Groups urge House leaders to improve E-Verify system

Nearly a dozen corporate and nonprofit organizations sent House leaders a letter Wednesday seeking congressional action to overhaul an electronic system that companies can use to verify the legal status of their workers.

The groups are seeking the changes as Congress acts to reauthorize the Homeland Security Department's E-Verify program, which was established as a test program for companies to query employee names against federal databases to confirm citizenship and legal status.

"We do appreciate that Congress will need to provide a temporary extension of the pilot program," according to the letter, which was signed by groups ranging form the National Association of Manufacturers and National Association of Convenience Stores to the Association of American Universities and the Society for Human Resource Management.

"However, Congress must not extend the program for longer than three years and must require that the current pilot employment verification system be improved," they wrote in the letter, which was sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

There is no federal mandate for employers across the country to use E-Verify, although some states have passed laws requiring companies to use it.

House Democrats in particular have struggled with whether E-Verify should be made mandatory.

A bill introduced by Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., would require the program to be phased in over four years. The bill has support from most Republicans, but House Democrats put it on ice by announcing they would hold hearings on the matter rather than bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

Now, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., want to bring a different bill to the House floor under suspension of the rules that would reauthorize E-Verify for 10 years.

Their bill would not make any changes to the program nor make it mandatory.

In Wednesday's letter, the business and nonprofit groups insisted that E-Verify only be reauthorized for 10 years and that several changes be made to the program.

"Given the significant documented challenges of the system, we believe a more appropriate time frame is three years, which would provide Congress with more than adequate time to make changes to improve the employment verification system," they wrote.

They said the reauthorization bill must provide funding for the Social Security Administration to improve the accuracy of its databases on citizenship.

"Data errors not only deny U.S. citizens the right to work but impact access to other Social Security benefits as well," they said.

"In addition, as E-Verify expands, it will force more employees to line up at the Social Security office to correct their records -- having a direct impact on Social Security's core mission of providing retirement, disability and survivor benefits to eligible beneficiaries."

The groups called for Congress to prohibit states from imposing mandates that companies use E-Verify. Additionally, the groups also want Congress to create a new test program to address problems associated with identity fraud in paper-based worker identification documents.