E-Verify

The use of E-Verify as an employment screening tool topped the list of the Employment Screening Resources second annual top ten trends list. ESR is a human resources consulting firm providing pre-employment screening reports to Employers, Human Resources and Security departments. E-Verify didn't make the first list of top ten trends last year, but increased government regulation was cited as a cause for the workplace verification tool making the list in 2009.

New South Carolina legislation requires all businesses with more than 500 employees to begin checking and verifying new hires through E-Verify. Although smaller entities don't have to begin using the verification tool for at least another six months, Pickens County is requiring that all new county employees be verified, and the county's human resource director has given a strong endorsement.

The House Appropriations Committee approved a stimulus bill on Thursday with two key amendments. Rep. Ken Calvert successfully added an amendment that would extend E-Verify for four years. Rep. Jack Kingston successfully added another amendment that would require any contractors awarded work through stimulus money verify the employment eligibility of their workers through E-Verify.

The Department of Homeland Security has temporarily delayed a requirement for federal contractors to use E-Verify to check the immigration status of their employees while a related lawsuit is resolved. The rule was supposed to take effect Jan. 15 but will now be implemented on Feb. 20.

On Wednesday, January 7th, NumbersUSA mailed a letter to President-elect Barack Obama urging him to make Americans and already-resident legal immigrants his top priority. In the letter, we urged Obama to temporarily suspend the importation of most foreign workers, chain migration and the visa lottery. Also, we urged him to fully fund E-Verify and make it mandatory for all employers. If you haven't taken action to support American workers, now is the time! If you haven't done so already, please join more than 138,000 members and sign the petition to support American workers. Also, check your action buffet for faxes to send to your elected officials. Read the letter!

Last week the Department of Labor issued a grim report on the state of jobs in America. More than 500,000 Americans lost their job in November and more than 2 million so far in 2008. In response, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) issued a statement urging the Senate to pass a long-term extension of E-Verify. Take action now by calling and/or faxing your Senator and asking them to add an amendment to the auto industry bailout to attach H.R. 6633.

Representative Heath Shuler (D-NC) plans to reintroduce The SAVE Act during the new Congressional session. The bill had 157 cosponsors, but the House leadership prevented a vote as Congress turned its attention to rising gas prices and the economy.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that Federal contractors and subcontractors will be required to begin using E-Verify starting Jan. 15, 2009 to check their employees’ eligibility to work in the U.S. Companies awarded a contract thereafter will be required to enroll in E-Verify within 30 days and begin using the employment verification system to verify that all new hires and current contract-related employees are work eligible.

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson is asking the Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals for assistance in enforcing a recently passes immigration law that has come under some scrutiny from various business groups. The law requires that employers verify employees, contractors and subcontractors through the federal employment verification system.

A Rhode Island Superior court judge has rejected the ACLU's attempts to prevent Gov. Don Carcieri from requiring businesses who serve as state contractors to use the E-Verify employment verification system.

The ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program was initiated in 2007 to help businesses reduce unauthorized employment by illegal aliens and the related use of fraudulent identity documents. This week, 26 additional companies joined IMAGE as full members, plus 10 companies and one association signed on as associate members, an ICE press release reports.

In what is billed as the largest bust in western North Carolina, ICE took into custody 59 illegal aliens who making parachutes for the U.S. armed forces at the Mills Manufacturing Corp. in Woodfin, North Carolina. A related ICE press release suggests the enforcement action neutralized a potential national security vulnerability.

Stepped-up federal immigration enforcement efforts are causing farmers and growers to use the H-2A guestworker program more, the Seattle Times reports. The H-2A program allows agricultural employers to hire foreign workers if the state work force agency certifies no citizens or legal immigrants are available to do the work. Unscrupulous farmers and growers that had being using illegal alien labor now fear getting caught in the enforcement web, so they are turning to the legal alternative that had been there for them all along.