Illegal Aliens: Significant Obstacles to Reducing Unauthorized Alien
Employment Exist (Testimony, 07/01/1999, GAO/T-GGD-99-105).

Jobs are a magnet drawing illegal aliens to the United States. Many
immigration experts believe that reducing the availability of employment
for illegal aliens must be a central part of any comprehensive strategy
to reduce illegal immigration. Significant numbers of aliens
unauthorized to work in the United States have used fraudulent documents
to circumvent the employment verification process. Employers seeking to
comply with the law can be deceived by these fraudulent papers, while
those seeking "cheap labor" can intentionally hire unauthorized aliens
under the guise of having complied with the employment verification
process. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has taken
steps to improve the employment verification process, yet considerable
obstacles remain. Worksite enforcement efforts by INS and the Department
of Labor have been limited, and INS' employer investigation efforts have
yielded modest results. INS is changing its approach to worksite
enforcement, but it is too soon to gauge its success.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-GGD-99-105
     TITLE:  Illegal Aliens: Significant Obstacles to Reducing
	     Unauthorized Alien Employment Exist
      DATE:  07/01/1999
   SUBJECT:  Immigration and naturalization law
	     Illegal aliens
	     Alien labor
	     Law enforcement
	     Fraud
	     Labor law
IDENTIFIER:  INS Employment Verification Process

******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a  **
** GAO report.  This text was extracted from a PDF file.        **
** Delineations within the text indicating chapter titles,      **
** headings, and bullets have not been preserved, and in some   **
** cases heading text has been incorrectly merged into          **
** body text in the adjacent column.  Graphic images have       **
** not been reproduced, but figure captions are included.       **
** Tables are included, but column deliniations have not been   **
** preserved.                                                   **
**                                                              **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when     **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed     **
** document's contents.                                         **
**                                                              **
** A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO   **
** Document Distribution Center.  For further details, please   **
** send an e-mail message to:                                   **
**                                                              **
**                                            **
**                                                              **
** with the message 'info' in the body.                         **
******************************************************************

    United States General Accounting Office GAO
    Testimony Before the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on
    Immigration and Claims, House of Representatives For Release on
    Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT Thursday July 1, 1999
    ILLEGAL ALIENS Significant Obstacles to Reducing Unauthorized
    Alien Employment Exist Statement of Richard M. Stana Associate
    Director, Administration of Justice Issues General Government
    Division GAO/T-GGD-99-105 Statement ILLEGAL ALIENS:  Significant
    Obstacles to Reducing Unauthorized Alien Employment Exist Mr.
    Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: I am pleased to be here
    today to discuss the Immigration and Naturalization Service's
    (INS) enforcement of workplace immigration laws. My statement will
    outline the results presented in our recently completed report,
    Illegal Aliens:  Significant Obstacles to Reducing Unauthorized
    Alien Employment Exist (GAO/GGD-99-33, April 2, 1999). One of the
    primary magnets attracting illegal aliens to the United States is
    jobs.  Immigration experts believe that as long as opportunities
    for employment exist, the incentive to enter the United States
    illegally will persist, and efforts at the U.S. borders to prevent
    illegal entry will be undermined.  Therefore, these experts
    believe that reducing the availability of employment for illegal
    aliens should be an integral part of a comprehensive strategy to
    reduce illegal immigration. In this statement, I make the
    following points: *  Significant numbers of aliens unauthorized to
    work in the United States have used fraudulent documents to
    circumvent the employment verification process designed to prevent
    employers from hiring them, thereby undermining the effectiveness
    of the process.  Employers seeking to comply with the law can be
    deceived by fraudulent documents, while those seeking "cheap
    labor" can intentionally hire unauthorized aliens under the guise
    of having complied with the employment verification requirements.
