E-Verify: Everyone's Vulnerable

Update: June 11, 2008:

Today the Senate Labor Committee voted to hold E-Verify indefinitely for further study, citing two instances in the text of the proposed bill that are unconstitutional and have been challenged in court in Oklahoma and Arizona.

While community & labor activists are excited about this potential victory- there is a chance that the bill may be revived before the end of the legislative session. Stay on the lookout for updates over the next several weeks.

   Thank you.

"It ended up costing me several days of lost work for which I wasn't paid, plus filing fees and took close to nine months before I got the final papers uniting the name I had been using legally for 16 years with my social security number. If the state had e-verify in place at the time and I applied for a job, I would have been kicked out as a no match.  What employer would wait nine months for me to get my documents- that were out of order through no fault of mine- in order?"

 This was Martha Yager's (of the American Friends Service Committee Southeastern New England) experience in trying to fix an error in the Social Security database in her information.

Click on "Tell me More" for more info about E-Verify.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: I'm Against S0291, The E-Verify Bill

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I am writing to ask you to stand up for me by voting against or voicing your opposition to Senate Bill 2091, E-Verify.

This legislation requires employer participation in a desperately flawed program. The Social Security database on which the Basic Pilot Employment Verification Program depends contains at least 17.8 million errors. 70% - or 12.7 million - of those errors refer to US Citizens.

E-Verify is a misguided attempt to create a state-level response to an issue that requires a national solution: comprehensive immigration reform.

The impact of Basic Pilot will be that thousands of Rhode Islanders will be denied employment because of an administrative error, a typo, or a life change - such as marriage, divorce, name change, or naturalization.

The best way that Rhode Island has to deal with the broken immigration system is to vigorously enforce wage and hour law and to ensure that every employer is meeting the requirements of current RI and Federal Labor Law.

Some RI employers use exploitative practices to abuse their workers and the system, but the laws are already on the books to combat the losses in state revenue and the costs of exploitation to the individuals and to society. What's needed is stronger enforcement mechanisms.

E-Verify does nothing to address this- it won't impact law-breaking employers who are already acting without scrutiny. Instead will force the underground economy further under the ground.

Please don't fasten our future to a system filled with error. Vote against Employment Insecurity- "Basic Pilot Employment Verification" (S2901)

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
February 01, 2008


Background Information

E-Verify is the Wrong Way For Rhode Island

Take Action AgainstSenate Bill 2091

 

“It ended up costing me several days of lost work for which I wasn’t paid, plus filing fees and took close to nine months before I got the final papers uniting the name I had been using legally for 16 years with my social security number.If the state had e-verify in place at the time and I applied for a job, I would have been kicked out as a no match.  What employer would wait nine months for me to get my documents – that were out of order through no fault of mine- in order?”

 

This was Martha Yager's (of the American Friends Service Committee) experience in trying to fix an error in the Social Security database in her information.

 

 Database Errors:

Ø  The Social Security Administration estimates that it has a 17.8 million discrepancies. 12.7 million of those discrepancies refer to U.S. citizens.  That’s an approximate 30-40,000 Rhode Islanders who statistically will wrongly come up as a “no-match.”

 

Ø  Foreign born documented people are 30 times more likely than US born people to come up as a “no-match” in the SSA database. That is a discriminatory infrastructural problem with E-Verify.

 

 

Privacy Protection:

Ø  The House Oversight Committee gave the Department of Homeland Security database a “D” in 2006 for failing to adhere to the Federal Information Security Management Act.

 

Ø  Implementing E-Verify will put every Rhode Islander at risk for identity theft and other privacy invasions. 

 

 

 

E-Verify wrongly targets Rhode Island immigrants who are working sometimes two and three jobs to make ends meet. E-Verify will create a broader based underground economy. E-Verify is the wrong way for Rhode Island.

 

In the absence of Federal Immigration Reform, Rhode Island can and should step up it’s efforts to stop unscrupulous employers from exploiting workers by increasing the wage and hour investigators in the Department of Labor.  We already have the laws on the books, but not the enforcement mechanisms.

 

For more information visit: http://www.nilc.org/immsemplymnt/ircaempverif/e-verify_nomagicbullet_2008-01-04.pdf

Or Call RI Jobs with Justice: (401)454-4766