and examine how current challenges are effected affecting its implementation and potential for future expansion the subcommittee is particularly interested in hearing how this september two thousand and nine dead land deadline for federal contractors to comply with the e there is impacting their ability to serve agencies and programs in addition to septimus he will be examining the overall effort to see any fish in sea of the two the even five program including issues associated with system accuracy path city and usability by those in the employer community without objection the chair and the ranking minority member will have five minutes to make opening statements followed by opening statements not to exceed three minutes by any other member who seeks recognition without objection members and witnesses may have five legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous materials for the record  i want to first thank all the witnesses for appearing here today to discuss recent developments in the administration's he very five program a verifiable is designed to electronically verify information contained in the employment eligibility for a cation form known as one dash nine which all newly hired employees are required by law to submit to their employer in a free web based program operated by the department of homeland security so u s citizenship and immigration services refer to as against the use of fraudulent documents on the part of new hires according to most recent figures at the september these disposal as of january two thousand and nine a little over one hundred three our civilization and funding for a verify has been extended by congress a number of times most recently through september thirtieth two thousand and nine on july eighth two thousand and nine the department of homeland security chatted in the apollo the apollo town o announce the administration's support for regulation that will award federal contracts only to employers who use either to check employee work arthur was asian it is my understanding that the administration has mandated that the new regulations will go into effect by september eighth while d h s continues to wor on strengthening a verifiable in order to guard against errors in force compliance promote proper usage and enhance security critics  the system suffers from a number of major perhaps ereka solihull weaknesses among the weaknesses often cited by critics  system capacity and fourth privacy concerns and employer noncompliance that results in misuse of the verify to the detriment of both current employees and new hires i would be most interested in hearing what the administration is doing on an on going forward basis to address these concerns and moreover what it current thinking is on extending a verify beyond the september thirtieth expiration date specifically the senate passed versions of the f y twenty ten homeland security appropriations bill h r twenty eight ninety two would make easier by permanent does the administration support this provision i also am interested in learning what plans the administration is putting in place to implement secretary in the polock tunnels july eighth announcement that all federal contractors will be required to use  example how many new queries does u s c i s anticipate either a five will need to handle when the federal contractor rule is implemented does each verify have sufficient with the almost certain increased number of non final non confirmation second not be appealed and the fact that legal aliens and naturalized u s citizens are more likely to receive erroneous tentative naan confirmations and what regulations will d h s s propose to guide employers in dealing with employees who are not authorized to work and finally well d h s proposed regulations to protect were years and they are seeking to overturn a tentative non confirmation i hope to take today's hearing will shed some light on a number of outstanding issues surrounding the implementation and use of a verifiable on an on going forward basis once again i think all of today's witnesses for appearing and i look forward to an informative exchange and now i'd like to yield time to our most distinguished minority leader i don't like to call you that you was in that this about way thank you very much madam chair and madam chair i thank you for this hearing first of all madam chair i ask for unanimous consent that three statements from the construction industry from the human resource initiative for legal workforce and for the center of immigration studies be entered into the hearing record is out of jackson thank you madam chair manager a verifiable let me just first of all say that there are so many times and oversight we get testimony about how the system doesn't work and the breakdown the system where the abuses of the system even if i think is going to go down history of one of those examples a small example but a very clear example of when the system works properly back in their early ninety's a lowly federal bureaucrat approached a member of congress and with an idea and asked the congressman to look into this that congressman was ken calvert somebody  nobody probably don't even know when you would know about because i don't think he was on committees of jurisdiction or whatever but the idea that was given to this congressman because of our ability for four people in the front line to talk to policymakers and for that policymaker then to take it up to the appropriate committee and work at through has really shown in this this issue he's implemented back in the mid ninety's the pilot program where five states entered use this idea basically helped to evolve it from a telephone to a computer system that program in those five states had a level of success to the point to where congress overwhelmingly agreed to make it a national  model and under the voluntary aspect and that allowed it to grow and be improved and be fine tuned as the process goes down now we have seen the next step taken in this evolution of a small little mustard seed that was planted by a federal bureaucrat the little guy at the bottom and watching it grow into quite a program that i think that any one of us if we try to design it from harvard yale or from capitol hill never would have come to this conclusion so i just want to say as we get into this hearing the source of this program i think is one of the ants inspirations of showing that sometimes the system does work and really is an incentive for all of us as having this particular meeting i know that in my other committee in homeland we've covered this issue and there's a lot of issues that i think this committee will cover and one of against one of the issues that that i'm looking at is like any other program that you have  what sort of input a we get from the private sector and that hard i hope that what is is can talk about that i know the u s chamber know the folks of shown concern i know in the past when i've talked to some of the federal folks they've it is the committee policy that all witnesses are sworn and i'd like the witnesses to now stand as i administer the oath of office the first spouse please just the first battle which you raise your right hand please do you solemnly swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you let the record show that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative and you now see to it if there's no additional opening statements i don't see any others who will now turn to our first panel i ask that each of the witnesses  give a brief summary of your testimony and if you can please keep this within five minutes in duration your complete written statement will be included in the hearing record i'd first like to introduce miss jerry ratcliffe and currently serves as deputy associate director of the national security and work its verification directorate for the united states citizen and immigration acting director of the ins office congressional relations and before joining us c i s smith's ratliff's was the consul to the deputy attorney general and special consul in the department of justice's office of legislative affairs the threat to which you now please proceed a police beacon to them i can share woman watson ranking member  national security division the records division and the national record center and very grateful for the opportunity to be here today to discuss our shared goal of effective employment eligibility verification first let me express our appreciation for the house's vigorous support for the president's budget request to extend and continue funding even if i even if i has grown exponentially over the past several years over one hundred thirty seven thousand employers are now enrolled in the statistic i find most significant is that that number translates into over half a million work sites today in addition over fourteen percent of all non agricultural new hires in the u s our renter rivero if i currently we really are beginning to show up on the map we're growing at the rate of a thousand employers a week and already have over two thousand employers signed up as federal contractors we believe you verify is the best available tool for employers committed to maintaining a legal workforce hires to strengthen employer training and our monitoring and compliance functions and to protect employees rights complaints about a verify fall largely into three categories whine the system is inaccurate too even if i doesn't combat identity theft three the system can result in discrimination i'd like to briefly discuss each in turn first accuracy well today ninety six point nine percent of queries result in an automatic confirmation that the worker is employment authorized of the remaining three point one percent of queries only one in ten is ultimately found to be work authorized those are statistics we are very very proud of we've worked hard to reduce the initial mismatch rate for authorized workers we've made changes to reduce typographical errors made by employers that had resulted in mismatches we've added databases to our automated checks that didn't have enabled us to verify authorized workers more quickly we've made system changes and entered into a partnership with the department of state to share passport data that is enabled us to more quickly verify naturalized  even though we have had success in this area we will continue