*  INS has taken steps to improve the employment verification
    process, yet considerable obstacles remain. *  INS and the
    Department of Labor's immigration-related worksite enforcement
    efforts have been limited, and INS' employer investigation efforts
    have produced modest results. *  INS is changing its approach to
    worksite enforcement, but it is too early to gauge its success. We
    made recommendations in our report that are shown at the end of
    this statement. Page 1
    GAO/T-GGD-99-105 ILLEGAL ALIENS:  Significant Obstacles to
    Reducing Unauthorized Alien Employment Exist The Immigration
    Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 19861 made it illegal Background
    for employers knowingly to hire unauthorized aliens.  IRCA
    requires employers to comply with an employment verification
    process intended to provide them with a means to avoid hiring
    unauthorized aliens.  The process requires newly hired employees
    to present a document or documents that establish their identity
    and eligibility to work.  Employers are to review the document or
    documents that an employee presents and complete an Employment
    Eligibility Form, INS Form I-9.  On the form, employers are to
    certify that they have reviewed the documents and that the
    documents appear genuine and relate to the individual.  Employers
    are expected to judge whether the documents are obviously
    fraudulent. IRCA also provides for penalties or sanctions, such as
    fines, against employers who do not complete the verification
    process or who knowingly hire unauthorized aliens. INS, under its
    worksite enforcement program, and to a limited degree, Labor, are
    responsible for checking employer compliance with IRCA's
    verification requirements. IRCA also prohibits employers with four
    or more employees from discriminating against authorized workers.
    The Department of Justice's Office of Special Counsel for
    Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) and the
    Equal Employment Opportunity Commission share responsibility for
    investigating complaints alleging immigration- related
    discrimination. IRCA's employment verification process is easily
    thwarted by fraud.  Large Fraudulent Documents numbers of
    unauthorized aliens have used fraudulent documents to Have
    Undermined               circumvent the employment verification
    process.  For example, data from INS' employer sanctions database
    showed that, over the 20-month period Effectiveness of INS'
    from October 1996 through May 1998, INS identified about 50,000
    Employment                    unauthorized aliens who had used
    78,000 fraudulent documents to obtain Verification Process
    employment.  About 60 percent of the fraudulent documents used
    were INS documents; most of the rest were Social Security cards.
    Large-scale counterfeiting has made employment eligibility
    documents widely available.  For example, in November 1998 in Los
    Angeles, INS seized nearly 2 million fraudulent documents, such as
    counterfeit INS permanent resident cards and Social Security
    documents.  These documents were headed for distribution points
    around the country.  In its 1 P.L. 99-603, 8 U.S.C. 1324a et seq.
    Page 2
    GAO/T-GGD-99-105 ILLEGAL ALIENS:  Significant Obstacles to
    Reducing Unauthorized Alien Employment Exist 1997 report to
    Congress,2 the Commission on Immigration Reform reiterated its
    1994 conclusion that the single most important step that could be
    taken to reduce unlawful migration was the development of a more
    effective system for verifying an employee's authorization to
    work. INS has undertaken several initiatives to improve the
    employment INS Is Taking Steps to    verification process, but it
    faces significant obstacles.  First, as mandated Improve
    Verification      in the 1996 Act, INS is testing pilot programs
    in which employers electronically verify an employee's eligibility
    to work.  However, INS has Process, Yet              had
    difficulty in meeting its goal for enrolling employers in the
    pilot Considerable              programs.  Although INS originally
    expected to enroll 16,000 employers by Obstacles Remain
    the end of fiscal year 1999, only 2,500 were participating as of
    November 1998. According to various officials we spoke with, some
    employers are reluctant to participate in the pilots because of
    concern that participation may have a negative economic impact on
    their businesses.  According to these officials, employers in some
    industries believe that, in the current tight labor market, they
    would not have enough authorized workers applying for jobs if they
    participated in a verification pilot. The employers reportedly
    fear that they could be put at a competitive disadvantage because
    employees rejected by the verification system might go to work for
    competitors who are not enrolled in a pilot. Another reason for
    low participation in the pilot program could be that some
    employers are not aware of the pilots. Other federal and state
    agencies, such as Labor and state labor agencies, have contact
    with employers who might be interested in INS' pilot programs.
    While they did not have a formal role in informing employers about
    the pilots and generally did not do so, the Labor and state labor
    officials we talked to said they would be willing to inform
    employers about the INS pilots. Second, INS has made little
    progress in reducing the number of documents that employers can
    accept to determine employment eligibility.  Having a smaller
    number of acceptable documents would make the process more secure
    and reduce employer confusion.  In February 1998, INS issued
    proposed regulations to reduce the number of documents that could
    be used from 27 to 14.  However, as of February 1999, 27 documents
    could still be used, and INS did not know when the proposed
    regulations would be finalized. 2 Becoming an American:
    Immigration and Immigrant Policy (U.S. Commission on Immigration
    Reform, September 1997). Page 3
    GAO/T-GGD-99-105 ILLEGAL ALIENS:  Significant Obstacles to
    Reducing Unauthorized Alien Employment Exist Lastly, INS has begun
    issuing new documents with increased security features, which it
    hopes will make it easier for employers to verify the documents'
    authenticity.  However, in addition to these INS documents, aliens
    can show employers various other documents that authorize them to
    work.  Other widely used documents, such as the Social Security
    card, do not have the security features of the INS documents.
