
reported that E-Verify handled about 7 million requests.
Authorization and funding for E-Verify has been extended by
Congress a number of times, most recently through September 30,
2009.
On July 8, 2009, Department of Homeland Security's Janet
Napolitano announced the administration's support for a
regulation that will award Federal contracts only to employers
who use E-Verify to check employee work authorization. It is my
understanding that the administration has mandated that the new
regulations will go into effect by September 8th while DHS
continues to work on strengthening E-Verify in order to guard
against errors, enforce compliance, promote proper usage, and
enhance security.
Critics of E-Verify claim that the system suffers from a
number of major, perhaps irreconcilable, weaknesses. Among the
weaknesses often cited by critics of E-Verify are: one, E-
Verify's limited capability to detect certain types of identify
fraud; No. 2, system inefficacies and inaccuracies; third, the
lack of sufficient system capacity; and fourth, privacy
concerns and employer non-compliance that results in misuse of
E-Verify to the detriment of both current employees and new
hires.
I would be most interested in hearing what the
administration is doing on an ongoing, forward basis to address
these concerns and, moreover, what its current thinking is on
extending E-Verify beyond the September 30th expiration date.
Specifically, the Senate-passed versions of the fiscal year
2010 Homeland Security appropriations bill, H.R. 2892, would
make E-Verify permanent. Does the administration support this
provision?
I also am interested in learning what plans the
administration is putting in place to implement Secretary
Napolitano's July 8th announcement that all Federal contractors
will be required to use E-Verify. For example, how many new
queries does USCIS anticipate E-Verify will need to handle when
the Federal contractor rule is implemented? Does E-Verify have
sufficient capacity to deal with the increased workload of
electronically verifying employment status of Federal
contractors?
And how does USCIS intend to deal with the almost certain
increased number of non-final, non-confirmations that cannot be
appealed and the fact that legal aliens and naturalized U.S.
citizens are more likely to receive erroneous, tentative, non-
confirmations? And what regulations will DHS propose to guide
employers in dealing with employees who are not authorized to
work? And, finally, will DHS propose regulations to protect
workers as they are seeking to overturn tentative non-
confirmations?
I hope today's hearing will shed some light on a number of
outstanding issues surrounding the implementation and use of E-
Verify on a going forward basis.
Once again, I thank all of today's witnesses for appearing
and I look forward to an informative exchange.
Now I would like to yield time to our most distinguished
minority leader. I don't like to call you that; you are more
than that. Mr. Bilbray.
Mr. Bilbray. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair,
I thank you for this hearing. First of all, Madam Chair, I
would ask for unanimous consent that three statements from the
construction industry, from the Human Resource Initiative for
Legal Workforce, and for the Center of Immigration Studies be
entered into the hearing record.
Ms. Watson. Without objection.
Mr. Bilbray. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, let me, first of all, say there are so many
times, in oversight, we get testimony about how the system
doesn't work and the breakdown of the system or the abuses of
the system. E-Verify, I think, is going to go down in history
as one of those examples--a small example, but a very clear
example--of when the system works properly.
Back in the early 1990's, a lowly Federal bureaucrat
approached a Member of Congress with an idea and asked the
Congressman to look into this. That Congressman was Ken
Calvert, somebody that nobody would even know about because I
don't think he was on committees of jurisdiction or whatever.
But the idea that was given to this Congressman because of our
ability for people in the front line to talk to policymakers,
and for that policymaker then to take it up to the appropriate
committee and work it through has really shown in this issue.
He implemented, back in the mid-1990's, the pilot program
where five States introduced this idea, basically helped to
evolve it from a telephone to a computer system. That program
in those five States had a level of success to the point to
where Congress overwhelmingly agreed to make it a national
model under the volunteer aspect, and that allowed it to grow
and be improved and to be fine-tuned as the process goes down.
Now we are seeing the next step taken in this evolution of
a small little mustard seed that was planted by a Federal
bureaucrat, the little guy at the bottom, watching it grow into
quite a program that I think that any one of us, if we tried to
design it from Harvard, Yale, or from Capitol Hill, never would
have come to this conclusion.
So I just want to say, as we get into this hearing, the
source of this program I think is one of the inspirations of
showing that sometimes the system does work and really is an
incentive for all of us as policymakers to remember to listen
to the little guy who doesn't seem to have a lot of power and
influence, but he does have a lot to say and a lot of good to
give into the system if we will just listen.
With that, Madam Chair, I will yield back my time.
Ms. Watson. Thank you.
Mr. Cuellar.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate your
having this particular meeting.
I know that in my other committee, in Homeland, we have
covered this issue, but there are a lot of issues that I think
this committee will cover. I guess one of the issues that I am
looking at is, like any other program that you have, what sort
of input are we getting from the private sector, and that part
I hope the witnesses can talk about that.
I know the U.S. Chamber and other folks have shown concern.
I know in the past, when I have talked to some of the Federal
folks, they have said we have taken input, but I would
hopefully like to have some discussion as to exactly what they
have done, how broad of a diverse have they brought in, the
folks, the private sector, because we want to make sure we do
this right.
So, Madam Chair, I appreciate your having this meeting. It
is a good meeting. I look forward to the witnesses.
Ms. Watson. Thank you.
It is the committee policy that all witnesses are sworn in,
and I would like the witnesses to now stand as I administer the
oath of office. The first panel, please, just the first panel.
Would you raise your right hands, please?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Ms. Watson. Thank you. Let the record show that the
witnesses have answered in the affirmative and you are now
seated.
If there are no additional opening statements--I don't see
any others--we will now turn to our first panel. I ask that
each of the witnesses give a brief summary of your testimony
and, if you can, please keep this within 5 minutes in duration.
Your complete written statement will be included in the hearing
record.
I would first like to introduce Ms. Gerri Ratliff, who
currently serves as Deputy Associate Director of the National
Security and Records Verification Directorate for the U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services [USCIS]. Ms. Ratliff's
prior assignment included working as the First Chief of the
Verification Division of USCIS and serving as Acting Director
of the INS Office, Congressional Relations. Before joining
USCIS, Ms. Ratliff was the counsel to the Deputy Attorney
General and Special Counsel in the Department of Justice's
Office of Legislative Affairs.
Ms. Ratliff, would you now please proceed?
STATEMENTS OF GERRI RATLIFF, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE
NATIONAL SECURITY AND RECORDS VERIFICATION DIRECTORATE, U.S.
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN
SECURITY; AND DAVID RUST, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR RETIREMENT
AND DISABILITY POLICY, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
STATEMENT OF GERRI RATLIFF
Ms. Ratliff. Chairwoman Watson, Ranking Member Bilbray,
members of the subcommittee, I am Gerri Ratliff, Deputy
Associate Director of the National Security and Records
Verification Directorate of USCIS. This is the directorate that
oversees the E-Verify program as well as the Fraud Detection
and National Security Division, the Records Division, and the
National Records Center. I am very grateful for the opportunity
to be here today to discuss our shared goal of effective
employment eligibility verification.
First, let me express our appreciation for the House's
vigorous support for the President's budget request to extend
and continue funding E-Verify.
E-Verify has grown exponentially over the past several
years. Over 137,000 employers are now enrolled and the
statistic I find most significant is that number translates
into over half a million work sites today. In addition, over 14
percent of all non-agricultural new hires in the United States
are run through E-Verify currently. We really are beginning to
show up on the map. We are growing at the rate of 1,000
employers a week and already have over 2,000 employers signed
up as Federal contractors.
We believe E-Verify is the best available tool for
employers committed to maintaining a legal work force, but we
also are working hard to effectively serve workers by giving
accurate and quick verification of their employment
authorization. Our goals are to improve E-Verify's ability to
instantly verify new hires, to strengthen employer training,
and our monitoring and compliance functions, and to protect
employees' rights.
Complaints about E-Verify fall largely into three
categories: one, the system is inaccurate; two, E-Verify
doesn't combat identity theft; three, the system can result in
discrimination. I would like to briefly discuss each in turn.
First, accuracy. Well, today, 96.9 percent of queries
result in an automatic confirmation that the worker is
employment authorized. Of the remaining 3.1 percent of queries,
only 1 in 10 is ultimately found to be work authorized. Those
are statistics we are very, very proud of. We have worked hard
to reduce the initial mismatch rate for authorized workers.
We have made changes to reduce typographical errors made by
employers that had resulted in mismatches. We have added data
bases to our automated checks that have enabled us to verify
authorized workers more quickly. We have made system changes
and entered into a partnership with the Department of State to
share passport data that has enabled us to more quickly verify
naturalized and derivative citizens.
Even though we have had success in this area, we will
continue to work harder to do even better.
Not every mismatch can be prevented simply by adding data
or system changes, however. For example, if someone changes
their name through marriage or divorce, but doesn't then update
their Social Security records, it can result in a mismatch.
That, in fact, right now is the largest category of
successfully contested mismatches.
Second, identity fraud. E-Verify was not initially designed
to combat identity theft or to do identity authentication, but
identity theft and document fraud are growing issues that we
have to grapple with, so we are trying to respond. We are
giving E-Verify tools to begin to detect document fraud. Last
year, we added a photo screening tool that has DHS photos in it
for green cards and employment authorization documents, and can
be used for the Form I-9 purposes. This tool has already
detected hundreds of fraudulent green cards and employment
authorization documents.
In fiscal year 2010, we plan to add U.S. passport photos to
the photo tool and we would like to add driver's license
information and photos, because driver's licenses are the most
commonly used document for the Form I-9. We need the States'
help to do that.
We are also in the final stages of developing an initiative
to let identity theft victims lock and unlock their own Social
Security numbers in E-Verify to prevent their number being used
without their knowledge.
