Policy Briefs

HOUSE BILL 184, (current)

HOUSE BILL 227, (current)

Synopsis
"Employment Verification," or more commonly, "E-verify," describes a government program, which according to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service "is an Internet based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA) that allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees."

Current Status in Ohio
There is no current law requiring addressing employment verification.

KENTUCKY:  There is no current law requiring use of e-verify. 

MICHIGAN:  There is no current law requiring use of e-verify. 

PENNSYLVANIA:  There is no current law requiring use of e-verify.

WEST VIRGINIA:  §21-1B-1 of the West Virginia Code requires employers to verify verify the work authorization of all employees. The state’s commissioner of labor has authority to inspect the personnel documents of any employer. An employer who employees unauthorized workers is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by fines of up to $10,000 and incarceration for repeat offenses. The law prohibits employers from claiming a state income tax deduction for wages or remuneration of $600 or more paid to an individual who is not authorized to work if the employer has been convicted of unlawfully hiring unauthorized workers. Repeat offenses of the law may result in suspension or revocation of the employer’s business license.

Current Status across United States
Currently over 117,000 employers are enrolled, representing over 456,000 locations. An average of 1,000 employers enroll each week and participation has more than doubled each fiscal year since 2007. As of April 2009, employers have run over 3.6 million queries in FY 2009.

Twelve states currently require the use of e-verify and those are the following: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Utah. Tennessee encourages the use of e-verify and Illinois limits the use.

Source: DHS website, Testimony of Acting Deputy Director Michael Aytes, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and National Conference of State Legislatures.

History

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA)9 of 1996 required the former INS and SSA to operate three voluntary pilot programs to test electronic means for employers to verify an employee’s eligibility to work, one of which was the Basic Pilot Program.10 The Basic Pilot Program was designed to test whether pilot verification procedures could improve the existing employment verification process by reducing (1) false claims of U.S. citizenship and document fraud, (2) discrimination against employees, (3) violations of civil liberties and privacy, and (4) the burden on employers to verify employees’ work eligibility.
In 2007, USCIS renamed the Basic Pilot Program the Employment Eligibility Verification program and later in the year changed the name to E-Verify. E-Verify provides participating employers with an electronic method to verify their employees’ work eligibility.

Executive Order 12989, as amended by President George W. Bush on June 6, 2008, directs federal agencies to require that federal contractors agree to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their employees.   The amended Executive Order reinforces the policy, first announced in 1996, that the federal government does business with companies that have a legal workforce. This new rule requires federal contractors to agree, through language inserted into their federal contracts, to use E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of all persons hired during a contract term, and to confirm the employment eligibility of federal contractors’ current employees who perform contract services for the federal government within the United States.The effective date of the final rule requiring certain federal contractors and subcontractors to use E-Verify has been delayed until September 8, 2009.

Sources: E-verify Website and U.S. GAO Report on Employment Verification.

Versions of Legislation

Additional Information