E-Verify was supposed to make it easy for employers to rest assured that all of their workers were valid U.S. citizens — but new research says it’s doing anything but.
A recent evaluation of E-Verify by the research group Westat found the program’s inaccuracy rate for finding unauthorized workers is around 54%.
That’s a troubling statistic considering tens of thousands of business use E-Verify — either voluntarily or as a condition of working with the government.
The problem: E-Verify couldn’t confirm whether info employees were presenting was actually their own – and many unauthorized workers can obtain employment via identity fraud that can’t be detected by the program.
The Department of Homeland Security says its working on improvements for E-Verify — including additional databases, a photo screening tool and a monitoring and compliance branch to detect identity fraud.
To stay safe, you should probably do some documenting of your own to ensure all employees are U.S. citizens. — even if you currently participate in E-Verify.