Finally, E-Verify must protect the rights of workers. We
have expanded our information from workers, even working with
the Department of Homeland Security's Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties Division to create videos aimed at employee rights,
as well as employer rights; and we are growing our Monitoring
and Compliance Branch that is very focused on system misuse
that is evidence of discrimination. In fact, this week we put
our first compliance letters in the mail to employers who may
not be using E-Verify correctly.
We are beginning to use a system that was just deployed at
the end of June that will enable us to do more and more
compliance work. We are also working to refer instances of
fraud, discrimination, and system misuse to the appropriate
enforcement authorities. And we work very closely with the
Justice Department's Office of Special Counsel for unfair
immigration-related employment practices on charges of E-
Verify-related discrimination.
In summary, E-Verify has made great strides, we believe, in
becoming a fast, easy-to-use, and more accurate tool, and we
are dedicated to improving the program even more.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the
subcommittee and, again, we appreciate your continued support
of our program.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ratliff follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Watson. Thank you.
I would like to announce the arrival of Congresswoman
Jackie Speier. Welcome.
Mr. David Rust is the Social Security Administration's
Deputy Commissioner for Retirement and Disability Policy. In
this role, Mr. Rust directs and manages the planning,
development, and issuance of operational policy and
instructions. Mr. Rust previously served as Executive Secretary
for the agency and he also held high ranking positions with the
Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of
Agricultural, and as a professional staff member for the
Congress.
Mr. Rust, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF DAVID RUST
Mr. Rust. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Bilbray, members
of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss
the Social Security Administration's supporting role in E-
Verify, the DHS-administered electronic employment eligibility
system. I am David Rust, the Deputy Commissioner for Retirement
and Disability Policy. My responsibilities include development
and coordination of policy in the oversight of related issues
to E-Verify and to our core workloads, which are the Old-Age,
Survivors and Disability Insurance program and the supplemental
security income program.
Before I discuss our supporting role with E-Verify, I would
like to briefly mention some of the key purposes we have
developed over the years for the use of the Social Security
number.
Assigning SSNs and issuing SSN cards is one of our core
workloads and a key to administering our program. We developed
the SSN as a way for employers to accurately report an
employee's earnings. We use the SSN to credit wages to the
permanent earnings record that we maintain for each worker,
which is the basis of their Social Security coverage and
benefits. We have great confidence in the integrity of our
workers, and for our program purposes the SSN serves us very
well.
Let me now turn to our role in the E-Verify program.
An employer submits information on a new hire to DHS. DHS
then sends this information to us electronically to verify the
SSN, the name, and the date of birth in our records. For new
hires alleging U.S. citizenship, we confirm citizenship status
based on information in our records. For any naturalized
citizen whose U.S. citizenship we cannot confirm, DHS verifies
the naturalization status and, thus, authorization for work.
For all non-citizens, if there is a match with our records,
DHS then determines current work authorization status. DHS
notifies the employer of the result of the verification. E-
Verify automatically confirms, as Ms. Ratliff said, work
authorization in 96.9 percent of all queries.
Next month we will complete a much anticipated improvement
in our computer systems that serve E-Verify. Currently, we use
the same system developed in the late 1990's, when E-Verify was
a small pilot program in just five States. Our improved system,
known as the Isolated Environment, will ensure that there is no
interference between our own mission critical workloads and
DHS's E-Verify program.
At the request of DHS, we designed the system to handle up
to 60 million queries a year, but we can increase that capacity
with additional hardware and funding if the need arises. The
new system also includes redundancy measures that ensure that
E-Verify does not experience unnecessary outages.
We worked closely with DHS over the last few years to
improve the E-Verify program. These changes have increased the
efficiency and effectiveness of the system and have helped to
control the workload effects on our field offices. In the last
2 years, these changes reduced by about half the number of
workers who need to visit our offices to resolve tentative non-
confirmations.
In fiscal year 2009, we will handle about 75 contacts for
every 10,000 queries run through the E-Verify system. Despite
these improvements, we remain focused on further reducing the
need for workers to visit our field offices to resolve
tentative non-confirmations.
Madam Chairwoman, our own mission critical workloads are
increasing at an alarming rate. Based on the newest economic
assumptions and actuarial projections, we now estimate nearly
250,000 more retirement claims will be filed and 350,000 more
disability claims will be filed in fiscal year 2010 than we
projected in the President's fiscal year 2010 budget, which was
delivered to Congress in May. Our field offices are under great
strain to keep pace with these growing workloads. Any
additional field office visits related to E-Verify will only
add more challenges to our efforts to deliver the level of
service the public expect and deserves.
I must also mention that under the Social Security Act we
cannot use Trust Fund dollars to finance the work we do for E-
Verify or any other work that does not fall within our core
mission as specified in the Social Security Act. Since E-Verify
began, Congress has appropriated funds to DHS to administer the
program, and each year DHS has provided funds to us to cover
our E-Verify related costs. These include our systems costs and
the cost of assisting new hires in resolving tentative non-
confirmations. Receiving timely and adequate reimbursement from
DHS for our E-Verify work is thus critical to us.
In conclusion, I want to thank you for giving me an
opportunity to discuss our role in assisting DHS in
administering the E-Verify system. We look forward to your
continued support for our critical programs. I would be glad to
answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rust follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Watson. Thank you so much, and I will begin by asking
the first few questions.
First to Ms. Ratliff. Secretary Napolitano recently
announced that, starting on September 8, 2009, the
administration would implement a regulation requiring that
Federal contractors use E-Verify according to the USCIS
statistics, and E-Verify has handled more than 6 million
queries thus far this fiscal year. How many queries do you
anticipate E-Verify will need to handle next year if the
Federal contractor rule is implemented?
Ms. Ratliff. Madam Chairwoman, we estimate that in the
first year about 3.8 million queries would be run pursuant to
that regulation. There is a little under 170,000 Federal
contractors in our analysis and, given our current system
capacity of over 60 million queries annually, we are well
poised to meet that challenge.
Ms. Watson. OK. Do you see any problems in the system?
These are staggering numbers.
Ms. Ratliff. We are always analyzing to see what could be
tweaked and fixed and made better. We feel that we do have a
program that is ready to handle the challenges of the Federal
contractor role and other growth. We have a team of system
engineers, program experts who are always looking to see what
could be improved; could your educational materials be more
extensive. We have added languages to our materials.
To implement the Federal contractor rule, we are planning
now a second wave of outreach to Federal contractors through
Webinars and other events to make sure they have the
information they need to successfully enroll and use E-Verify.
We have, in the registration process, a tailored approach for
contractors and a tailored tutorial. We are always open to
ideas for additional improvements in other materials, but we do
feel that we are ready.
Ms. Watson. All right. Do you support giving E-Verify
participants the option of verifying current employees and
could E-Verify handle the potential increase? I think you have
probably already answered that.
Ms. Ratliff. Well, our 3.8 million query estimate under the
Federal contractor rule for the first year does include an
estimate for a certain number of contractors choosing to run
their entire existing work force, which would be an option
under that regulation. We also are constantly doing forecasting
and building costing models for other larger scenarios so that
we would be ready for whatever Congress sees fit to send our
way.
Ms. Watson. And how effective is E-Verify in authenticating
employees' identities, as well as authorizing their right to
work?
Ms. Ratliff. Identity fraud is something that we are
spending a lot of time thinking about and developing the tools
that are possible for us to put in our tool kit. We cannot
today catch every form of identity fraud. We have the photo
tool that we are using to the fullest ability that we can use
it, by putting Department of Homeland Security identity
document photos in it for the new hires who show a green card
or an employment authorization document for the Form I-9.
We are planning, next year, to put in the photo tool the
U.S. passport citizen photos, but the biggest document used for
the Form I-9 is the driver's license, and we, on our end, have
done outreach to States to see if there is a willing partner
who would work with us to add their driver's license photos to
the photo tool. That is the step that would take us the
farthest down the path of detecting identity fraud in terms of
the photo tool.
We are also monitoring for duplicate uses of Social
Security numbers and will be referring to ICE, our sister
enforcement agency, identity fraud patterns that we see under
that initiative. We are exploring in-house possible biometric-
and biographic-based identity authentication options. I know
that is a topic of great interest and we are already looking to
see and working with stakeholders, including in the business
community all stakeholders who are interested in working with
us to put good ideas together and see what would be worth
testing out and learning from.
Ms. Watson. Let me just refer to ICE and the raids that
were held in 2007 on the Swift Meat Packing Co. I understand it
netted about 1,200 workers and reportedly contributed to $30
million in losses to the company. It is my understanding that
Swift participated, and still participates, in E-Verify pilot
programs who were found and they were not verified. So can you
explain what the breakdown in the system was at that time, what
the weaknesses were and how you plan to overcome those?
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, Madam Chair. The photo tool that we have
added to the system was added after the Swift incident.
Ms. Watson. The photo tool, faces?
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, ma'am. It is the green card and
employment authorization document photos. So when a new hire
shows one of those documents to the employer for the Form I-9
process, we are now able to pull up in the system the photo
that should be on that card, the photo that we put on the card.
So if the new hire is using a completely fraudulent green
card or employment authorization document, or has taken a real
card and photo-substituted their picture, the photo tool will
detect that by showing the photo that should be on the card. So
it is a very easy match. It is not a matter of saying, well,
you got a haircut and your shirt is different; it should be
exactly, 100 percent, the same photo that we put on the card.
And as we are working to expand the photo tool, that will
expand our ability to help employers detect identity fraud.
And I do want to note that Swift, you are absolutely right,
it underscores why we are moving to add tools to E-Verify to
allow employers to detect identity fraud and why we need to do
more.
Ms. Watson. My time has expired, so I am going to yield to
our ranking member, Mr. Bilbray.
Mr. Bilbray. Thank you. I guess the point here, we had a
hearing not too long ago, Madam Chair, about the improvement of
the Federal identification systems and the new technologies we
are using there.
So, Ms. Ratliff, as the States and the Federal Government
improve our documentation ourselves, our IDs itself, that will
strengthen the E-Verify because that is a basis for a lot of
this information gathering, isn't it?