to work harder to do even better not every mismatch can be prevented simply by adding data or system changes however for example if someone their name through marriage or divorce but doesn't then update their social security records it can read sultana mismatch that in fact right now is the largest category of successfully contested mismatches second identity fraud even if i was not initially designed to combat identity theft or to do identity authentication but identity theft and document fraud a growing issues that we have to grapple with so we're trying to respond we're giving a very fight tools to begin to detect document fraud last year we added a photo screening tool that has d h s s photos in it for green cards and employment authorization documents and can be used for the for my nine purposes this tool has already detected hundreds of fraudulent green cards and employment authorization documents an f y ten we plan to add u s passport photos to the photo tool and we would like to add a driver's license information and photos because driver's licenses are the most commonly used document for the for my nine we need the state's help to do that we're also in the final stages of developing an initiative to let identity theft victims lock and unlock their own social security numbers any of their five to present their number being used without their knowledge finally a very fine must protect the rights of workers we've expanded our information from workers even working with the department of homeland security civil rights and civil liberties division to create videos aimed at employing rights as well as employer rights and we're growing our monitoring and compliance branch that is very focused on system misuse that is evidence of discrimination in fact this week we put our first compliance letters in the mail to employers who may not be using a verifiable correctly we're beginning to use the system that was just deployed at the end of june that will enable us to do more and more compliance work we're also working to refer instances of fraud discrimination and system issues to the appropriate enforcement authorities and we work very closely with the justice department's office of special council for unfair immigration related employment practices on charges of the verify related discrimination in summary verify has made great strides we believe in becoming a fast easy to use and more accurate tool and we are dedicated to improving the program even more thank you for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee and again we appreciate your continued support of our program  i'd like to announce the arrival of congresswoman jackie speier you're welcome thank you mr david rust is the social security administration staffer the commissioner for retirement and disability policy in this role mr ross directs and manages the planning development and issuance of operational policy and instructions mr ross previously served as executive secretary for the agency and he also held high ranking positions with the department of health and human services the department of agriculture and as the professional staff member for the congress mr and pull it right up please retirement disability policy my responsibilities include development and coordination of policy in the oversight and the oversight of related issues to either a fight and to our core workloads which are the old eight survivors and disability insurance program a supplemental security income program before i should discuss our supporting role with a verifiable i would like to briefly mention some of the the key purposes we have developed over the years for the use of the social security number assigning s ans and issuing s s and cards as one of our core workloads and a key to administering our program we developed the s s n as a way for employers to accurately report an employee's earnings we use the s s and to credit wages to the permanent earnings record that we maintain for each worker which is the basis of their social security coverage and benefits we have great confidence in the integrity of our records and for our perp program purposes the s s and serves us very well our records for new hires alleging us citizenship we confirm citizenship status based on information in our records for any naturalized citizen who is us citizenship we cannot confirm the h s verifies the natural automatically confirms this ms ratliff said work authorization in ninety six point nine percent of all queries next month we will complete a much anticipated improvement in our computer systems that serve either five currently we used the same system developed in the late one nine hundred ninety s when either a pi was a small pilot program in just five states or improve system known as the isolated environment will ensure that there is no interference between our own mission critical also includes redundancy measures that ensure that even if i does not experience unnecessary outages we work with the age we work closely with the h s over the last few years to improve the either a five program the changes that that ha increased efficiency and the chase easy these changes have increased the efficiency and effectiveness of the system and have helped to control the workload effect on our field offices in the last two years these changes reduced by about half the number of workers who need to visit  offices to resolve tentative non confirmation in fiscal year two thousand and nine we will handle about seventy five contacts for every ten thousand queries run through the verify system despite these improvements we remain focused on further reducing the need for workers to visit our field offices to resolve tens of non confirmations madam chairwoman our own mission critical workloads are increasing in alarming rate based on the newest economic and actuarial projections we now estimate nearly two hundred fifty thousand more retiring claims will be filed and three hundred fifty thousand more disability claims will be filed in fiscal year two thousand and then we projected in the president's  thousand and ten budget which was delivered to congress in may our field offices are under great strain to keep pace with these growing workloads any additional field office visits related to a verifiable only add more challenges to our efforts to deliver the level of service the public expects and deserves i must also mention that under the search through the act we cannot use trust fund dollars to finance the work we do free verify or any other work that does not fall within our core our systems cost and the cost of assisting new hires in resolving tentative non confirmations receiving timely and and adequate reimbursement from d h s ferrari verify work is thus critical to us in conclusion i want to thank you for give me an opportunity to discuss our role in assisting the da just administer to in assisting the h s in administering the even if i system we look forward to your continued support for our critical programs i will be glad to answer any questions you may have by asking the first few questions first to mis read this secretary in apollo tano recently announced that starting on september eighth two thousand and nine the administration would implement a regulation requiring that federal contractors use a verify according to the u s c i s statistics and eve or fi has handled more and in chairwoman we estimate that in the first year about three point eight million queries would be run pursuant to that regulation there's a little under one hundred seventy thousand federal contractors in our analysis and given our current system capacity of of over sixty million queries annually we are well poised to meet that challenge we could do you see any problems in the system these are staggering numbers we are always analyzing to see what could be tweaked and fixed and made better we feel that we do have a program that is ready to handle the challenges  the federal contractor role and other growth we have a team of system engineers program experts who are always looking to see what could be improved could our educational materials be more extensive we've added languages to our materials where to implement the federal contractor rule we are planning now a second wave of outreach to federal contractors through we ars and other events to make sure they have the information they need to successfully enroll and use the verify we have a in the registration process a tailored approach for contractors in a tailor tutorial we are always open to ideas for additional improvements and other materials but we do feel that we're ready all right do you support giving our five participants the option of verifying current employer employees and could even if i handled the potential increase you probably have already answered that well our three point eight million query estimate under the federal contractor role for the first year does include an estimate for a certain number of contractors choosing to run their entire existing workforce which would be an option under that regulation and we also are constantly doing forecasting and building costing models for other larger scenarios so that we would be ready for whatever identity fraud is something that we're spending a lot of time thinking about and developing the tools that are are possible for us to put in our tool kit we cannot today catch every form of identity fraud we have the photo tool that we were using to the fullest ability that we can use it by putting department of homeland security identity identity documents photos in it for the new hires who show a green card or an employment authorization document for the for my nine we're planning next year to put in the photo two of the u s passport citizen photos but the biggest document used for the for my nine is the driver's license and we are on our into have done outreach to states to see if there is a willing partner who would work with us to add their driver's license photos to the photo tool that is the step that would take us the farthest down the path of detecting identity fraud in terms of the photo tool we're also monitoring for duplicate uses of social security numbers and will be referring to ice our sister enforcement agency identity fraud patterns that we see under that initiative we are exploring halse possible biometric and biographic based identity authentication