State Representatives, anti-immigrant groups want flawed E-verify in Oregon

Anti-Immigrant groups with the support of Oregon State Representative Kim Thatcher (R), Oregon State Representative Jeff Barker (D) and others (listed below) will be introducing a bill (HB 4052) to force state agencies in Oregon to use the flawed E-verify system to "verify employment eligibility of applicants".

E-Verify, an internet based computer database run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has a troubled history that would spell disaster for Oregonians and Oregon's struggling budget.

It has been pointed out time and again by advocacy organizations and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that the accuracy rate of E-Verify is unacceptable. Each error means that a U.S. citizen or legal U.S worker could be denied employment and a paycheck because the federal government database contains an error. E-Verify is a problematic program that has harmful consequences for Oregon workers and our state's economy.

The state of Oregon,  like the Federal Government, already verifies the eligibility of job applicants and prohibits those of undocumented status from receiving employment. Forcing the state of Oregon to use a deeply flawed program will just cause more money to be taken away from vital services that Oregonians on. The introduction of this bill amounts to nothing more than creating another problem for Oregon's budget and a play to anti-immigrant groups by members of the Oregon State Legislature.

Our country needs a real solution to upgrade it's obsolete immigration system. The Thatcher-Barker E-Verify bill seeks to remove immigrant workers out of Oregon’s economy. Immigrant workers are an important and vital part of many industries and Oregon’s economy. The real solution is for the U.S. Congress to create a fair and just way to make undocumented workers and families right by the law, and create a system they can go through, and not around, to make them full members of our society and economy.

If passed, HB 4052 would cause lawful Oregon workers to lose their jobs or be denied employment, an increase the risk of government intrusion, drive jobs into the underground economy, deprive the government of tax revenue, and impose additional costs on the State of Oregon—all without meeting the program's stated purpose of ending the hiring of undocumented workers.

Members of the Oregon State Legislature need to get serious about our state's problems, and quit playing to anti-immigrant groups and creating problems where none exists.

We urge people to call the following legislators and tell them to oppose any legislation like HB4052 that would hurt Oregon workers and further damage Oregon’s economy:
OR State Representatives

Kim Thatcher (R–Keizer , District 25) 503-986-1425

Jeff Barker (D-Aloha District 28) 503-986-1428

Vicki Berger (R-Salem District 20) 503-986-1420

Katie Eyre Brewer (R-Hillsboro District 29) 503-986-1429

Sal Esquival (R-Medford District 6) 503-986-1406

Tim Freeman (R-Roseburg District 2) 503-986-1402

Sherrie Sprenger (R-Scio District 17) 503-986-1417

Jim Thompson (R-Dallas District 23) 503-986-1423

Gene Whisnant (R-Sunriver District 53) 503-986-1453

Matt Wingard (R-Wilsonville District 26) 503-986-1426

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“Dangerous and Intrusive” E-Verify Bill Passes House Committee

September 22, 2011

This press release comes from our allies at the National Immigration Forum. The National Immigration Forum works to create a vision, consensus and strategy that leads to a better, more welcoming America – one that treats all newcomers fairly.

“Dangerous and Intrusive” E-Verify Bill Passes House Committee

Washington, D.C. On September 21, the House Judiciary Committee approved the Legal Workforce Act, legislation that would force all employers to use the E-Verify electronic employment verification system. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, and was passed amid a growing chorus of opposition from conservative, Tea Party, and libertarian groups. Following is a statement by Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum.

“Representative Lamar Smith yesterday came a step closer to forcing every American employer to get permission from the government before hiring. His error-ridden ‘no work list’ is expected to cause hundreds of thousands of American workers to lose their jobs.

It is no wonder that opposition to this bill is coming from opponents of big government. Organizations such as the Tea Party Nation, the Liberty Coalition, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and other conservative and libertarian groups have been raising their voices against mandatory E-Verify. To them, the government databases from which we will all be forced to seek permission to work are a thinly-veiled national ID system, and will interfere with the right of Americans to work. Forcing the E-Verify system on small employers will be a jobs killer and it will set a ‘dangerous and intrusive precedent’ for using the hiring process to check Americans for other purposes, such as payment of taxes.