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, sir. To the extent that E-Verify is able
to have access to those photos on those identity documents,
yes.
Mr. Bilbray. OK. So you can't operate in isolation. As
other improvements are made, as the States improve their
programs, as the Feds improve theirs, your efficiency will be
improved proportionally down the line.
Ms. Ratliff. Absolutely.
Mr. Bilbray. Mr. Rust, you have been resting for too long,
I am going to have to get to you. Westat commissioned a study
that came out and said that there was 99.6 confirmation of U.S.
citizens to the program for native born, or 99.9. That was
pretty substantial. And that the 97 are for foreign born
nationals. The question is I guess that also reflects the fact
that is where the most fraud is, is in foreign born. Is that
safe to assume that?
Mr. Rust. I think intuitively you could assume that, but
this is one of the things we are looking at all the time. We
are looking at ways to make the information in the Numident
more accurate, have a more substantial basis for it. We have
increased the evidentiary requirements for the information in
the Numident, so we are also, just as DHS is doing, we are
continually improving the quality of the data in the system to
reduce that number.
Mr. Bilbray. Ms. Ratliff was bringing up this issue of
women forgetting to notify Social Security when they get
married, change their names. I don't know why ladies do that,
but it happens to be some kind of conspiracy out here to
confuse the system. But, at the same time, we have the same
problem, coming from local government, with IDs in State
government trying to get the names changed. It is always a big
deal about notifying people go to your DMV, look at your
registration and a lot of other stuff.
My question is with the accuracy level that we have with E-
Verify, the Social Security Administration provides Social
Security payments for individuals. I am looking at a comparison
to this level of efficiency. What is the percentage of payments
that are sent out to the wrong person or not sent out at all?
What is the efficiency of the Social Security payments to
retired individuals?
Mr. Rust. Mr. Bilbray, I may have to provide that for the
record, if you don't mind.
Mr. Bilbray. I would appreciate that. Let me just say this.
I think those of us that have worked in local government look
at this percentage, 99.6. When you get up in the high 90's, you
really are at a level the government very seldom ventures into.
So I was very interested in that aspect of it.
Mr. Rust. But remember, for the people who are
beneficiaries, they have a vested interest in letting us know
changes of address, changes of name, and things of that nature.
We are sending them a benefit every month. So they are very
good about coming into us and correcting the record.
Where the bigger gap for us is, many of us got our Social
Security card when we were 16; now many are enumerated at
birth. But then you may go decades without having any
interaction with the Social Security Administration. It is
during that period of time when we probably have the greatest
discrepancies in the data. When a person gets ready to draw
benefits, they are in to see us and to correct those
situations.
Mr. Bilbray. Right.
Mr. Rust. Another thing we do is we send a statement out
every year, the Social Security Statement, to everybody above
age 25, and it has information in there on earnings and other
information; and we ask people if there is anything wrong with
the data we are presenting to you in this Social Security
Statement, would you come and notify us so we can correct it.
So we are trying on a regular basis to get those things cleaned
up.
Mr. Bilbray. I would also be interested in the people that
get checks after their loved ones have passed away and forget
to notify you. I think those are one of those things.
Mr. Rust, the phase 2 has been pretty successful, but what
is the average waiting time to resolve a mismatch over the
phone? What type of issues can be resolved over the phone?
Mr. Rust. From our point of view,--I believe you have a
telephone response system, correct? Maybe you might want to
respond and then I will respond.
Ms. Ratliff. If I might answer. The Social Security
Administration mismatches are typically resolved by an in-
person visit. It is the DHS mismatches that we have a process
where you can call us. We have a 1-800 number. We typically are
able to resolve over 90 percent of those calls within 2 days.
In addition, we most recently added another option for
citizens to call DHS, instead of doing into SSA, where they had
a naturalization-related mismatch, and we are able to check our
naturalization records, and 90 percent of the time we are able,
over the phone, to confirm their citizenship. And this could be
a case where the naturalized and haven't yet gone to SSA to
update their citizenship status. But we know they are
naturalized, we naturalized them, so with just a phone call we
are able to verify that they are in fact work authorized.
Mr. Rust. For the ones that come to us, it is almost all
walk-in; there is very little that can be resolved by the
phone. And I think they have 7 or 8 days to contact us, and
then we resolve it as quickly as we can. It depends, in many
cases, on how quickly they give us the documentation.
Mr. Bilbray. Bring in a marriage certificate?
Mr. Rust. Marriage certificate. If they don't have a birth
certificate, they may have to go to the vital records in their
home State or something of that nature. They have to get some
sort of documentation to resolve the issue for us.
Mr. Bilbray. And all of this will be streamlined as the
States go into basically electronic data files on birth
certificates and all that other stuff, which is a different
piece of legislation.
Mr. Rust. And death records and things of that nature. All
those electronic systems help us keep our data base up to date.
Mr. Bilbray. Thank you.
Ms. Watson. I will now yield to Congresswoman Speier.
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Ratliff, 103,000 employers, approximately, participate
voluntarily in E-Verify, according to our briefing paper. So
what percentage of the employers in this country are actually
participating in E-Verify, then?
Ms. Ratliff. Well, there are two statistics we use to
answer that question. The statistics on the number of employers
is always hard to keep accurate because it changes every day,
with about 1,000 more adding each week. The current number is
137,000. That represents over half a million work sites,
because one employer----
Ms. Speier. No, I understand that. I just want to know how
many employers you have as a percentage. Do you have that
figure?
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, ma'am. It is a half a million divided
into about 7.2 million employers nationwide, so it is about
one-fourteenth of the U.S. employer work force.
Ms. Speier. So a very small percentage of the employers.
Ms. Ratliff. It is small, yes, ma'am.
Ms. Speier. Why is it we haven't made it mandatory?
Ms. Ratliff. Well, Congress authorized it as a pilot to
make sure that it was working appropriately and was scalable
for 7 million employers, and I think that, as a matter of the
program perspective, not as a matter of the policy perspective,
we are building a program that could be made mandatory so that
when the time is right, we can be successful.
Ms. Speier. So how much longer do you think you need to be
able to absorb 13th, 14ths more of a work force?
Ms. Ratliff. As a matter of the IT infrastructure, we are
ready today. We have a system capability of 65 million queries
today, and, on average, there are about 60 to 65 million new
hires a year. As a matter of the staff to do monitoring and
compliance, we don't want to hire staff earlier and incur costs
for salaries, etc., earlier than the ratio would support, but
we have training modules----
Ms. Speier. Can you give me just an estimate? I mean, is it
2 years away, is it 3 years away? You are saying the IT is up
and running.
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Speier. So you don't have the work force to accommodate
the kinds of inquiries. Is that basically what is missing,
then?
Ms. Ratliff. We could, within several years, hire staff to
support monitoring and compliance if Congress saw fit to fund
it at that level, and we could, today, support the mismatch
resolution process.
Ms. Speier. And do these employers who are voluntarily
participating in the program right now, do they pay a fee for
doing so?
Ms. Ratliff. E-Verify is free.
Ms. Speier. It is free?
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Speier. So if we were to charge for it, what would we
charge for it?
Ms. Ratliff. Well, we would have to look at how Congress
chose to phase in E-Verify. The costs would do down per query
as more employers were enrolled. Past forms of legislation over
the last few years have had varying phase-in years, so that
would be a big factor. Also, if Congress chose to add a
specific form of biometric, that would influence the cost.
Right now, the authorizing statute doesn't speak to identity
authentication.
Ms. Speier. All right, what I would like for you to do, Ms.
Ratliff, if you would, is just provide to the committee what
the actual cost would be per employer if it was going to
operate on a user fee basis.
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Speier. I can't imagine that employers wouldn't embrace
something like E-Verify, because what they are required to do
now is very time-consuming and it is a huge cost to business.
So if there was a simple IT solution, I think that they would
embrace it. I am just kind of surprised that more employers
haven't taken advantage of it.
Mr. Bilbray. Would the gentlelady yield just for a second?
Ms. Speier. I certainly will.
Mr. Bilbray. Especially if we went to a universal
application, because then you would divide the total cost among
the entire universe, rather than just those who were
volunteering.
Ms. Watson. As I understand, Ms. Speier, it is optional, so
maybe we can do this, make it permanent, and then once we get
that information, out spread across the universe, I think the
fee would be minimal. But we need that information.
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Rust. Could I add?
Ms. Speier. Mr. Rust, I have a question for you. Did you
want to respond to that?
Mr. Rust. If I could. From our point of view, we would be
glad to work with DHS on bringing about mandatory coverage, but
we would ask--funding would be an issue, adequate funding for
it would be an issue because it would take us from something
like 50,000 people walking into our offices to probably 450,000
or thereabouts if we went up to the level of 60 million a year
being run through. So it would be a substantial workload
increase on the Social Security field offices.
The systems aspect of it would not be very costly for us
because we have modernized that and I think it can handle those
number of inquiries. But there would certainly be a fallout in
our field offices and it would be substantial.
Ms. Speier. Well, the answer may be in trying to do sectors
of employers over a period of time and bring them onboard over
a number of years, as opposed to just turning a switch and
having the program operate.
I have one question for you, Mr. Rust. In California, we
have taken action to prevent the use of Social Security numbers
as a health insurance identifier. Is that also the law on a
Federal level?
Mr. Rust. Our position has been, since the agency was
created in the mid-1930's, that the Social Security number is
not a national ID number, that it was created specifically for
the use in maintaining records on people's employment and
earnings to determine their benefits. We actively discourage
the private use of the numbers, but it is widely used.
Ms. Speier. OK, so the answer to my question is no, there
is no Federal law that prevents health insurers from using
Social Security numbers as an identifier.
Mr. Rust. Not that I am aware of.
Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
I yield back.
Ms. Watson. Thank you.
