the it is five after ten and so the hearing on the subcommittee on immigration citizenship refugees border security and international law will come to order i would like to welcome the subcommittee members are witnesses and members of the public to the subcommittees hearing on electronic employment verification systems otherwise known as the e b s systems which you've made mandatory as some have proposed would affect all one hundred sixty three million united states workers and seven million employers in the united states in this hearing i look forward to examining how u s workers may be impacted by a mandatory each a v s and explore ways to protect us workers from unintended consequences of e and or potential misuse last year the immigration subcommittee held two hearings on employment eligibility verification systems in the context of comprehensive immigration reform that first hearing on april twenty fourth two thousand and seven examined problems with the current paper based system as well as the electronic employment verification system and the second hearing on april twenty sixth two thousand and seven explore proposals to improve employment eligible  a s currently the only function the event is known as basic pilot or even it's a voluntary program less than one percent of all employers in the us are currently enrolled to use either of our in addition the government accountability office says that only half of the registered employers are active users who have used the system at least once at current level of use according to d h s in august last year even if i received approximately two million two million queries a year if is made mandatory for all employers there would be sixty three million queries a year for new employees and there are many proposals that would go beyond verification of new employees to include existing employees and there are one hundred  sixty three million estimated workers in the united states at this time as we consider mandatory e b s for all employees we should consider problems in the existing program to avoid problems on a larger scale some of the issues we hope to consider today stem from reports produced by our own government a non governmental research corporation and universities these reports raise concern learns about u s workers being wrongfully denied work authorization  in april two thousand and seven service employees international union testified before this committee that unless database errors are cured twenty four thousand of the three hundred thousand estimated workers in each congressional district would be  y denied the eligibility to work by either a file that did catch our attention because all twenty four thousand of those american citizens will be calling our offices the reports of also documented some employer misuse of either five two thousand and seven westat report states that sixteen percent of employers reported that they had failed to train all of their relevant staff on the systems in addition although even five were hits registered employers from using pre employment screening of job applicants this practice is common among employers almost one third thirty one percent reported using even five to verify employment eligibility before the before the employee's first day of paid work including many use prescreening at the time of the employee's application employers also reported significant difficulty meeting the requirement of verifying new employees information within three days of the employee's first day of work according to west that g a o and other outside experts anyone who claims to be an employer can sign up to use a verify by signing an ammo you with the h s and as as a thereby obtaining the ability to access very private information so we want to make sure that whatever we do as we move forward does keep secure the private information of our americans these are just some of the issues that have been raised before the congress moves forward on an effort to expand the system we want to consider the issues thoroughly so that they may be appropriately address and i hope that this hearing will provide us with a thorough understanding of these issues and the opportunity to identify with to address them successfully with that i would recognize our ranking member  for his opening statement thank you madam chair for the past decade the basic pilot program has given american employers a fast and easy method to ensure that their new employees are genuinely eligible to work in this country employers are signing up in droves about one thousand new employers per week and that's also being inspired because some states have mandated that their home state employers use the basic pilot program now referred to as a verify my d h s basic pilot allows employers to check the so security numbers and alien identification numbers of new employees against social security administration and v h s records in order to ensure that they match this is what the american people want seventy nine percent of americans polled believe the federal government should require all employers to verify u s citizenship or lawful presence for each job applicant by a telephone or online check of a federal database the basic pilot program reduces and i'll repeat that the basic pilot program reduces job discrimination the two thousand and seven westat report on the internet based basic pilot program found that most users reported that the web that the web based basic pilot program made them neither more nor less willing to hire illegal immigrants are to hire immigrants excuse me legal workers however when change was reported it was almost always in the direction of making employers more willing to hire immigrants now the requirements of basic pilot program to do not always make sense for employers for example the way it prohibits employers from verifying individuals before they are offered a job no employer wants to be forced to keep an illegal immigrant on the payroll for perhaps weeks while they go through secondary verification that and that is a burden employers should be able to check all job candidates before they are hired as long as they do so in a nondiscriminatory manner employers should also be able to vera there are existing employees that their work authorize not just for new hires not only will this give employers peace of mind it will ensure that we don't simply allow all seven million employed illegal immigrants to keep their current job this being said the u s c i s does need to ensure that all employers who use the basic pilot program in here to the memorandum of understanding that they sign u s c i s is on