options i know that is a topic of great interest and we are already looking to see and working with stakeholders including in the business community all stakeholders who are interested in working with us to put good ideas together and see what would be worth testing out and learning right let me just refer to  ice and the raids that were held in two thousand and seven on this with meat packing company and i understand it netted a bog twelve hundred workers and pilot program were found and they were not verified so can you explain what the breakdown in the system was at that time with the weaknesses were and how you plan yes madam chair overcome those and the photo tool that we have added to the system was added after the swift incident and two are you faces with our yes ma'am it's it's the green card and employment authorization document photos so when a new hire shows one of those documents to the employer for the for mine and process we are now able to pull up in the system the photo that should be on that card the photo that we put on the card so if the new hire is using a completely fraudulent green card or employment authorization document or has taken a real card and photo substituted their picture the photo to a will detect that by showing the photo that should be on the card so it is a very easy match it's not a matter of saying well if you got a haircut and your shirt is different it should be exactly one hundred percent the same photo that we put on the card and as we're working to expand the photo to all that will expand our ability to help employers detect identity fraud and i do want to note that swift you're absolutely right it underscores why we are moving to add tools to be verify to allow employers to detect identity fraud and why we need to do more my time has expired so i'm going to yiel ranking member ms to bill berry thank you i guess the point here we had a hearing in the not too long ago man i'm sure about the improvement of the federal identification systems and the new technologies we're is a basis for a lot of these this information gathering isn't yes sir to the extent that even if i is able to have access to those photos on those identity documents yes ok so that you can operate in isolation as other improvements are made as the states and prove their programs as the feds improve there's your efficiency will be approved proportionally down the line absolutely that's true if you're going you've been resting for too s citizens the program for native born are not you know ninety nine point nine that was pretty substantial and that the ninety seven are for foreign foreign born  nationals the question is this i guess that also reflects the fact that that's where the most fraught is is in foreign born is that safe to assume that i think intuitive you could assume that but i think this is one of the things we're looking at all the time we're looking at ways to make the information in the new been more accurate have a more substantial basis where we've increased the evidentiary requirements for the information the new president so we're also change when they get married change your name i don't know why ladies do that but that's just happens to be some kind of conspiracy out here to confuse the system but at the same time with the same problem with you know coming from local government we have same problem with i d s in state government trying to get the names change is always a big deal about notifying people go your d m v look at your registration and a lot of other stuff my question is is that with the accuracy real low level that we have with  so security ministration provide social security payments for individuals i'm looking at a comparison to this level of efficiency what is the percentage of payments that are sent out to the wrong person or not sent out at all what's the efficiency of of the so security payments to a retired individuals railroad i may have to revise that for the record that's if you don't mind i appreciate that and you know i just say this because i think that those of us that have worked in local government look at this percentage ninety nine point six ninety you know we when you get up in  the high ninety's you really are at a level the government very seldom ventures into and so i was very interested in in that aspect of it but remember for the people who are beneficiaries they have a vested interest in letting us know changes of address changes of name and things that nature we're sending them a benefit every month so they're very good about coming in to us and correcting the record where the bigger gap for us is that many of us got our so security card when we were sixteen now many innumerate birth but then you may go decades without having any interaction with the so sure administration is during that period of time when we probably have the greatest discrepancies in the data when a person gets ready to draw benefits they are in to see us and to correct those situations another thing we do is we send a statement out every year to social your statement to everybody about these twenty five and it has information in their own earnings and other information and we ask people if there's anything wrong with the data we are presenting to you in this search data where you come and notify it so we can correct it so we're trying on a regular basis to get those things clean i'd also be interested in the people that get checks after their loved ones that passed away and forget to notify you i think that's one of the c s restaurants the face too has been pretty successful but what is the average time waiting time to resolve a mismatch over the phone what type of issues can be resolved over the phone s s mismatches that we have a process where you can call us we have a one eight hundred number we typically are able to resolve it's over ninety percent of those calls within two days in addition we most recently added another option for citizens to call d h s s instead of going into s s a where they had a naturalization related mismatch and we're able to check our naturalization records and ninety percent of the time we're able over the phone to find that to confirm their citizenship and this could be a case where they naturalized and haven't yet gone to s s a to update their citizenship status but we know they naturalized we naturalized them so with just a phone call we're able to verify that they are in fact work authorized for the ones that come to us it's almost all walk in the there's very little can be resolved by the phone and they have i think seven or eight days to contact us and then we resolve it as quickly as we can it depends a lot in many cases on how quickly they give us the document marriage certificate marriage certificate the if they don't have a birth certificate and they may have to go to the vital records in their home state or something of that your they have to get some sort of documentation resolve the issue for us and all of this will be streamlined as the states go into basically going to electronic data files on birth certificates and all that other stuff which is a different piece of legislation and death records and things of that nature don't all those electronic systems help us keep their database up to date according to our briefing paper so what percentage of the employers in this country are actually participating in the verify that well there's two statistics we used to answer that question one is the one hundred you know that the statistics on the number of employers is always hard to keep accurate because it changes every day with about a thousand more adding each week the number the current numbers one hundred thirty seven thousand that represents over a half a million work sites because one employer and i just want to know how many employers you have as a percentage do you have that figure yes ma'am it's it's a half a million divided into about seven point two million employers nationwide since about one fourteenth of the  make sure that it was working appropriately and was scalable for seven million employers and i think that as a matter of the program perspective not as a matter of the policy perspective we are building a program that could be made mandatory so with that when the time is right we can be successful so how long do you how much longer do you think you need to be able to capability of sixty five million clear aries today and on average there's about sixty to sixty five million new hires a year as a matter of the staff to do monitoring and compliance  don't want to hire staff earlier at that and incur costs for salaries except you're earlier than the the workforce would the ratio would support but we have give me just ask i mean is it two years away is it three years away you're saying the i t is up and running yes ma'am so you don't have the the workforce to accommodate the kinds of inquiries that basically what's missing we we could within several years hire staff to support monitor non compliance of congress saw fit to funded at that level and two we could today support the mismatch resolution process and the ways employers who are voluntarily participating in the program right now do they pay a fee for doing so even if ice free it's free yes ma'am so if we were to charge for it what would we charge for well we would have to look at how congress chose to phase in either a five the costs would go down per query as more employers were enrolled passed forms of legislation over the last few years have had varying phase in years so that would be a big factor also if congress chose to add a specific form of biometric that what an influence the cost right now the authorizing statute doesn't what i would like for you to do ms rockliffe if you would is to provide to the committee what the actual costs would be per employer if it was going to operate on a user fee basis yes ma'am i can't imagine that employers wouldn't embrace something like a verify because what they're required to do now is very time consuming and it's a huge cost of business so if there was a simple i t solution i think that they would they would embrace it i'm just kind of surprised that more employers haven't taken advantage of it for the generally just for certainly well especially if we went to a universal application because then you would divide the the the the total cost among the the entire universe rather than