E-Verify will also leave crops rotting in the fields, and that is why Congress has heard loud and clear from agricultural producers. Much of the agricultural work force is undocumented, and forcing growers to use E-very without first legalizing their workers will put many farms out of business. Thousands of jobs that depend on the operation of those farms will be lost.

House Speaker John Boehner should think twice before bringing this bill to the floor. By letting Lamar Smith control the Republican’s immigration agenda, he is not only making it more difficult to attract the Latino vote, but he is increasingly alienating key supporters of his own party, including agricultural interests and opponents of big government.”

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Oregonians Speak Out Against Job-Killing E-Verify Bill

September 15, 2011

Oregonians Speak Out Against Job-Killing E-Verify Bill

Portland, Ore.—On Wednesday, members from Oregon’s faith, labor, business, civil rights and immigrant communities spoke out against E-Verify during a press conference in Portland. E-Verify, an internet based computer database run by the Department of Homeland Security, is a voluntary system used by employers to screen prospective employees. The press conference was part of the national day of against the legislation making the flawed program mandatory.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee began to review and vote on Chairman Lamar Smith's (R-TX) House Resolution 2164, the "Legal Workforce Act". HR2164 would make E-Verify mandatory and force employers to perform a computer check for every job applicant against an error-prone government database, before any American worker could start a new job. To resolve any errors, an individual would have to go through a Social Security (SSA) or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office, a process that can take, on average, nearly 100 days

This law, if passed, would cause lawful American workers to lose their jobs or be denied employment, an increase the risk of government intrusion, drive jobs into the underground economy, deprive the government of tax revenue, and impose additional costs on small businesses—all without meeting the program's stated purpose of ending the hiring of undocumented workers.

“If E-Verify becomes mandatory, millions of lawful workers will be incorrectly flagged by the system and will have to fight through a government bureaucracy to fix their records. Simple spelling errors or one wrong number can result in a non-confirmation through E-Verify, and it can be a nightmare to get such errors fixed within overburdened federal agencies. It’s likely that a huge number of lawful workers will have their start date delayed or be denied employment,” said Kevin Díaz, Legal Director of the ACLU of Oregon.

“America needs a real solution to upgrade the obsolete immigration system. Lamar Smith's E-Verify bill seeks to remove immigrant workers out of the US economy. The bill is completely unrealistic”, said Natalie Patrick-Knox, Causa’s Portland Organizer. “Immigrant workers are an important and vital part of many industries and the US economy. The real solution is to simply figure out a fair and just way to make undocumented workers and families right by the law, and create a system they can go through, and not around, to make them full members of our society and economy."

Organizers are calling on Oregonians to call their members of Congress and urge them to vote no on the job killing legislation--HR2164.

Speakers during yesterday’s press conference included Kevin Diaz, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, Javier Lara, Organizer for PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker union, Jeff Stone, Executive Director of Oregon Association of Nurseries and Co-Chair of the Coalition for a Working Oregon, Promise King, Executive Director of Oregon League of Minority Voters, Ignacio Paramo, MLK Worker Center Director for VOZ Workers’ Rights Education Project and Valerie Chapman, Pastoral Administrator of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church.

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Causa, Oregon's Immigrant Rights Organization, is the largest Latino and Latina civil and human rights and advocacy organization in the Pacific Northwest. We work to defend and advance immigrant rights through coordination with local, state, and national coalitions and allies. For more information, visit http://www.causaoregon.org/

Contact:

Francisco Lopez, Executive Director, 503.269.5694
Erik Sorensen, Communications Director, 503.488.0263

RESOURCES:

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuHEc3uNwU

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OR Groups Speak Out About E-Verify

OR Groups Speak Out About E-Verify
Chris Thomas, Public News Service - OR
September 15, 2011
AUDIO: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/mp3.php?f=rss-22179-1.mp3
PORTLAND, Ore. - From immigrants' rights groups to religious, labor and business organizations, more than a dozen groups in Oregon joined in a national day of action on Wednesday to voice their united opposition to the Electronic Employment Verification System (EEVS), commonly known as E-Verify. It is a government database that some employers use to check the immigration status of workers or job applicants. In a few states, its use is mandatory, but not in Oregon. However, a bill in Congress would change that.