the right track in beefing up its monitoring and compliance programs to better detect and deter potential misuse and abuse of the program by employers the accuracy of the basic pilot program is remarkable the two thousand and seven westat report revealed that just about ninety nine and a half percent nationally was ninety nine point four percent of all work authorized employees are immediately verified immediately verified and the basic pilot program is going to get even better the system now automatically checks naturalization records before issuing a citizenship status mismatch in addition naturalized citizens who receive a mismatch are now able to contact the h s by phone to address the discrepancy so it's getting better u s citizenship and immigration services is also dealing with the potential for identity theft in different ways first it has added a photo screening capability this allows employers to compare the photos of employment authorized documents and permanent resident cards and those that are presented by employees to the employers and compare those pictures against the images stored in u s c i s databases d h s s long term goal is to allow employers to verify the photo on all identified identity documents that employees present second in the future the basic pilot program will provide information on the suspicious multiple use of social security numbers in the context of basic pilot program to ice for investigation basic pilot has proven its worth it deserves to be made permanent and employers deserve the right to be able to check the work eligibility of their entire workforce is not just new hires i'll shortly introduce legislation called the new id act in it's a refreshing of a bill that i introduced and in the hundred  congress that bill eliminates the deductibility of wages and benefits paid to illegals it gives the employer safe harbor if he uses basic pilot slashy verify and it also extend legislation and makes it permanent and allows employer employers to verify current hires are current employees as well as job applicants so i want to thank mr kalvin to do snakes legislation having the vision more than ten years ago to get us to this point where we are today and i would ask this point how do you perfect a system we have a system that's almost perfect now by and by a standard of measure one out of two hundred legitimate job applicants is rejected by the system and generally that's because they have failed to register a name change that's not a government problem except that government needs to cooperate and facilitate the correction of that i think soon we'll see it'll be one out of four hundred and maybe we'll hear that testimony today so how do you correct a system you use it and the comment about access to very private information and i'm signed up on basic pilot i've used it in my office and i don't have access to any private information except job applicant information so i will perhaps we'll get that issue illuminated a little bit as the hearing goes on and then with regard to only one percent of employers use it and only two million hits a year compared to fifty three million we can grow this system to address this and we know how to do that and it is the answer is to use it so with that i think that what is sort of reading here today and  congress also require employers to check the identity and work eligibility documents of all new employees unfortunately the easy availability of counterfeit documents soon made a mockery of this process employers who didn't i want to hire illegal immigrants had no choice but to accept documents they knew were likely to be false congress took action in the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act of one nine hundred ninety six the i created the basic pilot program the last decade this program has provided american employers who want to do the right thing with an effective tool to ensure that they are hiring a legal workforce that ensures that new employees are not providing their employers with fake so security numbers as a basic pilot program has grown more popular over sixty nine thousand employers nationwide now participate it has been the subject of some very unfair criticism and i want to set the record straight participating employers are very happy with the basic pilot program last year an outside evaluation found that quote most employers found the web to be an effective and reliable tool for employment verification and ninety six percent did not believe that it  overburden their status the accuracy of the databases that lie at the heart of the basic program has been unfairly maligned however the facts about these databases could not be better last year's outside a valuation found that in less than one percent actually only point six percent of cases do employees who were eventually determined to be work authorized receive a tentative non confirmation and undergo secondary verification this means as the ranking  member of the subcommittee mentioned a while ago that persons eligible to work we see immediate confirmation ninety nine point four percent of the time for the native born ninety nine point nine percent receive confirmation and for employees born outside the united states ninety seven percent we see immediate confirmation a common mis perception is that secondary verification means error by a federal agency simply the case secondary verification most often means that an illegal immigrant has been caught providing bogus information or that an employee has failed to update their records with the so security administration this fact is seldom acknowledged even when persons eligible to work have to go through secondary verification they are largely satisfied with the services provided by s s a the employees who contacted local s s a offices as part of the verification process ninety five percent said their work problem was resolved in a timely courteous and efficient manner finally it has been specifically alleged that the security administration's inspector general has found the agency's database to be  accurate however the inspector general actually stated that quote we applaud the agency on the accuracy of the data we tested the basic pilot program has worked well in the vast majority of cases employers find out immediately their new employees are work authorized over ninety nine percent of the time and legal workers receive an instantaneous confirmation we'll hear testimony today from u s citizenship and immigration services that they are putting improvements into place that will make the basic pilot program even more responses finally i want to applaud the