just those who are voluntary you're right as i understand that misses it optional and so if we maybe we can do this make it permanent and then once we get that information out spread across the universe i think the fee would be minimum but we need that information is ma'am if i could i had a question for you did you want to respond to that if i could  view we'd be glad to work to just on bringing about mandatory coverage but we would ask that funding would be an issue adequate funding for ford would be an issue because it would take us from something like fifty thousand people walking into our offices to probably four hundred fifty thousand or thereabouts if we went up to the level of sixty million a year being run through so it would be a substantial workload increase on the search through the field offices the systems aspect of it would not be very costly for us because the we've modernized that we think you can handle those number of queries but there certainly be a fall out in our field offices would be substantial well i mean the answer may be in trying to do sectors  over a period of time and and bring them on board over a number of years as opposed to just turning a switch and having the program operate i have one question for you mr ross in california we have taken action to prevent security now bers as a health insurance a den of fire is that also the law on a federal level our position has been for since the day that since the agency was created in the mid thirty's that the that the the number is not a national id number that it was created specifically for the use human in maintaining records on people's employment and their earnings to determine their benefits we actively discourage the private use of the numbers but it's widely used that way so the answer to my question is no there is no federal law that prevents health insurers from using social security numbers as an identifier not that i'm aware all right thank you for your back thank you and now i will call on mr little bit to make sure i understand where we are by the bush administration started this program with congressional support on an optional and voluntary basis is that  correct the program has actually been authorized for about ten years so it it has spanned several ministrations of the gentleman you yes the program actually was implemented under the clinton administration under the pilot the five member pilot program  but remaining an optional voluntary program that's correct ok now you've had a number for example of federal contractors who have participated in the program on a voluntary basis as part of the pot is that correct that's correct sir and has that work successfully it has we have had about two thousand employers as they've registered self select as federal contractors in anticipation of the federal contractor role becoming have we built a registration module where a business could self identify as a federal contractor and about two thousand have so far taken advantage of that i talked with some federal contractors last week who participated in the pilot program at the behest of the federal government you're familiar with some of those candidates with some of the two thousand who are participating in the verify yes i know a few of them yes are right one of the concerns they had was that when you move to the new stage of this program it's temper that all of the hard work the done in buying their employees is not going to they're not going to get credit for it they have to start all over again as if they were like anybody else who didn't participate in the pilot a voluntary program is that correct that is partially correct sir if i may explain the the new hires who they have already run three verify they will not need to run again  beginning september eighth under the federal contractor regulation they will have to run an additional portion of their current workforce three verify and those are the people who they're going to put on the federal contract so that between their new hires and the workforce working on the federal contract that were already in place they can have staffing to the federal project that has been one hundred percent run through a verify so there will be a piece that they have to do that sedition all they also will have the option to query even if i for their entire current workforce  whether or not those employees are working on a federal contract well i'm not sure i understood your answer if if i'm a federal contractor who volunteered to participate in the a program for eve or buy it was only for new cars currently yes are those new cars if they're still on my payroll i won't have to go back and a duplicate the eve or occasion of those that's correct you will not have to write it because i think there was some confusion about that terms of what the requirements going to be were there are some federal contractors  yes as of september eighth if they run current workers who are assigned to a federal contract that will be a part of their requirement and then they also could choose to run their entire current workforce and they large companies they may have employees who are on federal contracts they may have a whole group of other employees who work on private sector projects why would it have been a misuse want that would be a misuse of the verified today for me to do that but it will be an option available to me in two months because the way our statute is written it is just for new hires it is not for current work force the pres president bush signed an executive order that is the underpinning of the federal contractor regulation that said in order to ensure a stable and work authorized federal workforce because we already are running federal government new hires three verify to ministration wanted to ensure that the federal contractors who are also working on federal government projects had also been run through a verify and executive order fanned that for the interest of a secure stable federal workforce employed contractors who are moving to a federal we've had hearings of this committee about the issues i was securely we have had testimony that the the incidents of hacking and attempting attempted hacking into federal databases have skyrocket and with the best of intentions with the verify are we putting federal contractors at risk of similar hacking incidents what kind of security provisions are we undertaking to ensure that those databases are secure people's privacy is not unwittingly invaded sir ee verified as a matter of the i t infrastructure meets the very stringent department of homeland security i t security standards we also meet all privacy act standards our privacy impact assessment and system of records notice is are both up to date with how we use our information and we will continue to meet those stringent standards i'm with an eye toward the importance of the very issues you're you're mentioning manager my time is up but i would just say to mr outlive that's a bureaucratic answer my question was what measures are you taking meeting standards lots of federal agencies are meeting standards and the hacking incidents are growing and becoming more successful and my question to you was what are we doing with this new program creating this new database that'll contractors to ensure their security greatest identity thefts in the united states and i think mr russell reinforces the hijacking of people sell security numbers and this helps to armor that to some degree so as we look at the high tech threat of going to the going to electronic system we also need to recognize that this is the low tech where the greatest abuse is so security identity theft is and that is as people getting a number and being able to use it because we don't have a check system the old i know i know documentation system has been a farce we've all known it so as we move forward i think the gentleman from fairfax is pointing out that that as we move away from a whole system that was very vulnerable let's try to armor the new but the house passed the version of the fiscal year two thousand and ten homeland security appropriations bill that was h r twenty eight ninety two and it includes a provision to require that both the social security administration and the department of homeland security in their into an agreement each fiscal year to provide funding to the so security administration to cover the full cost of the agency's either a fi related responsibilities and what do you think about this situation if you know about it we've had a very good working relationship with the s and we've been able to work this out the year after year to to get the adequate funding that that we need to do the most especially the fallout that occurs in our field we always appreciate when congress helps us to make certain that we get that level funding but i think it will simply reinforce the relationship we've had that could the the excellent working relationship we've had so i think i think it will be helpful in that sense one of the things i would stress is why we why we stressed the importance of this i mentioned the growth in our workloads in terms of two hundred fifty thousand this is more retirees than we expected three hundred fifty thousand more disability claims we budgeted for two and a half million this is three hundred fifty thousand on top of that so we are an agency under stress in that sense so so any assistance we get from v h s to help handle that work was very much appreciated and very critical to us a two thousand and six report by the social security administration inspector general that there were discrepancies and approximately seventeen point eight million of the four one hundred and thirty five million nova didn't record could result in an incorrect feedback it report noted particular concern about the extent of incorrect citizenship information and what's been done to improve the accuracy of noma didn't and have any more recent studies been conducted on this particular issue and how do you expect the social security administration and its field offices to be impacted by the new federal contract rule to answer your second question first we have gotten to the point now where balance point seven five percent or about seventy five out of every ten thousand queries that go through you verify end up in someone walking into our offices to resolve and a non confirmation so as you