Immigrants' rights groups are not the only ones concerned about the possibility. Others opposing E-Verify that participated in the day of action include the American Friends Service Committee, CAUSA, the Main Street Alliance, the Oregon Association of Nurseries, PCUN, and SEIU Local 49.

Kevin Diaz, legal director with the ACLU of Oregon, says a person's immigration status won't matter on the job, if their information in the federal database is wrong.

"If for some reason your check doesn't clear because of one of those errors, it could mean that you lose some employment, or you may not be able to start work until that all gets cleared up. That may require you to go to various federal agencies to figure out where the errors are."

Those who support making E-Verify mandatory say the system is not unreliable, and that a survey last year of employers who use it indicated most are satisfied with it. The current controversy is about making it mandatory.

The ACLU also has privacy concerns about the database, says Diaz. He points out that, even if the error rate is small, it translates to more than 1 million legal workers with inaccurate records.

E-Verify proponents contend it would put more workers on the job legally and drop Oregon's unemployment rate. However, Diaz says that that view assumes jobless workers in other industries would want to relocate and retrain for the kinds of jobs in agriculture or food service often held by undocumented workers. He's convinced mandatory E-Verify would create more problems than it solves.

"Essentially, you're causing the potential to lose jobs for Americans. You've got an extra burden that falls particularly hard on small business. You have the potential to lose tax revenue. And it doesn't even accomplish what it says it's supposed to accomplish."

The legislation (HR 2164) to make electronic work-eligibility checks mandatory is in the House Judiciary Committee in Congress today.

http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/22179-1

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Oregonians unite against attack on workforce and business as part of National Day of Action Against E-Verify

September 13, 2011

Oregonians unite against attack on workforce and business as part of National Day of Action Against E-Verify

Members of the business, immigrant, labor, faith, and civil rights community will hold a press conference on Wednesday, September 14 at 11 a.m. in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Ore—On Wednesday, September 14, business, immigrant, labor, faith, and civil rights leaders in Oregon will stand together with others from across the country to tell Congress that forcing employers to use the flawed E-Verify system will harm U.S. workers and employers and undercut the country’s economic recovery. The groups will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. at St. Francis of Assisi, 311 SE 12th Avenue, Portland.

Speakers will include Kevin Díaz, Legal Director of the ACLU of Oregon; Jeff Stone, Executive Director for the Oregon Association of Nurseries and Co-Chair of the Coalition for a Working Oregon; Javier Lara, Organizer for PCUN (Oregon’s farm worker union); Ignacio Páramo, MLK Worker Center Director for VOZ Workers’ Rights Education Project; and Valerie Chapman, Pastoral Administrator of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church.

E-Verify is a federal internet-based system used by some businesses to check the work eligibility of employees. Sponsoring organizations point out that requiring employers to use E-Verify will cause lawful American workers to lose their jobs or be denied employment, increase the risk of government intrusion, drive jobs into the underground economy, deprive the government of tax revenue, and impose additional costs on small businesses—all without meeting the stated purpose of ending the hiring of undocumented workers.

The latest proposal to require all employers to use the E-Verify system is currently moving through the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill, H.R. 2164, is scheduled for a mark up this Thursday in the House Judiciary Committee.

A mandatory E-Verify system would require employers to perform a computer check for every job applicant against an error-prone government database, before any American worker could start a new job. If a worker’s information is incorrect in the system, that individual would have to go to a Social Security (SSA) or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office to address the problem. The worker would not be able to start work until the error was resolved.

“If E-Verify becomes mandatory, millions of lawful workers will be incorrectly flagged by the system and will have to fight through a government bureaucracy to fix their records. Simple spelling errors or one wrong number can result in a non-confirmation through E-Verify, and it can be a nightmare to get such errors fixed within overburdened federal agencies. It’s likely that a huge number of lawful workers will have their start date delayed or be denied employment,” said Kevin Díaz, Legal Director of the ACLU of Oregon.