administration's decision to require companies who contract with the federal government to use the basic pilot program this protects the american worker by ensuring that all federal thank you and ranking member steve king this is an important hearing electronic employment verification system and we  have very distinguished panel representative calvert started this stuff and then representative shuler wants to improve upon it and now comes representative sam johnson of texas with his cohort representative giffords and they've got plan b and  so i want to commend the sure woman of the committee and the ranking member for putting this kind of a hearing together today it's very important  we're looking to sort out some of the fact and fiction about the way this program is operating and how we can improve  basic plan a or plan b but everyone's interest i think is commendable because what we're trying to do is see how we can improve the electronic employment verification system it starts out so simple and and the solutions seem quite  logical how do we deal with illegal immigration all new hires must be checked against social security and homeland security databases to see if there entitled to work in the united states what's the problem well the problem is how does the system really w essentially we can become a super giant government database on all americans and require american workers to be registered and checked for hiring true or false well we'll get the answers from you for this morning who will impose a burden on small businesses whether their workforce is a hundred percent american or includes some immigrants to vote it will drive immigrant workers even further underground two or fall it will cost seventeen billion dollars in lost tax revenues to false it will constitute a significant step toward a national identification car who so let's let's get it on with madam chair and i thank you for this thank you mr chairman in the interest of proceeding to our witnesses  mindful of our busy schedules the opening statements of all other members without objection will be made a part of the record and we will now go to our first panel all four of our colleagues sitting before us have been active and leaders in this issue we appreciate their being here with us today i am going to first introduce congressman can calvert who was elected in one thousand nine hundred two represents california's forty fourth congressional district which includes riverside in orange county is a former small businessman and currently serves on the house appropriations committee in one thousand nine hundred sixty op that authored a bill that was included in the one nine hundred ninety seven omnibus appropriation bill which created the basic pilot program which is now five a i think you were the first can next we have congress and he sure who represents north carolina's eleventh district congress and shuler received his be a from the university of tennessee in two thousand and one is a former professional athlete and business owner he is married has two children navy and island and he remains an active member in the fellowship of christian athletes also pleased to welcome congressman sam johnson who represents the people of texas third district mr johnson serves on the committee of ways and means and as a ranking member on the social security subcommittee he returned home to texas after serving in the u s air force for twenty nine years as a highly decorated fighter pilot he flew combat missions in both the korean and vietnam wars and was a prisoner of war in her noise for nearly seven years after his just distinguished military career congressman johnson started a home building business from scratch and served in the texas legislature and finally committee the house foreign affairs committee a third generation arizona and and the youngest woman ever elected to the arizona state senate congresswoman giffords represented her hometown of tucson in the arizona legislature from two thousand to two thousand five during her service in both the arizona house and senate she worked on legislation to expand health care coverage for arizona families and to protect air arizona's environment and open spaces you're all welcome to submit your full  statement for the record you know that we ask that oral testimony consume about five minutes i know that congressman calvert has a competing obligation in the transportation committee so we're going to ask congress and calvert to go first and you if you need to leave before we get to questions we've all been there we will understand so let's begin with you congressman calvert thank you thank you chairwoman lochan chairman conyers ranking member king and members of the committee good morning thank you for inviting me here to testify today several years ago i was happy to work with chairwoman blocker and to help improve our legal immigration system with a bill that allows legal permanent resident applicants to name a new sponsor if their regional sponsor died during the process of becoming a united states citizen and i look forward to working with the chairwoman on the two bills i venture duce regarding even h r nineteen would make the program mandatory h r five hundred ninety six would provide a straightforward ten year extension to the current program when i first wrote the bill that created by attention we created it on a limited basis for the very reasons we are here today to ensure that it would not be abused or be a source of s misinformation is vital that participating employers who volunteer to use this program and the new employees who are hired are not disenfranchised from its humble beginnings in just five states even is now available nationwide with approximately seventy thousand and lawyers participating a recent westat report shows that ninety four point two percent of all checks to the system are automatically verified as authorized to work for a moment remaining five point eight percent are employees that receive an initial mismatch and need to take further action to prove that they are authorized to work in united states for many people this means or so security records are in need of an update perhaps they have a new marital status or have become naturalized citizens or ninety percent of those in the jewel case the process takes less than two days of the eight business days allowed to work out either d h s or s s a to correct that discrepancy it is important to point out that an individual's personal information if a personal information is out of date or incorrectly recorded with s s a this information must be rectified anyway to ensure that