e-verify: what employers need to know

May 2013

© 2013 HR Resource, a division of Lorman Business Center. All Rights Reserved.

E-Verify: What Employers

Need to Know

E-Verify: What Employers Need to Know, Copyright ®, All Rights Reserved. 1

The government's battle against the ills of illegal immigration has been a protracted one,

with decades of new policies and methods of prevention that have sought to make it more

difficult for undocumented workers to gain employment in the United States. Many efforts

have not been met with very much success, but one relatively new program has been

showing signs of promise. Known as E-Verify, the latest government initiative to crack down

on the hiring of undocumented workers is designed as a near-instant, all-electronic method

of checking documentation, citizenship, and work eligibility for today's employers. The

system is not mandatory, but it functions as a great opt-in service for those who are looking

to limit their potential liability in the event of hiring someone who is simply not eligible to

work.

Small and large business owners alike owe it to themselves to better understand how the

government's E-Verify initiative is helping business owners hire only those qualified

applicants who are as qualified to earn income as they are to perform the task at hand.

Implementation is relatively easy, and the benefits resulting from the E-Verify system

continue to increase as more employers make it part of their standard hiring process.

Mandated Legal Employment in the United States is Nothing New

While the E-Verify system itself is a rather recent invention, designed to make use of today's

leading technologies and Internet connections, the requirement to hire only those workers

eligible to work is not a new requirement. In fact, the government has been checking

immigration status, employment eligibility, and other factors for the better part of the last

half-century. This requirement was initially setup only to verify employment via things like

green cards and United States visas, but it has since become an instrumental way for

America to guard against the dangers of employing undocumented workers.


In recent years, the punishment for hiring those who are ineligible to work has been

dramatically increased by both state legislatures and those in Washington. These penalties

vary in severity, from large fines to potential time in prison, and they're simply not pleasant.

Furthermore, they're entirely avoidable with a combination of due diligence and electronic

background checks.

That's where the E-Verify system comes in. Prior to the development of the system,

employers would collect a federal work eligibility form known as an I-9. That form would

then have to be kept on file by the employer and submitted to the federal government for

final verification. Any issues with the form could result in a delay of employment for the new

hire, or they could cause the offer of employment to be rescinded entirely. Even so, the

process took weeks at best, as forms languished at government agencies due to a severe

backlog.

A Look at the History of E-Verify and its Initial Development

Illegal immigration and undocumented worker hiring was a hot button topic in the late

1990s, with an immediacy that is mirrored only in today's more recent discussions of illegal

immigration and its implications on the broader economy. Much of the problem with

undocumented worker hiring came from a distinct lack of efficiency on behalf of the federal

government. Though the government had long required all employees, both private and

public, to verify the immigration status of their employees, the agency was frequently

swamped with I-9 forms and was unable to verify them all in a timely matter.

As mentioned earlier, the verification process for individual I-9 form submission was known

in the 1990s to take several weeks or even a month. In the meantime, undocumented

workers were often hired tentatively, with most employers giving them the benefit of the


doubt and allowing them to continue on the job unless an issue later arose with a fully

audited I-9 form. Communication about that form was sent by mail, which resulted in

further delays when addressing the issue of a tentatively hired employee who was

undocumented and thus ineligible for employment.

In 1997, the government drafted legislation that would lead to a new electric employment

verification method using what was then a cutting-edge new tool: the Internet. The bill

passed with bipartisan support and three test systems were quickly released by federal

agencies. All three systems operated using an Internet connection, requiring the digital

submission and transmission of Social Security numbers and other information that could be

used to determine work eligibility.

After several years of limited tests and plenty of government studies, the two less optimal

systems were eliminated and the final option was made available to all employers

nationwide. Originally known as the "Basic Pilot Program," the system was rebranded E-

Verify by the government at the start of the 20th century. E-Verify was deployed on an

optional, opt-in basis for both federal agencies and private employers shortly thereafter.

Initial Success and Failures: A Bumpy Road for the E-Verify Background Check System

The government’s intentions with the development of E-Verify were certainly good, but the

actual implementation of the program after testing was not quite as bright and optimistic.

Indeed, the optional nature of the system meant that it was hardly used even by federal

agencies after its development, largely due to concerns about the cost implementing the

electronic system and doing away with the paper I-9 submissions and audits that federal

agencies had been conducting for decades by the time E-Verify was finally made a reality.


Private employers, too, greeted the system with a bit of trepidation. A few years after the

deployment of E-Verify, several government studies noted that on a few thousand private

employers in the United States had taken it upon themselves to transition away from paper I

-9 form submissions and toward the E-Verify system. This was chalked up to several key

reasons that today are less of a concern:

- Many employers didn't have modern computers with which to submit data electronically,

with older systems lacking the proper networking capabilities to access federal websites to

transmit and receive results.

- A very large number of employers simply didn't have the Internet at the start of the 2000s.

While that might be hard to believe, especially considering the ongoing "tech bubble" of the

time, Internet penetration among retail businesses and lower-wage employers remained

low through at least the mid-decade.

- A lack of technological know-how among many human resources employees of the era

meant that they simply were not comfortable transitioning to an electronic system that

confused them and slowed down their all-paper process.

- The cost of acquiring new computers, as well as a fast enough Internet connection for data

transmission and the receipt of results, was prohibitive for many large-scale retail businesses

and smaller employers nationwide. Since these businesses were the biggest target of the

legislation, E-Verify's success was largely stalled.

- An economic downturn that occurred almost simultaneously with the release of E-Verify

made it even harder for businesses of all sizes to justify the expense of transitioning to the

program.


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