    Therefore, unauthorized aliens seeking employment can circumvent
    the improved security features of INS documents by simply
    presenting fraudulent non- INS documents-such as counterfeit
    Social Security cards-to employers. Since no verification system
    is foolproof, enforcing IRCA's employer INS and Labor
    sanctions provisions will always be important.  INS has devoted a
    Enforcement Efforts    relatively small percentage of its
    enforcement resources to worksite enforcement, about 2 percent a
    year since 1994.  In fiscal year 1998, INS Have Been Limited
    completed about 6,500 employer investigations, which equated to
    about 3 percent of the country's estimated number of employers of
    unauthorized aliens.  To best use its limited worksite enforcement
    staff, INS has attempted to target specific industries that
    historically have had a high probability of violations.  Yet, 43
    percent of the investigations INS opened in 1998 were not in the
    targeted industries. To bolster its worksite enforcement efforts,
    INS in 1992 entered into an agreement with Labor that called for
    the agencies to work together in identifying employers suspected
    of hiring unauthorized workers. However, Labor has generally
    limited its assistance to INS to a review of employers' compliance
    with the employment verification paperwork requirements. Labor
    believes that delving into immigration-related worksite
    enforcement matters, such as the immigration status of workers,
    could hamper its own mission of enforcing worker protection laws.
    That is, unauthorized workers, fearing possible removal by INS,
    could be discouraged from complaining about labor standards
    violations.  About 70 percent of all Labor investigations are
    based upon complaints; Labor initiates only about 30 percent.
    Under a new agreement with INS effective November 1998, Labor's
    role in this area has been reduced.  To avoid discouraging
    unauthorized workers from complaining, Labor is no longer to
    review employer compliance with the employment verification
    procedures in investigations stemming from complaints.  Labor is
    only to review employer compliance in Labor-initiated
    investigations. Page 4
    GAO/T-GGD-99-105 ILLEGAL ALIENS:  Significant Obstacles to
    Reducing Unauthorized Alien Employment Exist A major goal of INS'
    worksite program was to investigate employers INS INS Worksite
    believed intentionally hired illegal workers, including
    prosecuting some Investigation Efforts    employers for criminal
    violations of immigration law.  However, 83 percent of the
    investigations INS completed during the period we reviewed
    Produced Modest          resulted in no employer sanctions.  In
    fact, INS found nearly half of the Results                  9,600
    employers INS investigated to be in compliance with the employment
    verification procedures. INS initiated criminal proceedings in
    only about 2 percent of the investigations. INS officials
    attributed these modest results to various factors.  They said
    that the widespread use of fraudulent documents made it difficult
    for INS to prove that an employer knowingly hired an unauthorized
    alien. In addition, they said that INS' requirement that its
    district offices' worksite programs meet various numerical goals,
    such as identifying a certain number of unauthorized aliens, may
    have placed an undue focus on arresting unauthorized aliens,
    thereby undermining INS' overall goal to target employers
    suspected of intentionally hiring unauthorized aliens. For the
    closed cases we reviewed, INS collected about $2.5 million in
    penalties, about one-half of the $4.9 million employers had been
    ordered to pay. INS did not collect the balance for various
    reasons, including that the employer went out of business or went
    bankrupt. INS is in the process of changing its approach to
    worksite enforcement. INS Is Changing Its      INS developed a
    strategy for enforcing the immigration laws in the interior
    Approach to Worksite     of the United States with five strategic
    priorities. Two of the priorities involve worksite enforcement.
    One calls for INS to pursue criminal Enforcement
    investigations of employers who are flagrant or grave violators.
    However, the strategy does not describe the criteria INS will use
    to open investigations on such employers, such as defining a
    "flagrant or grave violation." Although INS' previous worksite
    program goal was similar, 83 percent of its investigations
    resulted in no employer sanctions. Another priority calls for INS
    to "block and remove employers' access to unauthorized workers."
