DHS Chief Administration to support E-Verify Regulation for Government Contractors; Scraps No-Match Rule

Photo used under Creative Commons by Egan.

The Department of Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) 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. The declaration came as Secretary Napolitano announced the Department's intention to rescind the Social Security No-Match Rule, which has never been implemented and has been blocked by court order, in favor of the more modern and effective E-Verify system." The press release states "E-Verify, which compares information from the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) against federal government databases to verify workers’ employment eligibility, is a free web-based system operated by DHS in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA). The system facilitates compliance with federal immigration laws and helps to deter unauthorized individuals from attempting to work and also helps employers avoid employing unauthorized aliens."

The system is not with out its problems. Indeed, National Public Radio (NPR) reported last year that some citizens were having problems getting "verified" and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also had misgivings about the program because of the approximately 18 million Social Security records with errors in them. The majority of these records were of U.S. citizens.