Now we will call on Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you for
holding this hearing. I would ask, without objection, that my
opening statement be entered into the record at this point.
Ms. Watson. Without objection.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair.
Let me walk through this just a little bit to make sure I
understand where we are in E-Verify. The Bush administration
started this program, with congressional support, on an
optional and voluntary basis, is that correct?
Mr. Bilbray. No.
Ms. Ratliff. The program has actually been authorized for
about 10 years, so it has spanned several administrations.
Mr. Bilbray. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Mr. Bilbray. The program actually was implemented under the
Clinton administration under the five-member pilot program.
Mr. Connolly. But remaining an optional voluntary program,
correct?
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Now, you have had a number, for example, of
Federal contractors who have participated in the program on a
voluntary basis as part of the pilot, is that correct?
Ms. Ratliff. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Connolly. And has that worked successfully?
Ms. Ratliff. It has. We have had about 2,000 employers, as
they have registered, self-select as Federal contractors. In
anticipation of the Federal contractor rule becoming effective,
we built a registration module where a business could self-
identify as a Federal contractor, and about 2,000 have, so far,
taken advantage of that.
Mr. Connolly. I talked with some Federal contractors last
week who participated in the pilot program at the behest of the
Federal Government. You are familiar with some of those
candidates?
Ms. Ratliff. With some of the 2,000 who are participating
in E-Verify?
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Ms. Ratliff. I know a few of them, yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Right. One of the concerns they had was that
when you move to the new stage in this program in September,
that all of the hard work they have done in E-Verifying their
employees, they are not going to get credit for it; they have
to start all over again as if they were like anybody else who
didn't participate in the pilot or voluntary program. Is that
correct?
Ms. Ratliff. That is partially correct, sir. If I may
explain. The new hires who they have already run through E-
Verify they will not need to run again. Beginning September
8th, under the Federal contractor regulation, they will have to
run an additional portion of their current work force through
E-Verify, and those are the people who they are going to put on
the Federal contract. So that between their new hires and the
work force working on the Federal contract that were already in
place, they can have staffing to the Federal project that has
been 100 percent run through E-Verify. So there will be a piece
that they have to do that is additional.
They also will have the option to query E-Verify for their
entire current work force, whether or not those employees are
working on a Federal contract.
Mr. Connolly. Well, I am not sure I understood your answer.
If I am a Federal contractor who volunteered and participated
in the pilot program for E-Verify, it was only for new hires.
Ms. Ratliff. Currently, yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Those new hires, if they are still on my
payroll, I won't have to go back and duplicate the E-
Verification of those?
Ms. Ratliff. That is correct, you will not have to.
Mr. Connolly. All right. Because I think there was some
confusion about that in terms of what the requirement is going
to be.
Were there some Federal contractors who went beyond new
hires and, in fact, used E-Verify for their current work force?
Ms. Ratliff. If any employer has done that, it would be a
misuse of E-Verify.
Mr. Connolly. They were not allowed to do that?
Ms. Ratliff. It would not be proper.
Mr. Connolly. But it will be proper come September.
Ms. Ratliff. Yes. As of September 8th, if they run current
workers who are assigned to a Federal contract, that will be a
part of their requirement. Then they also could choose to run
their entire current work force. Large companies, they may have
employees who are on Federal contracts; they may have a whole
group of other employees who work on private sector projects.
Mr. Connolly. Why would it have been a misuse, why in fact
would it be a misuse of E-Verify today for me to do that, but
it will be an option available to me in 2 months?
Ms. Ratliff. Because the way our statute is written, it is
just for new hires, it is not for current work force. President
Bush signed an Executive order that is the underpinning of the
Federal contractor regulation that said in order to ensure a
stable and work-authorized Federal work force--because we
already are running Federal Government new hires through E-
Verify--the administration wanted to ensure that the Federal
contractors who are also working on Federal Government projects
had also been run through E-Verify. And the Executive order
found that for the interest of a secure, stable, Federal work
force, contractors who were moving to a Federal contract should
also be queried and verified through E-Verify.
Mr. Connolly. What about the potential misuse of this data
base? We have had hearings in this committee about the issue of
cybersecurity. We have had testimony that the incidents of
hacking and attempted hacking into Federal data bases have
skyrocketed. And with the best of intentions with E-Verify, are
we putting Federal contractors at risk of similar hacking
incidents? What kind of security provisions are we undertaking
to ensure that those data bases are secure and people's privacy
isn't unwittingly invaded?
Ms. Ratliff. Sir, E-Verify, as a matter of the IT
infrastructure, meets the very stringent Department of Homeland
Security IT security standards. We also meet all Privacy Act
standards. Our privacy impact assessment and system of records
notices are both up to date with how we use our information,
and we will continue to meet those stringent standards with an
eye toward the importance of the very issues you are
mentioning.
Mr. Connolly. Madam Chairwoman, my time is up, but I would
just say to you, Ms. Ratliff, that is a bureaucratic answer. My
question was what measures are you taking. Meeting standards,
lots of Federal agencies are meeting standards, and the hacking
incidents are growing and becoming more successful. My question
to you was what are we doing with this new program, creating
this new data base for Federal contractors, to ensure their
security. Meeting standards is not a satisfactory answer for
this Member of Congress.
Ms. Ratliff. I know we are out of time, but I would commit
to submitting information, meeting with your staff to discuss
this in detail.
Mr. Connolly. OK. My time is up.
Ms. Watson. Yes.
Mr. Bilbray.
Mr. Bilbray. Madam Chair, I would just like to point out,
because I think it is quite appropriate, as we develop these
systems, that we armor them and protect them, and that is a
universal application. The gentleman from Fairfax County can be
reminded, too, that one of the greatest identity thefts in the
United States--and I think Mr. Rust will reinforce this--is the
hijacking of people's Social Security numbers. And this helps
to armor that to some degree.
So as we look at the hi-tech threat of going to the
electronic system, we also need to recognize that it is the
low-tech where the greatest abuse of Social Security identity
theft is, and that is of people getting a number and being able
to use it because we don't have a check system. The old I-9
documentation system has been a farce; we have all known it. So
as we move forward, I think the gentleman from Fairfax has
pointed out that as we move away from an old system that was
very vulnerable, let's try to armor the new system and protect
it. That is an issue that we have been talking about with E-
Verify and all our electronic data stuff.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. Watson. And I just have a few more questions to ask Mr.
Rust, and then we are going to move on to the second panel.
The House passed the version of the fiscal year 2010
Homeland Security appropriations bill, it was H.R. 2092, and it
includes a provision to require that both the Social Security
Administration and the Department of Homeland Security enter
into an agreement each fiscal year to provide funding to the
Social Security Administration to cover the full cost of the
agency's E-Verify-related responsibilities. What do you think
about this provision? Did you know about it?
Mr. Rust. We have had a very good working relationship with
DHS and we have been able to work this out year after year to
get the adequate funding that we need to do most especially the
fallout that occurs in our field. We always appreciate when
Congress helps us to make certain that we get that level of
funding, but our relationship with DHS has been very collegial
and this has worked very well.
Ms. Watson. OK. And do you believe that the Social Security
Administration can, with this provision, receive the kind of
funding for E-Verify in the absence of such a statutory
requirement? And given our crisis at the time, how do you think
this is going to really facilitate what you do?
Mr. Rust. I think it will simply reinforce the relationship
we have had, the excellent working relationship we have had, so
I think it will be helpful in that sense. One of the things I
would stress, why we stress the importance of this, I mentioned
the growth in our workloads in terms of 250,000. This is more
retirees than we expected. 350,000 more disability claims. We
budgeted for 2.5 million. This is 350,000 on top of that. So we
are an agency under stress in that sense, so any assistance we
get from DHS to help handle that workload is very much
appreciated and very critical to us.
Ms. Watson. A 2006 report by the Social Security
Administration Inspector General on the accuracy of the
Numident data base, that was relied on by E-Verify, found that
there were discrepancies in approximately 17.8 million of the
435 million Numident records could result in an incorrect
feedback. The report noted particular concern about the extent
of incorrect citizenship information.
What has been done to improve the accuracy of Numident and
have any more recent studies been conducted on this particular
issue? And how do you expect the Social Security Administration
and its field offices to be impacted by the new Federal
contractor rule?
Mr. Rust. To answer your second question first, we have
gotten it to the point now where about 0.75 percent, or about
75 out of every 10,000 queries that go through E-Verify end up
in someone walking into our offices to resolve a non-
confirmation. So if we are able to maintain that and we worked
very closely with our colleagues to reduce that workload, but
as the number of verifications go through E-Verify, if that
ratio holds, we will see more and more people coming into our
offices.
So, again, like I say, just 2 years ago it was 3 percent;
now it is down to 0.75. So working with DHS we have
substantially reduced that, but it is still a fairly sizable
workload. So, like I say, this year it is over 50,000 visits to
our office related to E-Verify non-confirmations.
Going back to your first question, the 17 million is 4.1
percent of the entries. The Inspector General looked not at
those cases, for instance, if you had ones that were no match
in the E-Verify system; this was just an overall look at the
Numident. We have now about 455 million entries in there.
Everybody who has had a Social Security number since 1936 has
an entry in there.
As I mentioned, I think, to Mr. Bilbray a little while ago,
most of the information we get comes from individuals telling
us stuff, so if you went and got your Social Security card at
16, and then you don't come to us again for many years, that is
when the marriage could happen, a name change could happen, a
divorce could happen, other things like that can happen that
would then cause a discrepancy in the number. So we have
mechanisms for clearing it up and for strengthening it.
You asked what we have done to strengthen the Numident. One
I mentioned is the Social Security Statement which goes out
every year, presents the information to people and asks them,
if there are any discrepancies, to contact us to clean it up.
Second, we use enhanced evidentiary requirements now. We have
birth certificates, we see marriage licenses and marriage
certificates; we see naturalization papers. We ask for
documentation now when people come in to make these
corrections. So we think the Numident is steadily becoming more
accurate.
