Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner Doris Meissner recently formally kicked off an innovative new project, the Southern California Verification Pilot, to enable employers to quickly establish the employment eligibility of newly hired noncitizens, allowing employers to more easily comply with immigration laws. This breakthrough project is a key part of the Clinton Administration’s continuing commitment to crack down on illegal immigration by “Most businesses in this country want to hire lawful workers,” Meissner said, “but they have faced obstacles in trying to comply with the law. This Administration is committed to helping employers ensure that the it work forces are legal and 10 penalizing those who don’t comply with the law.” She added, “This new system reduces the value of fraudulent documents because those documents will not be verified by the INS record check. And it gives employers greater assurance that non-citizen employees are truly authorized to work.
The Verification Pilot is a voluntary program that allows participating employers, through a personal computer, to query the INS data base to confirm the eligibility of aliens to work in the United States. The system provides employers with a quick ‘and accurate way of verifying the status of noncitizens, while safeguarding their rights and protecting against the potential for discrimination. More than 220 employers with over 80,000 employees are participating in the program, primarily in Santa Ana and the City of Industry in ‘Southern California Who is participating in the Verification Pilot?
In recruiting participants for the pilot, INS sought employers with a workforce of at least $0 employees that fall into the following categories: employers that employ an above average number of noncitizen workers; industries that have been found to employ a disproportionate number of no authorized workers (high-risk employers); employers that experience frequent turnover or hire large numbers of ‘workers on a seasonal basis.
The 223 employers currently enrolled in the pilot are involved in wide range of industries: 31% Professional Services; 20% Manufacturing; 14% Retail; 11% Food/Service; 7% Hotels; 4% Health; 3% Entertainment; 10% Other. By the end of FY96, the program will have expanded to include 1,000 employers in selected cities across the country.
Background Since the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) employers have been held’ accountable for ensuring the people they hire have a legal right to work in the United States, IRCA requires employers to review document is that establish the employees identity and eligibility to work in the United States.
Employees must attest on Form I9 to their work eligibility and employers certify that the documents presented appear on their face to be genuine and relate to the individual.
The weakness in their verification process is that employers may find it difficult to distinguish between legitimate documents and those that may be counterfeit or fraudulent documents. Inadvertent hiring of unauthorized aliens may result in the removal of employees from their jobs, sometimes at critical moments in time sensitive schedules. Employers who overreact and try to avoid problems by hiring only those whom they believe to be citizens may be charged with practicing discrimination. For these reasons, many employers have expressed willingness to help INS test alternative methods of verification.
In addition to piloting the verification system, INS will implement another pilot program focusing on employer sanctions, 20 new investigators (and 3 support personnel) will be concentrated in the cities of Santa Ana and Industry where they will pursue a stepped-up program of worksite enforcement, New investigators will target illegal activity by employers who refuse to comply with employer sanctions laws. These investigators are part of 45 new positions provided by Congress specifically for employer’s sanctions pilot programs.
“We are using a typical carrot and stick approach in the metro Los Angeles area,” Meissner said, “We are encouraging employers to work with us to be sure they’re in compliance with the law, and we are going to focus our enforcement efforts on those who break it.”
How the System Works After an employer has reviewed a noncitizen employee’s documents and verified his/her eligibility the I9 form, the ‘employer initiates the authorized primary verification process.
Primary Verification—The employer enters the new employees Alien Identification Number (“A” number), first name initial, month and year of birth, hiring date, and employer access code into their computer system, This information is then checked against INS’ Alien Status Verification Index data base (ASVI), Within seconds, an employer receives one of two responses from the INS. “Employment ‘Authorized’ or Institute Secondary Verification.
Secondary Verification—If the “Institute Secondary Verification messages comes up, it is a signal that the primary INS database has not recognized the employees as eligible for employment and that INS must search other data sources with a longer response time. Secondary verification provides a safeguard to employees by preventing the termination of employment of eligible noncitizen employees. Another goal for the improved secondary verification is to reduce to a minimum the period needed to determine a new employee’s work authorization, In the Past, when verification were done on pa~ per and transported by mail, the time frame for a response could run into weeks. Using INS’ newly automated system, secondary verification can take as few as three days.
Unconfirmed Status—Employee’s whose status remains unconfirmed after completion to a primary and secondary verification check are provided a third and final opportunity for confirmation of eligible employment status. In these infrequent cases, employees will be given 30 days to resolve their immigration status, during which time they will continue to be employed. ‘The employer will refer the employee to the Los Angeles INS District Office, where a special office has been set up to follow up on cases identified through the pilot project History of the Verification Pilot.
The Southern California Verification Pilot is the second part of a three phase ‘Project to test alternative verification systems. A first phase of an automated verification pilot (called the Telephone Verification System) began in March of 1992, ‘with nine employers in five states with large noncitizen populations volunteering to participate (CA, FL, IL, NY, TX).
The success rate of the yearlong pilot was extremely impressive. In more than 2,500 cases, 99.9% were satisfactorily resolved. In 7 of 10 cases, authorization ‘was confirmed after the initial automated query. The remaining cases required secondary follow-up, which provided resolution within a 5-10 day period.
Since then, the system has been improved and changed from a telephone to a computer based system. The secondary verification process was changed from ‘one that required the employer to fill out forms and transmit the information by, mail to an automated process that immediately follows the initial query of the system, The system also includes elements to maximize the privacy of information’ and minimize the potential for ‘discrimination’ against authorized workers.
INS will also test three other methods for rapidly verifying a noncitizen’s employment eligibility throughout the country in the coming year. “Today we are taking a significant step forward to control the problem of illegal immigration,” Meissner said. “We look forward to working with business and communities across this country as we work to enforce our nation’s immigration’s laws, protect our immigrant heritage, protect American jobs and protect the rights of all Americans.”
Article extracted from this publication >> December 1, 1995
