Does E-Verify Really Work? One-out-of-two Spin May Give Wrong Impression
Media reports recently suggest it does not. “E-Verify finds only one out of two illegals” says the Homeland Security News Wire, summarizing a bylined story from the Wall Street Journal. The News Wire reported that: “E-Verify was launched to allow employers to verify the legal status of job applicants; a study done for DHS finds that the program is ineffective: the inaccuracy rate for unauthorized workers at about 54 percent, meaning that one in two illegal workers makes it through the screening…The U.S. government’s E-Verify program to detect illegal workers has an “inaccuracy rate” of about 54 percent, outside consultants have determined. An evaluation of E-Verify carried out for DHS by a Maryland firm found the program allows “many unauthorized workers” to obtain employment, the Wall Street Journal’s Louise Radofsky and Miriam Jordan writee that reported Thursday…Westat of Rockville, Maryland, said E-Verify is not able to confirm whether information workers are presenting is their own. As a result, Westat says, “many unauthorized workers obtain employment by committing identity fraud that cannot be detected by E-Verify.”
BUT
If you go to the original study, available since the end of January, you discover that:
Westat estimates that overall, E-Verify queries result in an accurate response 96 percent
of the time and an inaccurate response 4.1 percent of the time. But only 6.2 percent of
all E-Verify queries relate to unauthorized workers. Westat estimates that, primarily
due to identity fraud, approximately half (54 percent with a plausible range of 37 to 64
percent) of unauthorized workers run through E-Verify receive an inaccurate finding of
being work authorized. As a result, the 54 percent statistic relates only to the 6.2
percent figure, as shown in Graph 1 above, and means that of all E-Verify queries, only
approximately 3.3 percent are for unauthorized workers that were incorrectly found
work authorized.
Overall, it seems E-Verify is working; more businesses are using the program; but the program also is a touchstone for those concerned with or see political value in the issue of illegals in the U.S.
Check out the original 13-page research report from Westat at: http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Native%20Docs/Westat%20Evaluation%20of%20the%20E-Verify%20Program.pdf
The entire 338-page U.S. Department of Homeland Security report is at:
http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/E-Verify/E-Verify/Final%20E-Verify%20Report%2012-16-09_2.pdf
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