know if we are able to maintain that if we work very closely with our colleagues to reduce three years that number that workload but as the number of of matches as the number of  verifications go through you verify if that ratio holds we'll see more and more people coming into our offices and so again like i say just two years ago it was three percent now it's down the point seven five so that working with the h s we've substantially reduced that but it's still a fairly sizable workload so like i say this year it's over fifty thousand visits to our office related to into era fine on i mean you verify not confirmations going back to your first question that the the seventeen million is four point one percent of the entries they did the inspector general look not at those cases of for instance if you had ones that were no match in in the  while ago most of the information we get comes from individuals telling us stuff so if you went and got yourself a pretty card at sixteen and then you don't come to us again for many years you could that's when the marriage could happen a name change could happen at a worse could happen other things like that can happen that would then cause a discrepancy in a number so we have mechanisms for clearing clearing it up and for strengthening it you asked what we've done to strengthen the noumenon one i mentioned associa statement which goes out every year presents the information to people and asked them if there's any discrepancies to to contact just to clean it up secondly we use enhanced evidentiary requirements nail we we have birth certificates we have we see marriage licenses and marriage certificates we see naturalization papers we ask for documentation now when people come in to make these corrections so we think the new that is steadily beginning were accurate we we now citizenship because they were born in this country and so things of that nature these electronic mechanisms were going to make the data more accurate and more up to date i'm going to go now to ms tippett yes the gentleman from the great commonwealth of virginia brought up a very interesting issue and this is about the fact that we created barriers in the past from how the employers use a verify on existing employees and i i think clarify there were concerns about who would pick and choose which employees and we created that barrier for good reason for that time but he did bring up this item that i've got to say shows why these hearings are great is there reason why or is there a great barrier for the federal government to lead through example and start a process of phasing in checking all our existing employees as pointed out by the gentleman from fairfax county could the federal government do we have the capability to slieve but through example and start having our own internal operation now start checking up with these that wasn't an issue that we actually looked at quite deeply last year the leading by example was a theme of great interest to the last administration as well as now and we we did spend time looking at what is the current process is that the current workers have already been run through to verify their work authorization status and given that it was found that they are already quite rigorous and so at that time it didn't seem appropriate use of  resources to basically duplicate what had already been done in other steps through security check out c n n checks that and also the government's preparation for the h s p t two a process  of producing even more secure identity documents for for us as employees but that was something that was looked at very deeply again i would like to see that because i think that we need to revisit it make sure that just because the majority of the have already covered it because of other security checks and stuff doesn't mean there isn't enough that we need to look into and while we're on the subject seeing that you've got two former county chairmen here when we do this contract requirement does that apply to our local governments when we start giving them grants and are we going to now start require government that gets our money to start responding in the same manner that we're requiring the private sector to respond to the federal b s your question is no the far regulation does have some discreet exemptions sub contractors for contract values of less than three thousand dollars are exempted cots the commercial off the shelf products those contracts are exempted as well ok now now you said that for the private sector how about the public sector when they is there any requirement that that local governments when they start getting grants we start phasing this i'm wondering about this issue because when we start giving transportation funds the american people are starting to say we want to make sure that that federal funds aren't going into going into fraud are we requiring that all on our on our states in our counties inner cities as they get federal funds as this become a tradition or are we just basically been blindsided on that we're just working on the private sector right now the grants are excluded from the car regulation ok thank you very much madam chair i have a feeling that we need to revisit this whole thing again leading to example and that means the federal government and the local government and the states need to lead through example you about its economy of that union i have no further questions but of well i'm sorry that when the able to get here before now but let me just ask you a couple quick questions how much how much are we spending homeless is the federal government spend on this program at this time are the verify budget for this year is comprised of about one hundred million dollars in appropriations that was given for f y o nine and we also had twenty or thirty million dollars from f y o eight appropriations that we wisely and efficiently did not spend and it rolled over so this year we will be spending close to the one hundred twenty  hundred thirty dollars million dollar budget some of those are one time costs for system improvements that will not need to be put into our baseline program funding and i that there is now one hundred thirty four thousand employers or companies that have used the system well that was three weeks ago it's growing by a thousand a week so now we're up to about one hundred thirty seven that was going to be my next question how fast it was growing and it's growing at about a thousand more employers per week yes sir and i'm also told that right now there's one employee for each twelve hundred fifty employers sir in terms of our staffing there's a certain baseline staffing you need whether you verify has a thousand employers in it or seven million for example it takes a certain number of of staff to write a regulation no matter how many employers it's going to affect so that our staffing number we have about two hundred employees right now working on a verify roughly that will not grow in huge numbers as the program grows that a lot of that is a baseline program staffing the pieces that grow the biggest piece will be outreach so we're appropriately helping employers who are signing up know how to use the system and monitoring in compliance so we're able to make sure those employers are using the system properly and reaching out to them if they are not so we have been basically building a program that would be ready if congress chooses to make it mandatory and i i think that we are very far down the road in terms of being ready should congress  authorize such a change to the program and the seven million figure that you mentioned just a few moments ago is that the number of employers that your department estimates are in this country today yes sir we use  about seven point two million employers seven point two million so so even that for your one hundred thirty seven thousand employers using this system now as it is just a tiny percentage then of the total number of employers in the country it is the hundred thirty seven thousand represents about a half a million work sites and that is the more apples to apples comparison to the seven point two million but  witness seen we appreciate it and you may now leave the table i'd like to invite our second panel two witnesses to come forth and remain standing please it's the committee's policy that all witnesses a sworn in i'd like you to raise your right hand as i administer the oath do you solemnly swear to tell the truth the photo and nothing but the truth ye thank you and let the record show that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative you may now be seated that each one of you now give a brief summary of your testimony and to keep your testimony within five minutes if you can because your complete written statement will be included in the hearing record thank you i have first would like to introduce ms gina baker mcneil and who is the heritage foundation's homeland security policy analyst where she focuses on border security immigration technology and other issues she previously worked for the hutchison group i always see as a research assistant and as an environmental management chairwoman madam chairwoman ranking member bilbray and the members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the topic of the verify i should state beforehand that the views expressed in this testimony are my own and should not be construed as representative of an official position of the heritage foundation workplace immigration enforcement is vital to breaking the cycle of dependency on the legal labor these policies however should center on three goals first keeping america free second keeping america safe and third keeping it prosperous we should not compromise one of these goals to gain another and all three can and should be met with respect to america's immigration policies either a fiat is a tool that meets these requirements but i want to emphasize up front that even a fire remains only one piece of the immigration puzzle the right approach to solving the immigration dilemma will include the following aspects first in forstmann of immigration laws in the workplace second a safeguarding of the southern border third promotion of economic development in latin america to provide illegal immigrants economic opportunities at home for enhanced than illegal worker programs here in the us to meet the needs of employers