In reference to state Rep. Mike Sells’ letter concerning the use of E-Verify to verify citizenship prior to hiring an employee, I totally disagree with his stance. (Friday, “Program plagued with problems.”)
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which manages E-Verify within the Department of Homeland Security, based on 2009 statistics, the current accuracy rate of E-Verify is better than 99.5 percent; 97.4 percent of employees are automatically confirmed as authorized to work within seconds.
Not sure where Sells’ figures came from when he stated that “hard working Americans” are losing their jobs because of a flawed system. Opponents of E-Verify have been unable to find a single instance in which an employer relying on an erroneous E-Verify non-confirmation terminated a U.S. citizen in fiscal year 2009.
The biggest flaw to the system is identity theft, one person using someone else’s Social Security information. The Social Security Administration could close the loophole almost entirely if it would simply notify workers with more than one employer making contributions to their Social Security account numbers and ask them to report if they were not actually working for each of those employers. However, SSA has a policy of not informing the victims of identity theft.
Or if they could incorporate the facial recognition system that the Department of Licensing uses, or was using until they mistakenly eliminated it, it would help solve some of that also.
I do agree with Sells that Washington state needs immigration reform; we just disagree on the reform. I think I speak for the majority of the citizens of Washington. It’s my opinion he speaks for special interest groups in Washington.
You can verify my statics at the following Web address: www.numbersusa.com/content/files/EVerifyFactSheet011111.pdf.
John K. Graham
Lynnwood
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