there are so security credits are properly recorded just a few weeks ago even introduce software changes that will automate the correction process which reduce the number of visits to the social security offices from five presently to two or three per thousand a fifty percent improvement of the five point eight percent of queries that do not receive instant verification point five percent resolve the mismatch and the remaining five point three percent walk away from the process entirely why did they walk away a nine jobs to people here illegally i would also like to point out that the protections already in place that specifically protect workers from employers abusing the system first employers must check all new employees it is against the law to use it as a screening tool when employees notified there is a mismatch they are provided with instructions on how to correct the information that instruction sheet also provides a toll free number to the office of special counsel for immigration related employment practices even also has launched an information campaign aimed at informing and promoting employees promoting employees of their rights within the program participating employers must also post a notice visible to prospective employees of their rights and a phone number for the special counsel even has also an office of compliance and a moderate branch has begun monitoring employer usage of the program after a recent hearing held by the on social security i met with the people who run to ask them about some of the questions raised at the hearing about the program and problems employers in arizona have encountered has never notified an incorrect final non confirmation this is good news for both the employers and employees who are in increasing numbers being required to use the program the state of arizona and mississippi require all employers to use even and friday president bush signed an executive order requiring all federal contractors to use the program is not perfect no system is but it's a very good system that has safeguards to ensure that employers and employees rights are being protected in accordance with the law i thank you for inviting me here today and i apologize that i must leave as i mentioned to you madam chairman for the transportation infrastructure committee i appreciate your time and if anyone would like to have questions later on i'd be more happy to simply answer thank you very much thank you very much congressman catholic we are pleased to and if we do have questions we'll forward them to you in writing we thank you very much  today two hundred forty five members of congress from forty four states have joined their constituents in calling for debate and a vote on the say that we are committed to stopping illegal immigration through improved border security employment verification and interior enforcement we cannot continue to ignore our immigration crisis by passing it on to future congresses and future presidents u s customs and border protection estimates that over twelve million people are currently here illegally and as many as six thousand illegal aliens are crossing the borders every day the vast majority of these individuals come to our country in good faith to find work and better the families live the same back recognizes that americans and is a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws our country must have a welcome mat to those who are here legally must also consider the rules of answering the calls of illegal immigrants place on the local and state governments and the effect on millions of unemployed americans while the say that has a strong emphasis on border security and interior enforcement the real thrust of my legislation deals with employer verification dishonest employers who seek to exploit low skilled immigrant labor and the government's inability to secure its borders are the major reasons for the rapid increase in our illegal population in most cases the job offered acts as a magnet drawing people over twenty foot walls and through inhumane desert conditions to find work two decades ago target our government try to stop illegal hiring through the form nine for all new employees hiring after november one thousand nine hundred six while employment verification is current law for mom and compliance alone requires business owners to be document experts as they determine if an id is valid this places serious liability on them if they make a mistake to deal with these concerns congress created the basic program in one nine hundred ninety six that is now known as a ve would expand the pilot program in wa over a four year period affecting forty thousand larger businesses in the first year and slowly including smaller businesses in the final three years a verify is free easy to use and allows participating employers to successfully match ninety three percent of new hires to d h s and s s a that it bases and less than five seconds for every one thousand workers running through the system not hundred forty two workers are instantly verified by the system fifty three workers don't bother to contest the mismatch likely because they are here illegally only five workers successfully contest this mismatch error rate is less than one half of one percent the h s is unaware of one case since nine hundred ninety six where u s citizen was the not employment because of an error in the system according to the department of labor there were seven point eight million new hari's in the us during the first two months of two thousand and eight in that same period of time over one million new hires were checked through even on that basis handling at least one in eight new hari's already based on a recent low testing the system has the capability of handing two hundred  forty million queries for a per year that's four times the number of people in the us who are you who are usually hired in a given year a verify outlines a fair and proper methods of using the system in multiple languages to protect employees for from discrimination of heine practices a verify gives employers the tools that they need to follow the nation's immigration law and to avoid the penalties that result in hiring illegal aliens madam chair i have the most confidence in this program does as does the secretary of homeland security who just yesterday stated that a verify should be used by all government contractors based on the president's executive order the secretary has also testified that is ready for a national rollout and additionally the democratic required by law in various degrees in arizona colorado georgia out of home minnesota utah