Impact Of E-Verify Mandates On Labor Market Outcomes Of Low-Skilled Native And Legal Immigrant Workers Essay.

Do E?verify mandates improve labor market outcomes of low?skilled native and legal immigrant workers?

How do tougher immigration measures affect unauthorized immigrants?

E-Verify operations

E-Verify is an online system being used by United States Homeland Security to determine eligibility of all employees working in USA. According to Romero (2008, p. 605), the program was first established in 1996 with aim of preventing illegal immigrants from working in USA. In year 2007, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implemented a rule that required all vendors and contractors within USA to start using the program (Newman et al. 2012, p. 171). The use of the system has been facing adoption resistance because some of the employers have not been liaising with relevant government agencies to enforce use of the system. The idea behind use of the system is to make sure few available job vacancies are given to authorized employees. Its adoption has been facing resistance because algorithms behind data matching have been giving high rate of information mismatch. Different states have varied opinion on use of E-Verify as some have adopted its use while others have discouraged it. To qualify to be a USA employees, records fetched from DHS should match with employers’ data in form I-9. Form I-9 is used to satisfy that, the person bearing provided details is an employee in USA (Orrenius & Zavodny 2015, p. 949). Most of the employers have been resisting E-verify adoption on grounds of discrimination. It further denies organization an opportunity to hire some of the employees who are qualified but they are yet to acquire relevant working documents due to financial constraints. In some states, use of E-Verify program is a constitutional mandate and organizations are being audited on its use. To enforce use of the program, state governments have stated issuing E-Verify compliance certificates to organizations. The use of the program have been gaining popularity over time and many of the organizations have complied with state regulations on use of the program.

The program is managed and run by DHS to compare employee’s information captured in form I-9 to Federal databases on viability of presented documentation. In some instances, use of the program is voluntary but submission of form I-9 is a requirement by Federal regulations. Form I-9 must be filled for submission to DHS by both employer and employee. Its capabilities have been upgraded over time to incorporate facial images. Despite government enforcing use of the E-Verify program, some exceptions have been provided (Bohn, Lofstrom & Raphael 2015, p. 963). First, Federal employees are required to be certified through use of the program. The management and budget office require all government agencies to implement use of E-Verify in order to ascertain authenticity of all government employees. The next exception is on Federal contractors, regulations require all contractors to confirm their employees’ validity and authorization. In this case, verification should be done on all employees’, whether outsourced from other organizations or from other states. Contractors’ use of the program makes it difficult for non-USA to get awarded tenders. The last exception is on employees working from one state. There are about 16 states which enforces use of E-Verify program. In some states, use of E-verify should be implemented in almost all business operations (Patel 2010, p. 453). As a result of increased immigrants seeking jobs in USA, DHS decided to use technology to award few available job vacancies to genuine employees.

E-Verify and I-9 software

The concept of E-Verify working is based on search algorithms on Federal databases which returns positive results if presented information matches with Federal data. Otherwise, the employee is given a grace period of 8 working days to identify the cause of the mismatch. A disparity on I-9 form filled by both employers and employee is because of data mismatch from either DHS, Department of State (DOS) or Social security Administration (SSA). If E-Verify program detects a mismatch, an alert is immediately sent to the employer (Amuedo-Dorantes et al. 2013, p. 1067). In such circumstances, employer is mandated by the law to inform affected employee and give enough time to dispute the data mismatch. Failing to correct the discrepancy, prompts DHS to send a final alert to the employer confirming inability to authorize work permit, hence requesting for employment termination. Currently, organizations are taking E-Verification seriously because state governments are imposing penalties and fines if organizations fail to submit I-9 audit forms and verification compliance.

It is very important for an organization to verify all its workers for certainty and lookout services should be used for this purpose. I-9 is an electronic form which is error free and has to be used for proper identification and verification for all employees willing to work in USA. Use of E-Verify and I-9 services helps organization to avoid instances of being caught up with unauthorized employees (Ayon et al. 2012, p. 596). The consequences of having unauthorized employees is definitely hefty fines as well as loosing workforce that organization might have invested heavily on them. Since fines may cripple business operations, E-verify helps organizations to be in compliance with state regulations. I-9 intelligence software is being used by organizations to streamline documentation process as well as make required changes on business process flow. The design of the I-9 has been coupled with state rules and regulations to help its users be aware of regulations. During design and reviews, lawyers are part of the team to make sure all state regulations are adhered to. These software are easy to use as they have user-friendly interfaces, they are integrated with reporting tools which can track employee’s document expiry and provides error free documentation (Apostolova?Mihaylova et al. 2015, p. 990). There are notable differences between the two but they work concurrent to each other. Use of I-9 software is meant to capture data which is submitted to DSH and other relevant departments for authorization. The same I-9 has to be archived by employer as a proof document that, the due process was followed during hiring. The collected data is then uploaded to E-Verify to confirm authenticity of the employee.