and immigrants this reforms that citizenship and immigration services to handle legal immigration in a better way and finally strengthening of citizenship requirements and programs to foster assimilation effective enforcement doesn't require a costly amnesty that would erode rule of law and be patently unfair to legal immigrants tackles the immigration problem by going to the heart of what draws legal immigrants to the us finding employment at present more than one hundred seven thirty seven thousand employers participate in even a five voluntarily five is being used to determine work authorization for one in four new hires nationwide contributing to the success is that even if i helps employers enforce immigration laws in a way that is humane and fair cost effective for business and maintains privacy even if i can determine quickly and accurately thought then to city of the personal information and credentials offered by new hires of course  without its challenges it has low error rates that more can be done to drive down the rate of error while the software is free there is a cost doing business with the verify but this cost is negated by driving down other costs such as the cost of having to find a new employee later if employee turns out to be legal or the stiff penalties if discovered finally the only personal information entered into you verify is the employee's name dat birth social security number and citizenship status this is information already on the i nine and neither the eager five employees nor the employer can access any more information maintaining privacy the administration's recent announcement to have banned in social security no match however is a step backwards in terms of him workplace enforcement and this action since the message that d h s will not enforce the law against employing illegal workers furthermore d h s has yet to implement the federal contractors provision signed by president bush in two thousand and eight which requires all federal contractors to use a verifiable the administration has announced plans to comply and this is a step in the right direction going forward congress should permanently authorize the verify and provide adequate funding for its implementation d h s should crafty rare fire rules to apply to all workers under federal government contracts otherwise the result will be less workplace enforcement not more v h s and congress should work together to drive down the already low error rates and finally v h s should not abandon no match but should instead move forward with it at the same time congress should grant the social security administration the ability to share data directly to d h s a law all in t h s to target large scale employers of illegal workers it surely smart and toss in force that policy will be one that creates disincentives to unlawful immigration is cost effective to tax individual data in privacy and minimizes the burdens on employers while addressing concerns over safety and security even if i does this meeting those ultimate goals of keeping america free keeping it safe and keeping it prosperous thank you and i'll be happy to answer your questions policy where he works with business leaders to shape the chambers position on immigration reform legalization barta security the said processing and guest worker program six minutes or the five minutes that i have to give some concrete examples of what you have been talking about a lot has been said about you know what the h s your mandate or not mandate i will point out again that the underlying law says the secretary of homeland security may not require any personal or other n t p to participate in the very five program they call it pilot programs but you know he's on the line law that gave to the creation of a very far we do believe that you know five doesn't do away with any of the other requirements you still need to do the i nine you still need to do the other processing that you need to do when you hire a new worker he says he made that already employees spend between ten to twelve million hours in the hiring and processing of about fifty as you heard fifty to sixty million workers i study in two thousand and five said that the estimated total compliance costs of work play workplace regulations is about ninety one billion five years later when they did a follow up study using two thousand and four dollars the cost was already at one hundred six billion when you make these requirements and we had a witness come that own about seven franchisees burger king franchises he testified as to the cost of training and the cost of following up with the tens of these non confirmation attorneys and all of these things so when you think about a fee i just want to point out this is not free you know the employers are willing to help the government  their mandated program we're willing to support and we have supported mandated programs in the past we could support a federal contractors mandate but only we have certain requirements one of the numbers they used in the prior plan are was one fourteenth of all employers uses uses less than one percent now and when we look at actually sorry this is seven percent when we look at this body of employers is very small most of the comments i get from people complaining about the program and complaining about what he's about to be require are people using the program they sign a name or you which is a contract they agree with the government to do certain things what congress i interesting that every time the government has looked at running their own program which has been an idea only the idea that is being pushed by a f l cio might be one of the only things we agree with them in this congress they government looks at it they always say well it's only through new hires but of manpower hours just to bring everybody back in for two hundred fifty thousand there are ways of doing this senator obama had an amendment when he was a member of the senate in two thousand and seven that said let's share the information with their security administration get a no match a letter to the employees saying we verify these workers but don't read very far you know your entire workforce if our small employer you we do not oppose the language that makes me very good gave him voluntary because if you have three employees you in your class and you want to vary amendment that was presented in two thousand and five for a woman you voted against it but we would hope to have you support next time but you know congressman duncan congressman qualia in two thousand and five voted to keep liability for contractors only if they knew that the top contractors was violating the law because there's a lot of things on the m r u and the contractor cannot be held responsible for everything even because that's where you go with the sub contractors you don't have to run the workforce finally in my last ten seconds i would just point out that we need to create one law and we need to strengthen the preemption language that we have because employers to be able to comply with immigration law by complying with the feds are low thank you very much steps being taken by the social security administration in the u s cia has to balance the requirements of eve or with ongoing agency demands and are the additional agency staff members being hired to deal with an influx of queries related to even our our existing staff members being reassigned so what can madam chairwoman i can answer your question as far as i think that you know right now the south of the charity administration and the department of homeland security are well equipped to handle what we have now which and quick to handle the number of workers that could happen if we had a universal system but i want to emphasize that a universal system might not be the silver bullet approach right now and you know i think they're well equipped at the moment they have the right kind of staff in place but  universal system you know they may not have the staff in place for that now and i think that it shows is that not only would a mandatory system right now not be the best approach for all industries obviously when we want to move towards a system where everyone would use the system use a very five but i think that using it in a mandatory fashion right now would not be the best approach either from the government side or from the business side because we don't have the right things in place to ensure that all employers and the government are doing things in an accurate cost effective manner ok and with fewer than two percent of all employers in road  can we possibly gauge whether their current system will be able to hand or rising number of who are e's on an annual basis well i think i think the madam chairwoman i think the biggest thing that shows how good the system is right now is that ninety six point nine percent of the people who are put in the event are free air fire right now are getting a confirmation that says you're great go and work and then too only two point eight percent are actually getting a final non confirmation that shows how accurate the system is that it's really hard to find that level of accuracy in other databases and other parts of government and this is the right kind of efficiencies that we need to have in the federal government so i think that numbers on how you deal with accuracy differ and i want to point out that intel corporation that its own study the accuracy or how often do you get a tenth of the non confirmation something other than confirm for their employees then i want to compare it with the individual that testified that uses a very five point seven burger king franchise as in arizona they both came back with an about fifteen percent of the time they got an answer rather than tentative non confirmation and every time that happens because again we're not just talking about so i park our green red light you're getting out you get out these an employee you have you have a number of other requirements you need to be very careful that you do not change training you cannot change work hours you do not change any of these things so there are a l opens up and there are other burdens and for them the number they're looking at is fifteen percent is not whether three months down the road you finally fix a problem with us our security number they're looking at today iran you through the system it