mississippi oklahoma and my home state of north carolina prior to each state making this effort several interest groups war the impacts or disaster that you would have if it becomes law yet the spokes woman from the arizona chamber of commerce a group who opposed the fair and its state legislation last year said fewer problems have been reported than originally feared companies have not left the state in reaction to a very fine and employers have not reported major problems with the database madam chair thank you for the opportunity to speak agree that them and that mandatory employment cation as a solution to this problem i'm happy to answer any questions you may have on the say that today thank you very much congressman shuler now will turn to congress and hearing you know protecting the privacy of american citizens is vitally important to me in america as a ranking member of the so security subcommittee we spent years studying in that issue there are certain guiding principles we must respect in order to craft a truly effective secure reliable electronic employment verification system these are one prohibit unlawful employment to protect with congresswoman giffords first neva prohibits unlawful employment by a lemonade ing the paper based in error prone i process the employees name so security number and date of birth instantly administration not as has a responsibility to track the earnings history of every worker to ensure they receive the correct amount of disability or retirement benefits americans trust so security administration i believe the agency does a good job i do to an agency responsible we're tracking terrorists and securing our borders should not be keeping tabs on when and where americans work according to their own privacy documents from february two thousand and eight the department of homeland security is building databases and maintaining data on the work history of american citizens and american employers over two copy of this be inserted in the record without objection it will be entered thank you this letter resulted from an incident that occurred during a may subcommittee hearing where the customs and immigration service provided information to representative shuler who then shared with each member of our subcommittee through our staff a copy of the employers in our congressional districts that are registered to need verify the questions we pose to sectary are important and must be answered before a verifies extended we've got a problem privacy problem here and we ought to do something about it the third neva makes employers part of the solution the critical difference between  employers would transmit their newly hired employers information through a system ninety percent of them already is to help states track down deadbeat dads only one percent of the employers today  identity theft as the highly publicized raids in the meat packing industry of illustrated we know a simple check of name so security number and date of birth will still be subject to document fraud and identity  finally naval would protect social security by requiring that congress to provide this all security administration with advanced funding to get the job done so all securities enter girl to employment verification and i will be working to ensure it's not relegated to the status of an after after years of inaction by the congress the american people are fed up with broken laws and broken promises a new direction thank you i look an honor to be here testifying before your committee today i believe the reason why i was selected is because i come from tucson arizona the eighth congressional district where we have about one hundred fourteen mile part of the two thousand us mexico border to give you some context about how difficult it legal immigration is in my district last year the tucson sector the border patrol apprehended three hundred eighty seven thousand illegal immigrants in just one year so clearly when you look at about a thousand illegal immigrants a day we're shouldering the burden of the illegal immigration crisis and in knowing in addition to knowing a lot about border security my constituents have a broad understanding of the immigration crisis as a whole they know and i agree that it enforcement only approach to immigration will not fix our problem this congress has to improve our be subprograms upgrade and expand the federal government's capacity to verify documents give employers the tools they need to check the citizenship of employees and take a thoughtful look at our economy and the real workforce needs that our businesses have as you know the arizona legislature in january chose take action in to in response to the federal government's inaction to fix our system and we became the first state to mandate that all arizona and use the verify system as a first state i believe that the arizona experience is of great interest here in washington i believe that the arizona experience should inform the ongoing debate about employment verification and whether the current event or five program administered through d h s should be expanded and or mandated nationwide some of the businesses that have signed up have reported a variety of challenges and problems using a verify they're finding that complicated unreliable and burdensome for having great difficulty getting answers from d h s to their problems about the system i've heard from employers employees and privacy rights advocates who are very vocal that nationally mandatory mandating event or a five as is would be potentially disastrous for our nation they're all experiencing the downfalls of using it in accurate database within adequate privacy protections between october two thousand and six and march two thousand and seven roughly three thousand foreign born u s citizens were initially flagged as not work authorized these errors have specifically impacted arizona workers who have had their ability to work wrongfully impacted the experience of arizona employers and employees makes it clear that we can do better and that action is needed and madam chair i would like to enter into the records a document that the immigration policy center on about a very five or arizona because i think would be important for members to look at with objection that will be made part of the record thank you having reflected on what's happening in my state of arizona and the challenges that we have seen i think that we need a system that incorporates three primary elements one explicit preemption of state laws such as the one in arizona so that the business community has a leav playing field across the entire country to