Due to errors in the system, E-Verify has been found to erroneously identify a significant portion of U.S. citizens and lawful residents as potentially unauthorized to work. Others get fired immediately, without being given the chance by their employers to correct their records. Based on estimates of the E-Verify error rate drawn directly from DHS’ own reports, at least 1.2 million lawful workers would have to get their records fixed or lose their jobs if E-Verify becomes mandatory. Of those, 700,000 would likely lose their jobs. To make matters worse, there is no centralized place to contact to fix records and, according to the GAO, in 2009 the average response time for such requests was a staggering 104 days.

“Mandatory E-Verify will harm all workers and employers, and it won’t stop the hiring of undocumented workers,” said Ramon Ramirez, President of PCUN (Oregon’s farm worker union). “Instead, requiring the use of E-Verify will drive more workers and employers into the shadows, where they are less likely to pay taxes and workers are more likely to be abused.”

Research indicates that E-Verify fails to meet its goal of preventing unauthorized work over half of the time. One study found that E-Verify does not catch 54 percent of the undocumented immigrants who are checked through the system. Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a 2008 mandatory E-Verify bill would decrease tax revenue by more than $17 billion over ten years, as more employers and workers move into the underground cash economy.

“We need our legislators to offer sensible, comprehensive ideas for job creation and immigration reform, rather than attacking and scapegoating workers,” said Ignacio Páramo, MLK Worker Center Director for VOZ Workers’ Rights Education Project.
There is widespread resistance to mandatory E-Verify, and the Portland event is one of many events that are being planned across the country. Portland’s event is co-sponsored by VOZ Workers’ Rights Education Project, PCUN, Northwest Workers’ Justice Project, SEIU Local 49, Main Street Alliance of Oregon, ACLU of Oregon, National Lawyers Guild, Causa Oregon’s Immigrant Rights Organization, Portland Jobs with Justice, American Friends Service Committee, Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, and Oregon New Sanctuary Movement.

Contacts:

Michael Dale, Northwest Workers’ Justice Project, 503-730-1706
Ramon Ramirez, PCUN (Oregon’s farm worker union), 503-989-0073
Kevin Díaz, ACLU of Oregon, 503-227-6928

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Oregon Businesses Join Fight Against E-Verify Bill

Last Week, the Immigration Policy Center's Immigration Impact blog had an article about a coalition of Oregon Businesses joining the fight against a national E-Verify bill being proposed by Rep. Lamar Smith (TX-R)  H.R. 2164 would make it mandatory for all businesses to use the flawed E-Verify System-- spelling disaster for the agricultural industry and the economy. The Oregonian was the first to break the story about the group of 22 Oregon Businesses joining the growing national opposition to the enforcement-only bill.

Oregon Business Community Latest to Join Fight Against National E-Verify Bill

This week, business and agricultural communities across the U.S. continued the fight against mandatory E-verify, an electronic verification system requiring employers to use a federal database to verify the immigration status of employees. Over the weekend, thousands of protestors marched on Georgia’s state capitol to protest HB 87—a bill which contains mandatory E-Verify—adding their voice to the state’s agricultural community’s who fear the program will leave them without enough migrant workers to harvest crops. This week, a group of Oregon businesses joined the campaign against an enforcement-only E-Verify bill (H.R. 2164) introduced by immigration hawk Rep. Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) last month. The group called Rep. Smith’s measure a “recipe for disaster.” continue reading

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E-Verify is Bye-bye for Now

January 15th was supposed to be the deadline for government contractors to have to start using E-Verify to check the eligibility of employees to work in the United States. According to Federal Times and Portland Business Journal, the requirement has been postponed until February 20th due to a lawsuit filed by the United States Chamber of Commerce and four other business groups.

E-Verify has come under scrutiny by those on both sides of the aisle. Studies have shown that U.S. citizens and/or legal U.S. workers could be denied employment and a paycheck because the government database contains an error.