We now enumerate most children born in the United States at
birth, so that is going to give us the hospitals handling it at
the State, statistics units will be handling it, so we will be
getting data electronically, we will be getting it cleaner, we
will be getting it quicker; and then we will know citizenship,
because they were born in this country. So things of that
nature, these electronic mechanisms we are doing to make the
data more accurate and more up to date.
Ms. Watson. I am going to yield now to Mr. Bilbray.
Mr. Bilbray. Yes. The gentleman from the great Commonwealth
of Virginia brought up a very interesting issue, and this is
about the fact that we created barriers in the past from having
employers use E-Verify on existing employees, and I think, to
clarify, there were concerns about who would pick and choose
which employees, and we created that barrier for a good reason
for that time.
But he did bring up this item that I have to say shows why
these hearings are great. Is there a reason why or is there a
great barrier for the Federal Government to lead through
example and start a process of phasing in checking all our
existing employees, as pointed out by the gentleman from
Fairfax County? Do we have the capability to lead through
example and start having our own internal operation now, start
checking up with these?
Ms. Ratliff. That wasn't an issue that we actually looked
at quite deeply last year. The leading by example was a theme
of great interest to the last administration, as well as now,
and we did spend time looking at what are the current processes
that the current workers have already been run through to
verify their work authorization status, and given that was
found that they are already quite vigorous. So at that time, it
didn't seem an appropriate use of resources to basically
duplicate what had already been done in other steps through----
Mr. Bilbray. Security checks and----
Ms. Ratliff [continuing]. OPM checks, and also the
Government's preparation for the SHPD-12 process of producing
even more secure identity documents for us as employees. But
that was something that was looked at very deeply.
Mr. Bilbray. OK, and I would like to see that, because I
think that we need to revisit it and make sure that just
because the majority of the time we have already covered it
because of other security checks and stuff doesn't mean there
isn't enough that we need to look into.
And while we are on the subject, seeing that you have two
former county chairmen here, when we do this contract
requirement, does that apply to our local governments when we
start giving them grants? And are we going to now start
requiring government that gets our money to start responding in
the same manner that we are requiring the private sector to
respond?
Ms. Ratliff. The answer to your question is no. The FAR
regulation does have some discreet exemptions. Subcontractors
for contract values of less than $3,000 are exempted. COTS, the
commercial office-the-shelf products, those contracts are
exempted as well.
Mr. Bilbray. OK. Now, you said that for the private sector.
How about the public sector? Is there any requirement that
local governments, when they start getting grants, that we
start phasing this? I am wondering about this issue because
when we start giving transportation funds, the American people
are starting to say we want to make sure that Federal funds
aren't going into fraud.
Are we requiring that at all of our States and our counties
and our cities as they get Federal funds? Has this become a
tradition or have we just basically been blind-sided on that
and we are just working on the private sector right now?
Ms. Ratliff. The grants are excluded from the FAR
regulation.
Mr. Bilbray. OK.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I have a feeling that we
need to revisit this whole thing again, leading through
example, and that means the Federal Government and the local
government and the States need to lead through example. I yield
back.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Connolly of Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. I have no further questions of this panel,
Madam Chair.
Ms. Watson. All right.
Mr. Duncan of California.
Mr. Duncan. Tennessee.
Ms. Watson. Tennessee. Excuse me. Come on to California.
Mr. Duncan. You are from California. [Laughter.]
Well, I am sorry that I wasn't able to get here before now,
but let me just ask a couple quick questions.
How much does the Federal Government spend on this program
at this time?
Ms. Ratliff. Sir, the E-Verify budget for this year is
comprised of about $100 million in appropriations that was
given for fiscal year 2009, and we also had $20 or $30 million
from fiscal year 2008 appropriations that we wisely and
efficiently did not spend, and it rolled over. So, this year we
will be spending close to the $120, $130 million budget. Some
of those are one-time costs for system improvements that will
not need to be put into our baseline program funding.
Mr. Duncan. And is my information accurate that there is
now 134,000 employers or companies that have used this system?
Ms. Ratliff. Well, that was 3 weeks ago. It is growing by
1,000 a week, so now we are up to about 137,000.
Mr. Duncan. That was going to be my next question, how fast
it was growing. It is growing at about 1,000 more employers per
week?
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, sir.
Mr. Duncan. And I am also told that right now there is 1
employee for each 1,250 employers, roughly. And it is a
voluntary program right now, so do you think the DHS is
equipped to make this program mandatory?
Ms. Ratliff. Sir, in terms of our staffing, there is a
certain baseline staffing you need whether E-Verify has 1,000
employers in it or 7 million. For example, it takes a certain
number of staff to write a regulation no matter how many
employers it is going to affect, so our staffing number, we
have about 200 employees right now working on E-Verify,
roughly. That will not grow in huge numbers as the program
grows; a lot of that is a baseline program staffing.
The pieces that grow, the biggest piece will be outreach,
so we are appropriately helping employers who are signing up
know how to use the system; and monitoring and compliance so we
are able to make sure those employers are using the system
properly and reaching out to them if they are not.
So we have been basically building a program that would be
ready if Congress chooses to make it mandatory, and I think
that we are very far down the road in terms of being ready
should Congress authorize such a change to the program.
Mr. Duncan. And the 7 million figure that you mentioned
just a few moments ago, is that the number of employers that
your Department estimates are in this country today?
Ms. Ratliff. Yes, sir. We use the statistic of about 7.2
million employers.
Mr. Duncan. So even that high figure of 137,000 employers
using this system now is just a tiny percentage, then, of the
total number of employers in the country.
Ms. Ratliff. It is. The 137,000 represents about a half a
million work sites, and that is the more apples-to-apples
comparison to the 7.2 million. But, yes, we look forward to a
lot more growth in E-Verify as more employers join.
Mr. Duncan. All right, thank you very much.
Ms. Watson. Thank you, Ms. Ratliff, Mr. Rust, for your
witnessing. We appreciate it and you may now leave the table.
I would like to invite our second panel of witnesses to
come forth. And remain standing, please.
It is the committee's policy that all witnesses are sworn
in. I would like you to raise your right hands as I administer
the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Ms. Watson. Thank you. Let the record show that the
witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
You may now be seated.
I ask that each one of you now give a brief summary of your
testimony and to keep your testimony within 5 minutes if you
can, because your complete written statement will be included
in the hearing record. Thank you.
I first would like to introduce Ms. Jena Baker McNeill, who
is the Heritage Foundation's homeland security policy analyst,
where she focuses on broader security, immigration technology,
and other issues. She previously worked for the Hutchinson
Group LLC as a research assistant and as an environmental
management consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, and for former
Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich.
Ms. McNeill, would you please proceed now? Thank you.
STATEMENTS OF JENA BAKER MCNEILL, POLICY ANALYST FOR HOMELAND
SECURITY, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION; AND ANGELO AMADOR, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR FOR IMMIGRATION POLICY, U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
STATEMENT OF JENA BAKER MCNEILL
Ms. McNeill. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Madam Chairwoman,
Ranking Member Bilbray, and the members of the subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the topic of
E-Verify. I should state beforehand that the views expressed in
this testimony are my own and should not be construed as
representative of an official position of the Heritage
Foundation.
Workplace immigration enforcement is vital to breaking the
cycle of dependency on illegal labor. These policies, however,
should center on three goals: first, keeping America free;
second, keeping America safe; and, third, keeping it
prosperous. We should not compromise one of these goals to gain
another, and all three can and should be met with respect to
America's immigration policy.
E-Verify is a tool that meets these requirements. But I
want to emphasize up front that E-Verify remains only one piece
of the immigration puzzle. The right approach to solving the
immigration dilemma will include the following aspects: first,
enforcement of immigration laws in the workplace; second, a
safeguarding of the southern border; third, promotion of
economic development in Latin America to provide illegal
immigrants economic opportunities at home; fourth, enhancement
of legal worker programs here in the United States to meet the
needs of employers and immigrants; fifth, reforms of
citizenship at immigration services to handle legal immigration
in a better way; and, finally, strengthening of citizenship
requirements and programs to foster assimilation.
Effective enforcement doesn't require a costly amnesty that
would erode rule of law and be patently unfair to legal
immigrants. E-Verify tackles the immigration problem by going
to the heart of what draws illegal immigrants to the United
States, finding employment. At present, more than 137,000
employers participate in E-Verify voluntarily. And E-Verify is
being used to determine work authorization for one in four new
hires nationwide.
Contributing to this success is that E-Verify helps
employers enforce immigration laws in a way that is humane and
fair, cost-effective for business, and maintains privacy. E-
Verify can determine quickly and accurately the authenticity of
the personal information and credentials offered by new hires.
Of course, E-Verify isn't without its challenges. It has
low error rates, but more can be done to drive down the rate of
error. While the software is free, there is a cost to doing
business with E-Verify. But this cost is negated by driving
down other costs, such as the cost of having to find a new
employee later if an employee tends out to be illegal, or the
stiff penalties if discovered.
Finally, the only personal information entered into E-
Verify is the employee's name, date of birth, Social Security
number, and citizenship status. This is information already on
the I-9, and neither the E-Verify employees nor the employer
can access any more information, maintaining privacy.
The administration's recent announcement to abandon Social
Security no-match, however, is a step backward in terms of
workplace enforcement. This action sends the message that DHS
will not enforce the law against employing illegal workers.
Furthermore, DHS has yet to implement the Federal contractor's
provision, signed by President Bush in 2008, which requires all
Federal contractors to use E-Verify. The administration has
announced plans to comply, and this is a step in the right
direction.