real privacy protections for u s citizens and for legal workers and three liability protections for employers who play by the rules that is the reason why i have joined with ranking member johnson with h r fifty five fifteen the new employee verification act or neiva because it provides a simplified effective and balanced alternative to the even if i system neither is carefully crafted to ensure illegal workforce safeguard workers a den of these and protect social security it is also realistic madam chair underneath the us citizens will be verified to the social security database and not funneled through d h s as currently occurs under eve only non citizens will be verified through d h s this bill protects the social security administration's privacy mission and trust funds by authorizing employment verification only through funds appropriated in advance and as we testified before in the social security subcommittee that is critical by making social security the agency with primary responsibility acknowledges that the social security database is crucial to a functioning system we do not take the risk that funds intended for social legislation that makes it functional and unique when compared to other employment verification legislation neither has been widely received well received in arizona the chamber in c e o president of the tucson metropolitan chamber the sierra vista area chamber of commerce the miranda chamber of commerce all the business chambers that actually have to deal currently with the verify system are turning to me as a very good alternative as a subcommittee it considers the current employee verification probe proposals please take the arizona experience to heart southern arizona just like all americans expect their elected officials to find solid sensible solutions to the greatest challenges of our day and we know that is our broken immigration system the fact that the system has become polarized radio active divisive and ugly is evident that our congress has to act responsibly only by developing a realistic long term solution for un documented populations living in our united states w targeted effect of enforcement of the real realistic laws will we restore legality and legitimacy toward immigration system madam chair just in closing if congress does nothing or simply extends the even if i system without much needed reform such as state preemption or employee protections we will have failed thank you for this opportunity to allow me to testify before all of you today thank you very much congresswoman giffords and thanks to all of you for your testimony at this  time we will move to questions if there are any for the members i would turn first to chairman conyers for his question thank you madam chairman well m you what would your last words be we will remember them absolutely more it's a proven system that's been in place for quite some time and to put a new system in the place that hasn't been vinod and gone through the process and as we have all stated the over the last fourteen sixteen years the system has continued to upgrade its system and saying that woud recreate wasp in millions and millions of dollars to create something that's already working working effectively and you know if you look at some of the people who have problems with it it's a people who have been exploiting illegal immigrants for quite some time and we're not going to let them get away with the notion that  they've got a perfect social security system they've got a four percent error rate that translates into seventeen million errors i don't everybody every week in my office i have people who become eligible for social security and we have the problems and and so fixing that earlier in life is a solution that's and we have to make sure that we do have the funding and so security an order to fix some of those problems and using a verifiable help fix some of those problems before they come of age for social security have you ever tried to call a social security office in your life yes we have a back line now that we can actually get to this working pretty well you do i'll let you know what that is who is out for you immediately well sam johnson we've been waiting to get you before this committee for many years what do you have to say well i think there is misstated but  know the thing is also security arrows are caused by in most cases ladies getting married and forgetting to change their names and really it's people become aware of it addressing the so security office problem and you know the problem exists in a lot of veins not just immigration  e are working that problem and trying to get more law judges in place so we can address that part of the problem and it seems to be working then you know i spoke with you earlier could get you a private number to i think one how can we protect americans from what happens when there's a wrongful denial of work authorization you know it averages out to twenty four thousand workers in my every district being denied because of false negatives and then we come to our friendly department of justice the civil rights division there got maybe twenty four lawyers trying to check a workforce of a hundred sixty three million people  why didn't your judiciary committee get on the ball and get a lot more lawyers to handle this they care police that kind of discrimination and finally  this is this is it for me what about those exploit tate of employers that are going to misuse this system submitting the names of union organizer for example or people who look for in whatever that might mean which would be a tempting way to mess up what would otherwise be a good system well security part of the equation so that it's safe and secure for eternity you know we did have a problem with that fun and right now the agreement with homeland security was to pay social security for the first two years and they haven't yet done that and i think funding is is terribly important and it needs to be focused on getting social security funds so they make it work right in the database issues have the greatest problem with naturalized u s citizens and there's a problem about ten percent that's being reported people that are being told that they're not authorized to work but they are legally authorized to work according to the census bureau in arizona there's about two hundred seventy four thousand naturalized citizens in my state which of course means that's about twenty saw one thousand u s citizens that are nationally flagged just again in the home state of arizona that are not allowed to work what we're seeing in arizona is that this law although it's