E-Verify Lives Another Day

Posted March 12th, 2009 at 12.57pm in Protect America.

This is what happens when Congress passes bills that nobody has time to read. As it turns out, on the last page of the recently passed “Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009” was language that clarified the end date for E-Verify. There has been much confusion regarding whether the Department of Homeland Security could continue operating E-Verify to September 30, 2009 or would have had to shut it down yesterday. While DHS felt that they could extend E-Verify until September the different end dates for the program in the FY 2009 appropriations bill left many people in doubt.

This omnibus bill amended past language and clearly denoted that E-Verify should remain operational until September 30th. This was clearly the right move for Congress. But next time around, Congress should not wait until September 29, 2009 to decide whether or not to extend the program. Congress must work to re-authorize the program for longer periods of time. Re-authorizing E-Verify every couple of months only imbeds doubt in the American employers and causes unnecessary concern to those who are trying to do their due-diligence when hiring workers.

Author: Diem Nguyen
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6 Comments

March 12, 2009 Aedyn, Dayton Ohio writes:

I’m tired of this government doing everything they can to undermine the freedoms our forefathers sought to guarantee for us.

We have to take back our country… preferably by peaceful means but if need be by force.

March 12, 2009 JMT, Midest, USA writes:

Making it PERMANENT would be the RIGHT thing to do & then “reauthorization” would NOT be needed!

March 12, 2009 Pete S. writes:

A friend of mine denied a lady employment because E-Verify could not verify her. It ended up that she was ok, but since he needed someone right away, he gave the position to another person. She now has lawyers and is trying to sue him for $500K. Uh-oh.

March 12, 2009 Eric, St. Louis writes:

@Pete: Sounds like your friend messed up - from http://www.uscis.gov/vgn-ext-templating/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=d6f988e60a405110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=d6f988e60a405110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD

# E-Verify must be used only after hire and after completion of the Form I-9. Employers may not pre-screen applicants through E-Verify.

# The employee must be given eight federal government work days to contact the appropriate federal agency to contest the information mismatch.

Sounds like your friend was basically trapped by the E-verify system - by signing up, he basically gave away his ability to quick-hire people.

March 12, 2009 JMT writes:

For the sake of argument Pete S., I’ll for now take you at your word in your comments but I submit the following:

I currently do NOT own a business, HOWEVER, I may in the future & if E-Verify is NOT available I just will REFUSE to hire ANYBODY I even suspect A LITTLE (like NOT having an accent of a USA citizen…i.e. Irish accent [YES, there are over 50K ILLEGAL ALIENS that are Irish in the USA], Hispanic accent, Asian accent etc) of being here illegally & as long as I don’t admit it to anybody I’ll get away w/ it…& trust me there ARE employers that will do just that so instead of the ppl who fall into the 1/2 of 1% (.5%) error rate not getting jobs when they are eligible there will be a Hell of a lot more.

BTW, if your account is true…do you know WHY the error occurred? Did your friend submit the wrong info (aka a ‘typo’)? If the false rejection was b/c of HIS error…then maybe he should be sued but if the error was the woman’s (like she mis-wrote the info) then she ought to STHU.

And REMEMBER, this is about making E-Verify available NOT REQUIRED FEDERALLY. If it is NOT re-authorized then employers will NOT even have the option available.

March 13, 2009 James Jay Carafano writes:

I think it is important that we make E-Verify available to folks and that we make the system as effective as possible.

There is no plan to make it a “mandatory” system for all employers.

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