came as a t n c what do i do now and there is a process for that so the two percent one percent or whatever number it's up to congress to decide what error rate they want to live with these enough for businesses but since no program is going to be one hundred percent accurate you then need to look at the saved cards because employers and  s are going to have to live with this there was a provision again in the senate that passed that provide that lost wages for employees at the end of the day got fire and it ended up being an error of the system and even though chertoff at the time was saying that this was a wonderful almost perfect program they oppose that amendment based on the lowest wages and based on the fees that employers would get you know if it was an error of the system we are all for you know a mandated program but we've got to do it right because there will be errors and somebody's going to pay the consequences still a work in p and in what ways have some of the recent enhancements to either including the use of the photo to help improve the system for businesses well if it is an improvement in to computer to compare it with a computer they got on the feel will copy the license fax it to the guy in the central office doing the file on the computer and now he's looking at a copy now yes to make a determination and he said you know we found it more often than not it's like well you know how how accurate is my comparison and what happens in an audit when they go on the audit so we have an audit right now the six hundred fifty two employers i got a call from somebody who said that he was getting citations out of the fifty nine i ninety had on record because he failed to ride the address of the employer the employer is being sinai's are being kept by his side he has his name and he said well i write in my now you know well you know we were just being quite w about people it's another forty seven citations we need to make sure and they look at a very five yet another potential for the billy b when they do audit some paperwork and other means uses other than you know not running somebody to the system so that's the safeguards we're looking for well with the concept of this is a work in progress who'd like to hear from you as to how you think we can effect the system well one of the things we continue to save and as i said you don't have to give us eighteen thousand percent of eighteen thousand firms basically hire fifty percent of all americans so you know my make sense to go with bigger employers first but you need to also put those safeguards and then as this comes up and you realize the problems that they have then keep on going but employers are different you cannot expect somebody four million to have see what the four employees to have the same capacity as the eighteen thousand and we're going to depend on you letting us know what you think we need to do to correct the system we're going to hold and there's a hearing down the line mine too and even there i just to see that we need to do in terms of policy and i would like as being a free system is not really free to businesses could you elaborate on that a little bit and how much it might cost and i assume that it's varies from employer to employer for instance i've noticed over the years that a company like u p s when i go visit u p s facilities out people that work there are commonly twenty or twenty five years yet fast food places they have some of them three hundred percent four hundred percent a year turnover so people work in the average of three or four six months there and what happened is that factory and yeah i guess our view is that there's no such thing as a free lunch and there's no such thing as a free mandate and this is a perfect need to take people out of you know their work the system managers that are doing the hiring to train them and the training alone and you basically get he twice you know you have the person in training and you don't have them at the work site defacto you have all these new employees you need to continuously be running these individuals then you have large companies who have other concerns when you talk about the large predator contractor the say well we don't really have a big problem using a very fine now for new hires but we would have a big problem if we need to go run which is our immigration subcommittee chair has forty five thousand employees and they're all over the united states they don't have a centralized system that we're going to have to start paying for auditors to go over there we need to bring everybody and give them a training so everybody does it same way because he the moment one place starts doing it different then you have to wait a second what are you trying to do you're trying to discriminate against people in texas versus people in washington so when those are low cost you know the training and the facilities and and the manpower and the is a big concern for them do you think do you think that because this is such a big and overwhelming problem that it's just it's just going to be impossible to do something all and i think we can even mandate unemployment very few cation program but what we have continued to say is we want to make sure and even outside of comprehensive reform what my members are telling me we just need to make sure that he's arrived program and he has a say the right safeguards you  and ways to fix in addressing the issues for example if what you want to do is figure out whether the name which is what he verified does the name and such a security number of those currently working match there's a process for that now the numbers go to this our security administration and there was an amendment that put the burden on the chest to send a letter to the employees saying very fired these individuals and the employers are willing to do that so that's a way of doing that very few cation  n let me say before my time runs out first of all i think that your suggestion about going to the biggest employers first makes is just common sense and secondly almost all federal contracts are so illegal and of that six million do you have those figures i don't have those figures on hand i'd be happy to see if i could find them and provide them for you for the record however i will say that to point you know two point eight percent of the people are found to be fine on confirmations and those people hispanic center and the center for immigration studies estimated that the amount of unauthorized workers in the workforce is about forty five percent so it's about on average less that's g and have there have been any examples of anybody who's in any legal worker who's lost his his or her job due to incorrect information under this system while there are going to be people who were denied positions because they were fine along confirmations but that doesn't mean that they were necessarily denied incorrectly for the position but i'll also say congressman that if there is a situation where it becomes a discriminatory situation where it's a pre scan screening thing that's against the verify you know there's penalties in place for that and i think that we need to educate employers better on figuring out how do you see verifying if in an effective way because a lot of employers are confused on subjects such as how do you see verify in the way that actually meets the law so i think that that's also an important element that education angle all right thank you very much chairman if i could pick up on my friend from tennessee's questioning isn't it true that that two point eight percent you're referring to they may be denied employment because they are found to be non compliant does that not correct that's absolutely true but what's in the system doesn't tell you whether the noncompliance is as to their immigration status or just the failure to provide proper documentation congress and that's absolutely correct so there's no way you're ever going to get back to mr duncan giving him numbers about here is the estimated number of illegals in the system has caught for example i only have eight days in which to provide a birth certificate for example or a marriage certificate and if i'm in california applying as a new hire for a job and those documents are back home in virginia it's conceivable bureaucracies being bureaucracies that  documentation just is not forthcoming within the requisite time period is that not correct that's absolutely correct and i think we need to work on that on the accuracy and i would be found to be non compliant in failing to provide that documentation and  not to be hired is that correct it's it's very possible that that could happen here on our scuse me congressman and i would just say if if i were a major employer even if i were a small business employer that would concern me because not you know as an individual i'm not in control of how quickly such documentation may be made available to me another one can fly back to the state capitol and get that birth certificate and i think that that congress i think that makes the point for why we need to work on the accuracy of the verify for those exact situations that are very few and far between but i don't think it's a reason to derail the verify as a useful to know and enforcement i'm just pointing out a potential flaw in the system that doesn't really capture whether someone is here illegally or not it may just capture the failure for whatever reason to provide the necessary documentation and congressman i think we absolutely want any any american worker or legal immigrant that's here to work i think we want that to get them into those positions so i think working to remedy errors and accuracy and and making it so that people can fix stuff easily is as vital to the process and this amador i want to give you an opportunity to come out of this as well because i i see this is a potential inefficiency we're adding with the best of intentions that we've got to address but let me just say you are way too modest just a little bit earlier in your testimony referring to the fact that maybe there was only one area you were the chamber long as you're not the one to love the job what we're saying is for these individuals whether it is one person or whether it's ten and again you know that's an argument made stronger by you know the civil rights groups we didn't support or oppose the  t wages provision