framed as a purely employer driven verification system is now carrying into virtually all other aspects of life our media outlets are reporting increased racial profiling discrimination against lawfully present immigrants so this this system has has taken on a life of its own and that is live joined with congressman johnson for an alternative that goes with the database that we currently have that currently works that would not subject us citizens to the department of homeland security it would be faster be more reliable and it would be financially accountable as well and the the internet well in my district rural arizona a lot of people that don't have internet access that don't have the ability to do that so i really believe we hope to change that and we're getting there currently i mean this is the reality of the employment climate in our state list of things that came across my mind that question new hires versus current employees and i do believe that is inappropriate to ask an employer to comply with a law and discourage the hiring of illegals if you don't allow them to use  employees the only question back then was did we have the ability with a database to process that many job applicants or that many workers i think today it's clear that database will handle it as testimony from mr schuler said two hundred forty one to two hundred forty thousand within that period of time multiple times our workforce so that i think is answered here today in this testimony i want to point that out second thing to question the chairman of the whole committee asked at the beginning what it cost seventeen billion dollars in lost tax revenue i would submit that there are sixty billion dollars in wages that are transferred into places outside the united states from workers in the united states and that sixty billion dollars it goes out of the country a significant portion of it and i do and no one really knows how much is wages from illegal workers so if it's only half then you've got thirty billion dollars to work with there if they're right on the seventeen billion we're going to have a net savings regardless they will hold this money in the united states and will go to legal workers so i want to make that point and the other point is that we seem to have two choices here one of them is to use the verify to to verify new hires and the other one is to make it mandatory under mr johnson's bill to use new hires i would submit we ought to let it be voluntary and then let the i r s decide whether you get to deduct your wages and benefits or not if you're hiring illegals and give a safe harbor for the utilization of the very fine that's the other alternative let it be voluntary and then let the head incentive be in place when the i r s steps in that's a number of things that come across my mind but it seems to me as i as i listen to this testimony that a lot of us are talking about the same thing i'm looking at a pie chart here that shows a eighty four percent of the verify goes off to the so security database and here to answer any more detailed questions but there's a fundamental difference for us citizens being driven through a security type database department of homeland security our system the new employee verification act would require u citizens to go through the current existing database that ninety five percent of all employers use which are the state's deadbeat dad database the systems already in effect it works i think it's preferable to use that database for u s citizens rather than have at least eleven thousand people in america that are working for government using no match social security numbers and i want to get department homeland security working together with the i r s working together with the social security administration can we get our agencies to work together to team up like a company would instead of the right hand on what the left hand are doing as johnson i would hope so yes could i ask to be excused for another meeting that really with us this morning and the thing i'm sure you have backfired when we will turn now to clarify yes for the record yesterday the legislation would have us citizens go through the social security database first now if their flag at that point they would virtually none they don't so if i understand this right since it's our bill is very similar the strive act is very similar in that we want to check people's verify people through so security one says they don't have any error rate i don't know of a governmental institution that doesn't have an error rate but we are soon to hear from homeland security that they virtually have no error rate in all of their files and that takes them forever to verify a name to help someone become a permanent resident or citizen in clean years to verify a simple name check with the f b i but they have no error rate and they can quickly tell us while these employees are i'm just amazed to hear that somebody who we know is lawfully in the united states paying a petitioning the government cannot get their name checked for years and yet they can get unemployment checks as quickly as five seconds i just find that a little in congruity one thing with the other but having said that let's just suppose it's a one percent error rate and a four percent and i just did some numbers i didn't have a calculator is i could be a little wrong so there's sixty three th a year that would be four percent of that right and currently we have sixty six thousand on the event or five that's how many employers and we're going to go to seven million employees and we're going to jump from one thing to the other in four years then they want us to to look at this and to say that each of us if i did this right i missed a piece of paper here so four million two point eight so that's six point eight million people if you took the total number of there's about one hundred sixty five million employees in the united states and of the four percent four point one i'm adding another percent for the people who don't make mistakes when we're going to give them one percent error rate that means as we go through the next four years nearly seven million people will have to visit call visit their congressman to fix the fo it in and take infrastructure one year and then verify it come back meet with chairwoman laufer and come back and have the chairwoman have information don't you think would be better to kind of phase it in and the same back actually does that and kind of let me repeat my opening statement in the first two months of this year seven point eight million people were newly hired at a new location new job one million of