    The INS official responsible for drafting the strategy told us
    that INS plans to build relationships with employers to create an
    effective deterrent to illegal immigration.  By educating
    employers whom INS has found to have unknowingly hired
    unauthorized aliens, INS expects that such employers will be
    better able to comply with IRCA.  This, in turn, would enable INS
    to focus its limited worksite enforcement resources on employers
    suspected of criminal activities. However, at the time of our
    review, INS had not specified how much staff it planned to devote
    to the worksite enforcement priorities. Page 5
    GAO/T-GGD-99-105 ILLEGAL ALIENS:  Significant Obstacles to
    Reducing Unauthorized Alien Employment Exist INS faces significant
    obstacles to reducing unauthorized alien Conclusions and
    employment.  Significant numbers of unauthorized aliens can still
    obtain Recommendations      employment because IRCA's employment
    verification process can be easily thwarted by fraud. Employers
    who want to hire only authorized workers can be deceived by
    unauthorized aliens' use of fraudulent documents.  Other employers
    who seek "cheap labor" can intentionally hire unauthorized aliens
    under the guise of having complied with the employment
    verification requirements. Generally, employers of unauthorized
    aliens have faced little likelihood that INS would (1) investigate
    them, (2) prove that they knowingly hired unauthorized aliens, (3)
    collect fines, or (4) criminally prosecute them. Further, Labor's
    efforts to identify employers suspected of hiring unauthorized
    aliens have been limited and are to be even more limited in the
    future. Because enforcement measures can only go so far, we
    believe INS is going in the right direction by testing electronic
    verification procedures, proposing to reduce the number of
    employment eligibility documents, and making INS documents more
    tamper-resistant to try to improve the verification process.
    However, obstacles such as reluctance on the part of some
    employers to participate in electronic verification pilot programs
    and lack of knowledge about them, have hampered INS' ability to
    improve the process.  Electronic verification can be effective
    with employers in industries with a history of reliance on
    unauthorized aliens only to the extent that they use it.
    Therefore, inducing such employers to participate in the
    electronic verification pilots is important. INS' new interior
    enforcement strategy lacks criteria for opening investigations on
    employers suspected of criminal violations.  Having clear criteria
    is important if INS is to focus its limited staff to achieve its
    enforcement goals.  Since INS is just beginning its new worksite
    enforcement strategy, it is too soon to know how the proposed
    changes will be implemented or to assess their impact on the
    employment of unauthorized workers. Our report recommended that
    the INS Commissioner *  as part of the outreach program for INS'
    pilot verification programs, seek assistance from federal and
    state agencies, such as the Department of Labor and state labor
    agencies, in disseminating information to employers about the
    programs; and *  in implementing the interior enforcement
    strategy, clarify the criteria for opening investigations of
    employers suspected of criminal activities. Page 6
    GAO/T-GGD-99-105 ILLEGAL ALIENS:  Significant Obstacles to
    Reducing Unauthorized Alien Employment Exist This concludes my
    prepared statement, Mr. Chairman.  I would be pleased to answer
    any questions you or other members of the Subcommittee may have.
    Contact and Acknowledgement For further information regarding this
    testimony, please contact Richard M. Stana at (202) 512-8777.
    Individuals making key contributions to this testimony included
    Evi L. Rezmovic, Michael P. Dino, Tom Jessor, and Nancy K.
    Kawahara. Page 7
    GAO/T-GGD-99-105 Page 8    GAO/T-GGD-99-105 Ordering Information
    The first copy of each GAO report and testimony is free.
    Additional copies are $2 each. Orders should be sent to the
    following address, accompanied by a check or money order made out
    to the Superintendent of Documents, when necessary. VISA and
    MasterCard credit cards are accepted, also. Orders for 100 or more
    copies to be mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent.
    Order by mail: U.S. General Accounting Office P.O. Box 37050
    Washington, DC 20013 or visit: Room 1100 700 4th St. NW (corner of
    4th and G Sts. NW) U.S. General Accounting Office Washington, DC
    Orders may also be placed by calling (202) 512-6000 or by using
    fax number (202) 512-6061, or TDD (202) 512-2537. Each day, GAO
    issues a list of newly available reports and testimony. To receive
    facsimile copies of the daily list or any list from the past 30
    days, please call (202) 512-6000 using a touch-tone phone. A
    recorded menu will provide information on how to obtain these
    lists. For information on how to access GAO reports on the
    INTERNET, send e-mail message with "info" in the body to:
    [email protected] or visit GAO's World Wide Web Home Page at:
    http://www.gao.gov United States General Accounting Office
    Bulk Rate Washington, D.C. 20548-0001     Postage & Fees Paid GAO
    Permit No. G100 Official Business Penalty for Private Use $300
    Address Correction Requested (183631)

*** End of document. ***