our concern was let's make sure they don't come after the employer because we are just doing the government's job and i always find interesting that that was the one reason why the h s at the time came after  the amendment is so wait a second we cannot be pain back lost wages i said well he's an error in the system if the person we're willing to put protections aside while the person must follow all the steps they must do everything ready by the end of the day you didn't get your papers on time and you were fired because we were for the results of a very fine you need to also provide the protection for both employers and their employees and that's why i said you know a very fire is good but i'm just saying far few and far between and ignoring it is not the right way to go let's make it right so we can all again we're all going to have to live with it and on the requirements of whether we use said why don't wrong you pointed out something to the prior panel that he's very important here these rules keep on changing employers will like to start very f most of the drivers are members of unions that they cannot be verified these workforce and they're trying to figure out if we have to go back how do we renegotiate that with the unions because now we're going to be in breach of a contract and you know negotiating with the unions is not always for your perspective one  amador did did you cite the statistic i thought i heard you say a little bit earlier that when you look at the number of new hires every year in the united states is approaching sixty million correct so if we had a two point eight percent noncompliance rate for whatever reason that's a lot of people that's almost one point eight million people is that correct that's correct so it sounds like it's you know there's acceptable statistical margin of error but it's actually a lot of people denied employment and when you start with federal contractors and on this note madam chairman the problem is it's not just gee i could get fined if they get you're wrong so let's put you over there and hopefully get your documentation  and then we can consider employment there may be hundreds of millions of dollars of federal contracts at stake your collateral damage i haven't got time to wait for verification of the documents to arrive in time and so i am a little bit worried about that because with the best of intentions moving forward there are a lot of people the faults of the cracks surely innocently because of the mail system or the lack of responsiveness by some other employer as well yes i think you might have that manager thank you are there the questions it started with a percentage that you were talking about the four percent were playing around with the over would you agree that the overwhelming majority of that percentage either do not contest the ruling or the or found to be not qualified most of them did not come to as a ruling right why would they not contest well according to the government study there's a because they go to another job it takes too long and they do something else they can move in you don't you know where you don't think the majority of non contestants are people who aren't qualified i'm not an expert in the field that's what the government is saying and i'll go with what the independent study says ok they the fact is is that we have a thousand new employees voluntarily going onto a system right now i don't know where sitting at ninety four percent efficiency can you show a federal program that you know of that is at that level of effi i'm not an expert in other programs ok i i don't have an actual data for a specific database that i would say that that's a high level high level of efficiency and accuracy for the federal government database i done and let me just say this i don't know we forget about what the old system is my family's been in the taxes and since a year i was born i guess my mother decided look one look at me and decide to get another business and having children but that's a separate issue i look has anybody of you ever experienced a situation where somebody gets you or so security number and uses it and uses it to file or do you know of anybody that's ever run into the old system where the fraud of the of the legal use of a cell security number and the problems that are are you aware of the problems with the old system with the fraud occurring from somebody using someone else's so security number and the complications that cause for the innocent bystander whose numbers been picked up and used for illegal  you know let me let me say the verify the way we're we're busting that now is the roulette tronic filing sir so it's just the opposite the trouble is that when you get notified that your tax return can't be filed you're saying that you think the verify will cause more fraud in the system than the paper system that we have now that we've had for the last thirty what i'm saying is that the government study that looked at it and g a o us well stated that that even if i promote more identity fraud because now instead of just making us a security number in paper and having ideas that look real you need somebody is actual name and security number and they're saying that five promoting that again swift that was raided and they found all these undocumented there were actual they they had all been through a very fine they all had real names and we also secured the numbers to get a comment congressman i think i think the point to be made is that mr meters correct about you know that there are there is problems with identity theft and with off the books employment that even if i right now they're working towards it they can't catch that right now but that's why i would emphasize that even if i is a great tool for document fraud we should implement it and then we should also follow up with things like social security no match enforcement investigations and other things that help us squeeze out the process you know you stop people first from document fraud then you you know we eventually we're going to get to workforces but as the other as a previous witness has pointed out this is not an isolation we've got now online in the real id bill so that the base documents will have the electronic capability where an employer now will have more reliable tools to draw on friday an occasion and won't you agree that we say or do the identification when it's upgraded to the real id standard will help substantially in addressing this issue from an employee's point of view well i haven't i haven't we haven't taken  security card since one thousand nine hundred eighty seven when it was introduced and why is the federal government federal in identification document for employment a piece of paper with a name and a number when no other government agency that i know of is using that technology today you have any give a gives the view is that he's expensive you know that's not our view we are in favor of updating the the if there's a good the car will last for this is a good number to be hard to be updated because that he's you know a prime form of identification i think from what i have read either the main the main reason is the cost  disagree with him about the benefits of the pie program potentially and really mike cern is that we as quickly as we can identify what could go wrong though in anticipation of that so we can manage it and we can address those issues rather than having a program get very far down the road and very large only discover we have all kinds of problems and i know like my friend from california i'm always skeptical of anything that he has a whiff of being an unfunded mandate because having been in local governments we know the for mick gooda and i appreciate that and my my biggest concern is a fact that as somebody comes from local government like you is utilizing those resources in the most cost effective way and that rather than having that's why real idea is so essential it limits the need for citizens have a federal id if states are upgraded to a minimum federal standard you will avoid the federal id issue but the feds do have an obligation here as they represent of the chamber pointed out that while everyone else is improving and has evolved it appears to the public that the federal government has a constant strategy of saying we won't upgrade and the cost issue just evaporates when you look at i don't see that as being the argument used by local governments across this country for upgrading drivers licenses  over the years but the political aspect of it and i'll just point out that one of the greatest breakthroughs for the consumer in privacy and inefficiency that the i r s has implemented is the eve filing it has been such a great breakthrough and it's been one of the greatest helps at the tech early detection of fraud because before somebody could steal your lot you're you're so scared a number file under your number and you would never know about it until years later until you're audited for income that you didn't declare that you didn't even know but it got filed today you were notified within you know within a short or the time that there was in fact you can't file your tax return and what if somebody filed your number ahead of time it notifies you so you get that warning eat filing has been a great breakthrough i think that this technology is one of those things we need to embrace we need to improve we should accept it as a god but we darn well want to see it as a great tool that we need for and the private citizen that i know of in in cash exchanges and everything else if they've been able to do it since one thousand nine hundred twenty the federal government should be able to transfer numbers and information at least half as efficiently so i think there is the big challenge we have there thank you very much on your back and yes i would want to thank the panel for your testimony and for the information of our members we will have a follow up hearing and i'd like to invite our witnesses and those in the audience that are vested in a verify contact us with ideas of how we can improve we do have to commit the dollars if we broaden this system and correct any weaknesses in it that would be a phreaking and that is not to anything that we would say would be factual but it did come up in the testimony and so if there are no further questions i think you and you may be excused we