Going forward, Congress should permanently authorize E-
Verify and provide adequate funding for its implementation. DHS
should craft E-Verify rules to apply to all workers under
Federal Government contracts; otherwise, the result will be
less workplace enforcement, not more. DHS and Congress should
work together to drive down the already low error rates. And,
finally, DHS should not abandon no-match, but should, instead,
move forward with it. At the same time, Congress should grant
the Social Security Administration the ability to share data
directly with DHS, allowing DHS to target large-scale employers
of illegal workers.
A truly smart and tough enforcement policy will be one that
creates disincentives to unlawful immigration, is cost-
effective, protects individual data and privacy, and minimizes
the burdens on employers while addressing concerns over safety
and security. E-Verify does this, meeting those ultimate goals
of keeping America free, keeping it safe, and keeping it
prosperous.
Thank you, and I would be happy to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McNeill follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Watson. All right.
We will proceed now to Mr. Angelo Amador. He serves as the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Executive Director of Immigration
Policy, where he works with business leaders to shape the
Chamber's position on immigration reform, legalization, border
security, visa processing, and guest worker programs. Mr.
Amador also represents the Chamber before the Congress and
Federal agencies.
Mr. Amador, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF ANGELO AMADOR
Mr. Amador. Thank you very much.
I had prepared an oral statement, but after listening to
the questions, I would rather use the 6-minutes or the 5-
minutes that I have to give some concrete examples of what you
have been talking about.
A lot has been said about what DHS should mandate or not
mandate. I will point out again that the underlying law says
the Secretary of Homeland Security may not require any person
or other entity to participate in the E-Verify program. They
call it a pilot program, but it is the underlying law that gave
to the creation of E-Verify. We do believe that Congress has
that authority to mandate it; that is why we continue to come
to Congress and that is why we are here today.
Now, I also want to point out that it has been said let's
put a fee because this program is free and the word free is
used quite a lot. Actually, using E-Verify doesn't do away with
any of the other requirements, you still need to do the I-9,
you still need to do the other processing that you need to do
when you hire a new worker.
It is estimated that already employers spend between 10 to
12 million hours in the hiring and processing of about, as you
heard, 50 to 60 million workers. A study in 2005 said that the
estimated total compliance costs of workplace regulations is
about $91 billion. Five years later, when they did a followup
study using 2004 dollars, the cost was already at $106 billion.
When you make these requirements, we had a witness come
that owned about seven Burger King franchises, he testified as
to the cost of training, the cost of following up with
tentative no-confirmations, attorneys and all these things. So
when you think about a fee, I just want to point out this is
not free. The employers are willing to help the Government with
the mandated program. We are willing to support and we have
supported mandated programs in the past. We could support a
Federal contractor's mandate, but only if you have certain
requirements.
One of the numbers that was used in the prior panel was
one-fourteenth of all employers use this. This is less than 1
percent. Now, when we look at--actually, sorry, this is 7
percent. When we look at this body of employers is very small.
Most of the comments I get from people complaining about the
program and complaining about what is about to be required are
people using the program. They sign an MOU, which is a
contract. They agree with the Government to do certain things.
What Congress is saying and what the administration is
saying is to change that contract. They agreed to verify new
hires. We hear that the program can handle 60 million queries.
That is about how many new hires you have every year. That
doesn't count re-verification.
It is interesting that every time the Government has looked
at running their own program, which has been an idea, and is an
idea that is being pushed by AFL-CIO and might be one of the
only things we agree with them on in this Congress, the
Government looks at it and they always say, well, let's only do
new hires. But if we are going to implement it on employers, do
everybody.
I was just talking to UPS 2 days ago, and they were telling
me that they have 250,000 employees in the United States. They
cannot verify which one is going to touch a package that goes
under a Federal contract, so they would have to re-verify every
single individual. They have been using E-Verify since 2007.
So it adds an additional hurdle if they have to figure out,
first, who was hired after 2007. They will have to them
recreate an I-9 application, an I-9 process, because the
current E-Verify requires that you use current documents. And
they tell me that is going to cause thousands of manpower hours
just to bring everybody back in for 250,000.
There are ways of doing this. Senator Obama had an
amendment, when he was a Member of the Senate in 2007, that
said, let's share the information with the Social Security
Administration getting no-match, let DHS send a letter to the
employer saying re-verify these workers, but don't re-verify
your entire work force. If it is a small employer, we do not
oppose the language that makes re-verification voluntary,
because if you have three employees, you and two others, and
you want to verify them, that is fine. But all the large
employers, and all of them, again, are the ones that sign on
these contract that use E-Verify have told me that this is not
the way to go.
Finally, on the subcontractor liability, there was an
amendment that was presented in 2005. Chairwoman, you voted
against it, but we would hope to have your support next time.
But Congressman Duncan, Congressman Cuellar, in 2005, voted to
keep liability for contractors only if they knew the
subcontractor was violating the law, because there are a lot of
things on the MOU and the contractor cannot be held responsible
for everything, because that is why you go with a
subcontractor, so you don't have to run the work force.
Finally, in my last 10 seconds, I will just point out that
we need to create one law. We need to strengthen the preemption
language that we have because employers should be able to
comply with immigration law by complying with Federal law.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Amador follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Watson. I want to thank you both.
We are now going to move to the question period and we will
proceed under our 5 minute rule.
Let me ask Ms. McNeill, first, are adequate steps being
taken by the Social Security Administration and the USCIS to
balance the requirements of E-Verify with ongoing agency
demands and are the additional agency staff members being hired
to deal with an influx of queries related to E-Verify or are
existing staff members being reassigned?
Ms. McNeill. Madam Chairwoman, I can answer your question
as far as I think that right now the Social Security
Administration and the Department of Homeland Security are well
equipped to handle what we have now and well equipped to handle
the number of workers that could happen if we had a universal
system.
But I want to emphasize that a universal system might not
be the silver bullet approach right now. I think they are well
equipped at the moment, they have the right kind of staff in
place, but a universal system, they may not have the staff in
place for that now, and I think that it shows that not only
would a mandatory system right now not be the best approach for
all industries.
Obviously, we want to move toward a system where everyone
would use the system, use E-Verify, but I think that using it
in a mandatory fashion right now would not be the best approach
either from the Government's side or from the business side,
because we don't have the right things in place to ensure that
all employers and the Government are doing things in an
accurate, cost-effective manner.
Ms. Watson. OK. With fewer than 2 percent of all employers
enrolled in E-Verify, how can we possibly gauge whether the
current system will be able to handle a rising number of
queries on an annual basis?
Ms. McNeill. Well, Madam Chairwoman, I think the biggest
thing that shows how good the system is right now is that 96.9
percent of the people who are put into E-Verify right now are
getting a confirmation that says you are great, go and work;
and only 2.8 percent are getting a final non-confirmation. That
shows how accurate the system is. It is really hard to find
that level of accuracy in other data bases and other parts of
Government, and this is the right kind of efficiencies that we
need to have in the Federal Government. So I think that just
the success of E-Verify on a small level shows the ability of
DHS and the Social Security Administration to take this to a
much larger scale.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Amador.
Mr. Amador. Yes. I would point out the numbers and how you
deal with accuracy differ, and I want to point out that Intel
Corp. did its own study as to the accuracy or how often did
they get a tentative non-confirmation, something other than
confirmed, for their employees.
I want to compare it with the individual that testified
that uses E-Verify for seven Burger King franchises in Arizona.
They both came back with about 15 percent of the time they got
an answer other than tentative non-confirmation, and every time
that happens--because, again, we are not just talking about
swipe a card, green, red light, you get in or you get out; this
is an employee you have.
You have a number of other requirements; you need to be
very careful that you do not change training, you do not change
work hours, you do not change any of these things. So liability
opens up and there are other burdens. And, for them, the number
they are looking at is 15 percent, it is not whether, 3 months
down the road, you finally fix the problem with the Social
Security number. They are looking at today I ran you through
the system, it came as a TNC, what do I do now; and there is a
process for that.
So the 2 percent, 1 percent, or whatever number, it is up
to Congress to decide what error rate they want to live with;
it is not up for businesses. But since no program is going to
be 100 percent accurate, you then need to look at the
safeguards, because employers and employees are going to have
to live with this. There was a provision, again, in the Senate
that passed that provided lost wages for employees that, at the
end of the day, got fired and it ended up being an error of the
system.
And even though Chertoff, at the time, was saying that this
was a wonderful, almost perfect program, they opposed that
amendment based on the lost wages and based on the fees that
employers would get if it was an error of the system.
We are all for a mandated program, but we have to do it
right because there will be errors and somebody is going to pay
the consequences.
Ms. Watson. Still a work in progress.
In what ways have some of the recent enhancements to E-
Verify, including the use of the photo tool, helped to improve
the system for businesses?
Mr. Amador. Well, it is an improvement in the system. Now,
it also opens up the employer to more liability. When we had
our witness testify, he said, well, I have a central location
where we do the I-9s and we put it in the system, so they were
faxing the copy of the person's ID to compare with the
computer. The guy in the field would copy the license, fax it
to the guy in the central office doing the E-Verify on the
computer, and now he is looking at a copy and he has to make a
determination. And he said, you know, we found more often than
now how accurate is my comparison and what happens in an audit.
When they go and do audits, we have an audit right now on
652 employers. I got a call from somebody who said that he was
getting 47 citations out of the 59 I-9s he had on record
because he failed to write the address of the employer. The
employer's I-9s are being kept by his side, he has his name,
and he said, well, I will write them right now. We were just
being quick, we were hiring a lot of people. He said, no, that
is 47 citations.
We need to make sure--and they look at E-Verify. Yet,
another potential for liability when they do audits on
paperwork and other misuses other than not running somebody
through the system. So those are the safeguards we are looking
for.
Ms. Watson. Well, with the concept of this is a work in
progress, we would like to hear from you as to how you think we
can perfect the system.
Mr. Amador. Well, one of the things we continue to say is--
--
Ms. Watson. And, as I said, you don't have to give us all
your ideas now.