For more on the suspension of the program, visit Federal Times and Portland Business Journal.

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E-Verify Deeply Flawed, Will Hurt Lawful U.S. Workers

That is what Senior Policy Analyst Michele Waslin of the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Law Foundation is saying in an article today. Waslin is responding to a new report about E-Verify from Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). She says the new report is “misleading” in stating that E-Verify is “99.5 percent accurate”.

Last Month, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a report last showing CIS founder John Tanton and groups associated with it to be linked to openly racist organizations.

According to the Waslin, CIS has been trying to convince the public and Congress to “reauthorize and expand” the program so that it would be mandatory for all employers.

“This would mean that every single U.S. worker would have to get permission from the government to work - and the impact of a single error could be devastating.”

This, Waslin says, would “harm lawful U.S. workers”.

Waslin goes on to cite testimony from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that says it is misleading to make claims that E-Verify’s error rate is less than 1 percent.

“Richard Stana of the Government Accountability Office testified at a May 2008 Congressional hearing that it was "misleading" to claim that the E-Verify error rate is less than 1 percent. In fact, many of the tens of thousands of workers who receive final non-confirmations are actually work-authorized.”

The bottom line, the article says, “the accuracy rate of E-Verify is unacceptable - each error means that a U.S. citizen or legal U.S. worker could be denied employment and a paycheck because the government database contains an error” And that, “E-Verify is a problematic program that has harmful consequences for U.S. workers and employers.”

Resources:
Expanding Flawed E-Verify System Will Hurt Lawful Workers
The Tanton Files: FAIR Founder’s Racism Revealed

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Anti-immigrant Play of the Week: Lou Dobbs Confuses Himself on E-Verify

This week’s Anti-immigrant Play of the Week goes to conservative pundit Lou Dobbs host of a nightly news show on CNN, for contradicting himself on the voluntary employment verification system, commonly known as Basic Pilot or E-Verify.

According to Truth in Immigration, despite mounting evidence showing the system containing major flaws, and despite contrary assessments from his own show and other news programs on CNN, Dobbs claimed that “E-verify works”. Interestingly enough, Dobbs opposed E-Verify when it was part of the comprehensive immigration compromise, but seems to now endorse it when it is part of a deportation-only bill.




Lou Dobbs was recently featured in a report by Media Matters and articles from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times for his promotion of fear, anger and resentment towards immigrants. It seems to the anti-immigrant crowd facts mean very little, so long as their political agenda is met.

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E-Verify Program Snares Citizens

in the news

Electronic Dragnet for Undocumented Nets Citizens

April 8, 2008 09:07 AM (EST)
Roberto Lovato
The Huffington Post

Two hours after starting his new job at a food processing plant in 2006, Fernando Tinoco got fired. "I went to work, felt really good to have a new job and started going to it," says Tinoco, a 53-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Chicago. "And then they called me into the office and told me that my Social Security number was fake," he adds, "And then they fired me." Apparently, Tyson Foods Inc., Tinoco's former employer, was one of the more than 52,000 companies voluntarily participating in "E-Verify", a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program designed to identify undocumented workers by electronically verifying their employment eligibility.

After the Kafkaesque experience of being hired, fired and trying to maneuver through the famously overstretched bureaucracy of the Social Security Administration to re-confirm status, Citizen Tinoco has become an outspoken critic of U.S. immigration laws' impact on citizens. "I think that citizens need to be as careful of these new immigration laws," says Tinoco, who now works at a school, adding, "they can ruin our lives too." Tinoco found his concerns echoed by Jim Harper of the conservative Cato Institute, who recently wrote that "If E-Verify goes national, get used to hearing that Orwellian term: 'non-confirmation.'"

That is why E-Verify is opposed by an unlikely alliance that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, major unions, Republican legislators and others. But it is only one of a growing number of legislative and administrative immigration control initiatives that Tinoco and many critics believe will negatively impact not just non-citizens, but citizens as well. This week, for example, Congress is considering the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act, which includes provisions that mandate a national verification system like that of the more voluntary state programs like E-Verify. >>read full article

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