E-Verify process

The following steps are followed during employees’ verification in USA workforce. The first step involves both employer and employee competing form I-9. This is usually done because employer is required to keep employees’ identification details as well as submit them to DHS for verification. During I-9 filling, it is not a requirement for employee to provide social security number (Wilson 2014, p. 47). Contrary, employee is required to provide social security number if employer uses E-Verify to authorize employee details. To make verification a success, employee is required to present at least two documents that can be used for authorization. These documents would be used as the basis of E-verify in the department of DHS. The second step is initiation of E-Verify case. Once an employee have all the required documents, employer is set to start E-Verify case. This step must be done immediately, not later than 3^rd day of employee’s duty resumption for payment. This is a requirement which is clearly stated in form I-9 expecting employer to make sure all documents are verified with three days of starting official duty. Form I-9 documentation deadline is one of the major challenge that employers’ find it difficult to meet. The third step involves matching of photos from available documents. Some of the documents that are required to have prospective employee details are; permanent residence card form I-551, Employment Authorization Document form I-766 and a passport card as it comes with a photo. At instances where prospective employee has present any of the documents bearing a photo, employer should be able to compare the same with photos held in Federal database (Youn et al. 2010, p. 258).

The fourth step is rendering results by DSH and SSA once verification case has been presented by employer.  As there are three agencies which take part in verification, all these agencies will do some comparison of presented information to their databases. Once employee details have no disparity from all relevant agencies, work authorization is confirmed by DHS (Chand & Schreckhise 2015, p. 1631). If there is a partial mismatch, employer may be required to provide additional information to DHS. On the same note, if total mismatch is observed, employer has to be notified through a Tentative NonConfirmation (TNC) message. In return, employee is notified in private by employer and employee has to be given enough time to respond to the case. The fifth stage is employee TNC contest which has to be done within 8 working days. The TNC contest may include providing required documents for further processing. To resolve all disparities, employees would be required to visit SSA offices. Similarly, DHS and SSA renders final results on authorization or NonConfirmation (Harper 2012, p. 125). Finally, in cases where employee’s information cannot be confirmed, employer is expected to terminate employment. Termination of employment means employer had not followed the due process when hiring and fines may be imposed by the government.              

Impacts on the labor market

State governments are taking employees’ verification as a major concern and investigations are being done to ascertain compliance (Amuedo?Dorantes, Bansak & Zebedee 2015, p. 936). Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) has been contacting investigations and any organization found not in compliance is heavily penalized. Organizational partnering with verification state agencies is very important as it makes sure they are in compliance with I-9 form which serves as basis of smooth authorization process. The rate of E-Verify audit by ICE have been increasing over years as government rules becomes tougher by day. Since government have realized non-compliance is generating huge sum of money to government, there is possibility of having increased ICE audits. Due to inability to comply with ICE requirements, organizations need an assistance to help align its operations with form I-9 requirements. Some of the reasons why organizations require verification services are; taking in to effect the lengthy procedures which involves presenting documents which are correctly filled with no errors and strict deadlines makes these services demanding (Harper 2012, p. 135).

ICE audit have been considered to be very tough with heavy penalties to organizations (Sanchez, G.E., 2017, p. 91). Every Error whether typo, process or failure to safe keep form I-9 is associated with its fine. Additionally, form I-9 errors are not correctable and once made it has been made, this makes it difficult for organizational human resource department to make keep these documents as required due to nature of the attention they need (Nawaz & Gomes 2012, p. 367). In this regard, it is reality that audit fines can make organization make loses due to non-compliance. Besides, the need to archive form I-9 for a long periods for purpose of presenting them to ICE is another issue to organizations. Since these procedures are non-business but very essential, firms may be reluctant on safe keeping these documents for long. These factual concepts and fines that comes with every ICE audit makes it demanding for organizations to outsource services (Calvasina, Calvasina & Calvasina 2011, p. 30). Comparing the cost of outsourcing the E-Verify services and possibility of higher fines makes them demanding.

Conclusion

The objective behind introduction and use of E-verify was to allow proper authorization of employees by state governments. The need to use E-Verify was meant to offer employment to genuine USA job seekers rather than illegal immigrants. Many immigrants were going to USA to seek jobs with unauthorized documents leaving many natives jobless. This prompted government introduction of E-Verify programs to secure and preserve jobs to its people. Employees’ are required to present relevant documents such as passports, driving licenses and work authorization document for verification. Once all documents are available, form I-9 is filled by both employer and employee and sent to DHS for E-verification. Through use of E-Verify, government has been able to control hiring employees and awarding of contracts. Employers are prompted to keep safely form I-9 for audit purpose in case ICE requests such documents for certification. Despite USA government requirements to have all states enforce use of E-Verify, some have adopted while others are against the norm. The use of the program have been a process of court battle for some time because some of the courts have been resisting its adoption. Beside all regulations, state governments have introduced some exceptions on use of E-Verify as it must be used by all state agencies to help government authorize its employees.

Challenges in the implementation of E-Verify

References

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