Mr. Amador. No, I understand. But one of the things that
should be instrumental is to start implementing a tier process;
and it cannot be done by DHS, it has to be done by Congress.
Starting doing it in a tier process. Eighteen thousand firms
basically hire 50 percent of all Americans, so it might make
sense to go with bigger employers first, but you need to also
put those safeguards. And then as this comes up and you realize
the problems that they have, then keep on going. But employers
are different. You cannot expect the 4 million that 0 to 4
employees, to have the same capacity as the 18,000.
Ms. Watson. Yes. And we are going to depend on you letting
us know what you think we need to do to correct the system. We
are going to hold another hearing down the line, too, on E-
Verify, just to see what we need to do in terms of policy.
Now I would like to call on Congressman Duncan of
Tennessee.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. Amador, you make a point that this system, while it is
usually referred to as being a free system, it is not really
free to businesses. Could you elaborate on that a little bit
and how much it might cost? I assume it varies from employer to
employer.
For instance, I have noticed over the years that a company
like UPS, when I go visit UPS facilities, I will find people
that have worked there, commonly, 20 or 25 years. Yet, fast
food places, they have, some of them, 300 percent, 400 percent
a year turnover, so people work an average of 3, 4, or 6 months
there. How does that factor in?
Mr. Amador. Yes. I guess our view is that there is no such
thing as a free lunch and there is no such thing as a free
mandate, and this is a perfect example. You need to spend time.
One of the biggest expenses, according to this gentleman,
Mitchell Laird, from Arizona, who owns seven Burger King
franchises, that they have a high turnover rate.
So you need to take people out of the work, the system
managers that are doing the hiring, to train them, and the
training alone--and you basically get hit twice; you have the
person in training and you don't have them at the work site.
The fact that you have all these new employees you need to
continuously be running these individuals.
Then you have large companies who have other concerns. When
you talk about the large Federal contractor, they say, well, we
really don't have a big problem using E-Verify now for new
hires, but we would have a big problem if we need to go out.
Ingersoll Rand, which is our immigration subcommittee chair,
has 45,000 employees and they are all over the United States.
They don't have a centralized system.
They said we are going to have to start paying for auditors
to go over there. We need to bring everybody in and give them
training so everybody does it the same way, because the moment
one place starts doing it different, then you have to, well,
wait a second, what are you trying to do? You are trying to
discriminate against people in Texas versus people in
Washington. So those are all costs; the training and the
facilities and the manpower and the hours is a big concern for
them.
Mr. Duncan. Do you think that because this is such a big
and overwhelming problem, that it is just going to be
impossible to do something about? Do you feel like we are
tilting at windmills here or beating our heads against concrete
walls? Do you think we should just have open borders and not do
anything about illegal immigration?
Mr. Amador. No, not at all. And I think we can even mandate
an employment verification program, but what we have continued
to say is we want to make sure--and even outside of
comprehensive reform, what my members are telling me, we just
need to make sure that it is the right program and it has the
right safeguards. It is for Congress to decide what error level
they can live with.
If you want to mandate it on Federal contractors, then we
want to sit down with you and tell you, well, this is what the
Federal contractors, particularly the ones that are using it
right now, are telling me they could live with and ways of
addressing the issues. For example, if what you want to do is
figure out whether the name, which is what E-Verify does, the
name and Social Security number of those currently working
match, there is a process for that.
Now, the numbers go to the Social Security Administration
and there was an amendment that put the burden on DHS to send a
letter to the employer saying verify these individuals, and the
employers are willing to do that. So that is a way of doing
that. Re-verification, as Grassley, Baucus, and Obama said in
the letter to Chertoff, shouldn't be a requirement.
Subcontractor/contractor liability, the amendment from
Congressman Westmoreland that, you know, I thank you for your
vote in favor of it, stated as long as the contractor didn't
know what the subcontractor was doing in his internal
operations of the system, he should not be held liable. That is
current law. If the contractor is trying to hire a
subcontractor to get around immigration law, yes, hold him
liable, but not create vicarious liability for a contractor to
be held liable. These are the kinds of things that, if you put
them in a mandatory employment verification system, employers
will be able to get behind it.
Now, a blanket language like the one that is coming from
the Senate on the Department of Homeland Security
appropriations we oppose because it doesn't create exemptions
like even the ones in the regulation for commercial over-the-
shelf items or small employers, and it has a broad mandate for
re-verification. We have always opposed that; we opposed it in
2005 and we still oppose it today.
Mr. Duncan. Let me say, before my time runs out, first of
all, I think that your suggestion about going to the biggest
employers first is just common sense. Second, almost all
Federal contracts are so ridiculously lucrative it seems to me
that we should require, first, compliance by Federal
contractors.
But let me ask Ms. McNeill, maybe this testimony has
already been given when I wasn't here, maybe I missed it, but
of the 6 million inquiries, how many are found to be illegal
out of that 6 million? Do you have those figures?
Ms. McNeill. I don't have those figures on hand. I would be
happy to see if I could find them and provide them for you for
the record. However, I will say that 2.8 percent of the people
are found to be final non-confirmations, and both Pugh Hispanic
Center and the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that
the amount of unauthorized workers in the work force was about
4 to 5 percent. So it is about, on average----
Mr. Duncan. OK. Well, that is good enough. Have there been
any examples of any legal worker who has lost his or her job
due to incorrect information under this system?
Ms. McNeill. Well, there are going to be people who were
denied positions because they were final non-confirmations, but
that doesn't mean that they were necessarily denied incorrectly
for the position.
But I will also say, Congressman, that if there is a
situation where it becomes a discriminatory situation, where it
is a pre-screening thing that is against E-Verify, there are
penalties in place for that, and I think that we need to
educate employers better on figuring out how to use E-Verify in
an effective way, because a lot of employers are confused on
subjects such as how to use E-Verify in the way that actually
meets the law. So I think that is also an important, that
education angle as well.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you very much.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
If I can pick up on my friend from Tennessee's questioning,
isn't it true that 2.8 percent you are referring to, they may
be denied employment because they are found to be non-
compliant, is that not correct?
Ms. McNeill. That is absolutely true, Congressman.
Mr. Connolly. But the system doesn't tell you whether the
non-compliance is as to their immigration status or just the
failure to provide proper documentation.
Ms. McNeill. Congressman, that is absolutely correct.
Mr. Connolly. So there is no way you are ever going to get
back to Mr. Duncan giving him numbers about here is the
estimated number of illegals the system has caught. For
example, I only have 8 days in which to provide a birth
certificate, for example, or a marriage certificate, and if I
am in California applying as a new hire for a job and those
documents are back home in Virginia, it is conceivable,
bureaucracies being bureaucracies, that documentation just is
not forthcoming within the requisite time period. Is that not
correct?
Ms. McNeill. That is absolutely correct, and I think we
need to work on the accuracy, absolutely.
Mr. Connolly. And I would be found to be non-compliant in
failing to provide that document and, thus, not to be hired, is
that correct?
Ms. McNeill. It is very possible that could happen,
Congressman.
Mr. Connolly. And I would just say, if I were a major
employer, even if I were a small business employer, that would
concern me, because, as an individual, I am not in control of
how quickly such documentation may be made available to me, and
not everyone can fly back to the State capital and get that
birth certificate.
Ms. McNeill. And I think, Congressman, that makes the point
for why we need to work on the accuracy of E-Verify, for those
exact situations that are very few and far between. But I don't
think it is a reason to derail E-Verify as a useful tool in
enforcement.
Mr. Connolly. No, but I am just pointing out a potential
flaw in the system that doesn't really capture whether someone
is here illegally or not; it may just capture the failure, for
whatever reason, to provide the necessary documentation.
Ms. McNeill. And, Congressman, I think we absolutely want
any American worker or legal immigrant that is here to work, we
want to get them into those positions. So I think working to
remedy errors and accuracy and making it so that people can fix
stuff easily is vital to the process.
Mr. Connolly. And, Mr. Amador, I want to give you an
opportunity to comment on this as well, because I see this as a
potential inefficiency we are adding, with the best of
intentions, that we have to address. But let me just say you
were way too modest just a little bit earlier in your
testimony, referring to the fact that maybe there was only one
area you were, the Chamber, and AFL were in agreement on.
I want to remind you that, of course, I was only too happy
to support the Chamber's position on the Economic Recovery and
Reinvestment Act, which you supported, as did the AFL-CIO. And
I also would note that you have come out, the Chamber has come
out in support of the reauthorization of the surface
transportation act, known as SAFETEA-LU, also supported by AFL-
CIO, and also certainly supported by me.
Mr. Amador. Yes, we have.
Mr. Connolly. So you were way too modest in talking about
common ground just a little bit earlier.
Mr. Amador. No, I would say that on immigration and
employer issues we do meet more often and reach agreement more
often than the lawsuits. I haven't seen any lawsuit except
dealing with immigration issues, where the first words is AFL
and U.S. Chamber, as opposed to AFL versus U.S. Chamber or vice
versa.
I would point out that few and far between is fine, as long
as you are not the one that lost the job. What we are saying is
for these individuals, whether it is 1 person or whether it is
10--and, again, that is an argument made stronger by the civil
rights groups--we didn't support or oppose the lost wages
provision. Our concern was let's make sure they don't come
after the employer, because we are just doing the Government's
job.
And I always found interesting that was the one reason why
DHS, at the time, came after the amendment. They said, wait a
second, we cannot be paying back lost wages. I said, well, if
it is an error in the system, if the person were willing to put
protections that said the person must follow all these steps,
they must do everything, but if, at the end of the day, you
didn't get your papers on time and you were fired because we
were asked to fire you, then you should have some recourse. And
these are the kinds of things that need to be addressed.
We are not saying do not move forward with E-Verify. But as
you make an E-Verify mandate stronger and you hold employers
accountable for the results of E-Verify, you need to also
provide the protections for both employers and their employees.
And that is why I said E-Verify is good, but just saying few
and far between and ignoring it is not the right way to go.
Let's make sure we do it right. Again, we are all going to have
to live with it.
And on the requirements, whether we use it right or wrong,
you pointed out something to the prior panel that is very
important here. These rules keep on changing. Employers would
like to start verifying individuals before they even start to
work, because they would like to know if there is going to be
any problem. That is illegal today. We have been asking for it.
Employers do not want to re-verify. That is illegal. One of
the things UPS pointed out is since it was illegal, it is on
their labor contracts--and most of the drivers are members of
unions--that they cannot re-verify this work force, and they
are trying to figure out if we have to go back, how do we
renegotiate that with the unions, because now we are going to
be in breach of a contract and negotiating with unions is not
always, from our perspective, one of the easiest things to do.
Mr. Connolly. And, Mr. Amador, did you cite the statistic--
I thought I heard you say a little bit earlier--that when you
look at the number of new hires every year in the United
States, it is approaching 60 million?
Mr. Amador. Correct.
Mr. Connolly. So if we had a 2.8 percent non-compliance
rate, for whatever reason, that is a lot of people. That is
almost 1.8 million people, is that not correct?
Mr. Amador. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. So it sounds like it is an acceptable
statistical margin of error, but it is actually a lot of people
denied employment, and when you start with Federal
contractors--and I will end on this note, Madam chairman--the
problem is it is not just, gee, I could get fined if I get you
wrong, so let's put you over there and hopefully you will get
your documentation and then we can consider your employment.
There may be hundreds of millions of dollars of Federal
contracts at stake. You are collateral damage. I haven't got
time to wait for verification or the documents to arrive in
time.
So I am a little bit worried about that because, with the
best of intention moving forward, there are a lot of people who
could fall through the cracks purely innocently because of the
mail system or the lack of responsiveness by some other
bureaucracy somewhere else providing a document, and I hope we
are going to monitor that very carefully.
Mr. Amador. And the 15 percent that came tentative non-
confirmed at Intel, they were all confirmed at the end of the
day. But that takes a long time and it takes help from the
employer as well.
Mr. Connolly. I thank you.
My time is up, Madam chairman.
Ms. Watson. Thank you.
Are there other questions?
Mr. Bilbray. Yes.
Mr. Amador, the percentage that you were talking about, the
4 percent we are playing around with, would you agree that the
overwhelming majority of that percentage either do not contest
the ruling or are found to be not qualified?
Mr. Amador. Most of them do not contest the ruling.
Mr. Bilbray. Right. Why would they not contest it?
Mr. Amador. Well, according to the Government study, they
said because they go to another job, it takes too long, and
they do something else.
Mr. Bilbray. In other words, you don't think the majority
of non-contestants are people who aren't qualified?
Mr. Amador. I am not an expert in that field. That is what
the Government is saying, and I will go with what the
independent study says.
Mr. Bilbray. OK, the fact is that we have 1,000 new
employees voluntarily going onto a system right now. I don't
know, we are sitting at 94 percent efficiency. Can you show a
Federal program that you know of that is at that level of
efficiency today?
Mr. Amador. I am not an expert in other programs.
Mr. Bilbray. OK.
Ms. McNeill. I don't have actual data for a specific data
base, but I would say that is a high level of efficiency and
accuracy for a Federal Government data base.
Mr. Bilbray. And let me just say this. We forget about what
the old system is. My family has been in the tax business since
the year I was born. I guess my mother took one look at me and
decided to get in another business than having children, but
that is a separate issue.
Look, have you ever experienced a situation where somebody
gets your Social Security number and uses it to file, or do you
know of anybody that has ever run into the old system where the
fraud of illegal use of a Social Security number and the
problems that are related to that?
Mr. Amador. Excuse me? Sorry, I didn't understand the
question.
Mr. Bilbray. Are you aware of the problems with the old
system with the fraud occurring from somebody using someone
else's Social Security number and the complications that caused
for the innocent bystander whose number has been picked up and
used for illegal employment or to avoid detection?
Mr. Amador. I am aware that other studies, including the
Government's, state that E-Verify is going to make that problem
worse because people are going to be looking for real Social
Security numbers and names, which is what it does, it matches
the number to the name.
Mr. Bilbray. Let me say the E-Verify, the way we are
busting that now is through electronic filing, sir, so it is
just the opposite. The trouble is when you get notified that
your tax return can't be filed. You are saying that you think
E-Verify will cause more fraud in the system than the paper
system that we have had for the last 20 years?
Mr. Amador. What I am saying is that the Government study
that looked at it, and GAO as well, stated that E-Verify
promotes more identity fraud because now, instead of just
making a Social Security number on paper and having IDs that
look real, you need somebody's actual name and Social Security
number; and they are saying that E-Verify is promoting that.
Again, Swift, that was raided and they found all these
undocumented, they had all been through E-Verify and they all
had real names and real Social Security numbers.
Mr. Bilbray. Do you have a comment to that?
Ms. McNeill. Congressman, I think the point to be made is
that Mr. Amador is correct that there are problems with
identity theft and with off-the-books employment that E-Verify,
right now, they are working toward it, but they can't catch
that right now.
But that is why I would emphasize that E-Verify is a great
tool for document fraud. We should implement it and then we
should also followup with things like Social Security no match,
enforcement, investigations, and other things that help us
squeeze out the process. You know, you stop people first from
document fraud, then--eventually, we are going to get to a work
force that is----
Mr. Bilbray. But as the previous witnesses pointed out,
this is not in isolation. We have now, online, the real ID
bill, so that the base documents will have the electronic
capability where an employer now will have more reliable tools
to draw on for identification. And won't you agree that----
Mr. Amador. We supported----
Mr. Bilbray [continuing]. A State-issued identification,
when it is upgraded to the real ID standard, will help
substantially in addressing this issue from an employee's point
of view?
Mr. Amador. Well, we haven't taken a position on the real
ID, so I don't know about the real ID standard.
Mr. Bilbray. I am not talking about the law itself; I am
talking about the application of biometric fraud-resistant
documentation to be able to be presented to the employer.
Mr. Amador. We have always asked for--first we asked for
the list of identification that was accepted on the I-9 to be
narrow, because we think it is too broad. We have asked for at
least a study on making the Social Security card, which is one
of the IDs that are allowed under the current system, to be at
least made plastic.
Mr. Bilbray. Is there a reason, in your opinion, that we,
as the Federal Government, have not upgraded the Social
Security card since 1937, when it was introduced? And why is
the Federal Government Federal identification document for
employment a piece of paper with a name and a number, when no
other government agency that I know of is using that technology
today?
Mr. Amador. I guess the view is that it is expensive. That
is not our view; we are in favor of updating the Social
Security. We would love for the Social Security card to be
updated because that is a prime form of identification. I
think, from what I have read, the main reason is the cost.
Mr. Bilbray. I yield back, Madam Chair. Thank you.
Ms. Watson. If there are no other questions?
Mr. Connolly. Madam chairman.
Ms. Watson. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. If I might just say to my good friend from
California, I do not disagree with him about the benefits of
the E-Verify program potentially and really. My concern is that
we, as quickly as we can, identify what could go wrong, though,
in anticipation of that so we can manage it and we can address
those issues, rather than having a program get very far down
the road and very large, only to discover we have all kinds of
problems. And I know, like my friend from California, I am
always skeptical of anything that has a whiff of being an
unfunded mandate, because, having been in local governments, we
know the burden that can put on----
Mr. Bilbray. And I appreciate that, and my biggest concern
is the fact that, as somebody who comes from local government,
like you, is utilizing those resources in the most cost-
effective way and that, rather than having--that is why real ID
is so essential; it eliminates the need for citizens to have a
Federal ID. If States are upgraded to a minimum Federal
standard, you avoid the Federal ID issue.
But the Feds do have an obligation here, as the
representative of the Chamber pointed out, that, while everyone
else is improving and has evolved, it appears to the public
that the Federal Government has a constant strategy of saying
we won't upgrade, and the cost issue just evaporates when you
look at I don't see that as being the argument used by local
governments across this country for upgrading driver's licenses
over the years, but the political aspect of it.
And I will just point out that one of the greatest
breakthroughs for the consumer in privacy and in efficiency
that the IRS has implemented is the E-Filing. It has been such
a great breakthrough and it has been one of the greatest helps
at early detection of fraud, because, before, somebody could
steal your Social Security number, file under your number, and
you would never know about it until years later, until you are
audited for income that you didn't declare, that you didn't
even know, but it got filed.
Today, you are notified within a short period of time. In
fact, you can't file your tax return if somebody has filed your
number ahead of time; it notifies you, so you get that warning.
E-Filing has been a great breakthrough.
I think that this technology is one of those things we need
to embrace, we need to improve. We shouldn't accept it as a
god, but we darn well want to see it as a great tool that we
need and the private sector has gone to. And I will just say
this about E-Verify. Visa, since 1970, has handled trillions of
transactions, and it is the standard for every citizen that I
know of in cash exchanges and everything else. If they have
been able to do it since 1970, the Federal Government should be
able to transfer numbers and information at least half as
efficiency. So I think there is the big challenge we have here.
Thank you very much, and I yield back.
Ms. Watson. Yes. I would want to thank the panel for your
testimony and for the information of our Members. We will have
a followup hearing and I would like to invite our witnesses and
those in the audience that are vested in E-Verify contact us
with ideas of how we can improve. We do have to commit the
dollars if we broaden the system and correct any weaknesses in
it. That would be a consideration. There was a suggestion at
the committee today by Ms. Speier that we find out some way to
maybe charge for this service.
Mr. Amador. And we oppose that.
Ms. Watson. You oppose it. The Chamber of Commerce
speaking.
And that is not anything that we would say would be
factual, but it did come up in the testimony.
So, if there are no further questions, I thank you and you
may be excused. We appreciate your testimony and this
particular meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]