those went through a verify and they they went through a a testing overload and they were able to handle two hundred forty million cory's per year so it is a phased in program over four here's the first year b n government employees which all of our staffers all of us on the hill all of government lawyers and and standing but just that we understand i know you do it in four years but shouldn't we have accuracy shouldn't we come back there make sure that when i'm just i'm just trying to share with you shouldn't couldn't we have accuracy and that is we roll it out to certain industries we all know we're going to get to everybody so we take on new hires we bring them into the system we come back and we verify that these industries and these employers have an accuracy level of net and then we roll it out to another piece of industry i'm with the issue of there are much of this is just that if you're roll it out and jam it there's going to be a lot of people it is now in my office alone after immigration you know we got so security people are waiting years american citizens are waiting years for one they apply for social security benefits and disability benefits for someone to make the adjustment years and now we're going to throw on the social security system one hundred sixty five million people we're going to be worried over the next four years that's a mammoth undertaking and secondly let me just share because we can work if you look at this right back we talk about a bio metric right readable social security card the key is tamper proof so we're into making sure that our system i just how we do it and how we roll it out and whether or not we shouldn't do it alice sensenbrenner which you do which is enforcement only or do we do it in a comprehensive manner that's really the debate we're going to have and i look forward to working with my friend  the accuracy of the system in advance of the full implementation it also requires of the g a o evaluate the accuracy the efficiency and the impact of electronic verification before it's rolled out so that is incorporated  because we are concerned as well i mean we don't talk a lot about it but in arizona we don't have even the full a number of employers that are on the system yet so worldliness out on a large scale could be devastating thank you we turn now to mr gal questions i think madam chairman i'd like to take a step back just for a second if we can i know we're here on e verify but i think we need to take a step back and really look at the magnitude of what the problem really is  currently we've all been reading this is to six in the last few days about what the unemployment rate is in the united states where really concerned it's up to five point five percent that translates according to my math somewhere around plus or minus eight million people that are unemployed in the united states is at a pretty much in agreement on that mr gifford are you aware of how many people are working in the united states today with an invalid social security number i'm not i'm not sure no i'm not either but i know that three years ago it probably isn't wasn't as bad then as it is today that's a pretty safe g think three years ago it was ten point five million people now we figure that the from a simple math situation if there's a five percent error and the way so security deals with their numbers if you take five percent off of the ten point five million we could say probably safely that there's ten million people working in this country with an invalid so security number and that's what we're dealing with here is people the purpose of  program is to see that the people that are working in this country have a legal right to be working in this country so i mean the simple math i would say that the people that are illegally working in this country we have two million people working in this country above what it would take to wipe out all of the ana bornemann maybe that's not a perfect analogy but it is a very serious issue when you have over ten million people working in a country that have no right to work  was my district is the most heavily trafficked area along the two thousand miles so we understand that in southern arizona we deal directly with the impacts through crime through violence through through homicides  we are the most heavily trafficked quarter in terms of marijuana so we understand it in southern arizona but southern arizona is also a microcosm for the country in terms of our economy my district has a very heavy agricultural  component over nine thousand square miles wilcox benson part of that state has a real demand when it comes to finding people that are willing to go and work in the fields and pull in crops then we have a construction industry that's a little depressed right now but arizona's the second fastest growing state the nation booming construction industry i used to run my family's tire an automotive company i know how difficult it is to find a tire tech that wants to work for seven or eight dollars an hour in a hundred fifteen degrees heat so we have some real employment that i might remind her that i one of the largest agricultural districts dates i have probably on a dollar basis certainly in the top four or five in the united states for as dollar value we rotate three crops a year and california row crops strawberry capital of the world sunkist i can go on and on so i'm pretty familiar with how the agricultural business works but i'm also  very familiar with how the rule of law should work and that's what we're dealing with here if we're going to talk about needs unmet domestic needs for labor that's a separate issue and that should be addressed accordingly if we have an unmet domestic  that's what our immigration policies have been about for since the beginning of time certainly since the turn of the previous century so let's not mix apples and oranges mr schuler i appreciate all  hard work that you put into this issue it's my understanding that we have currently over sixty four thousand employers participating in a verified do you believe the system can handle the additional capacity now the way we're set  up here obviously has come out so that the system is prepared for a national rollout we're seeing that from several states arizona being one mississippi actually implementing that legislation just within the state in north carolina  just dropped i think it would continue to see more and more states take taking the frontline approach and we have to make sure that the system is prepared we're seeing that it is prepared and we'll hear testimony  data quicker is obviously been vetted and the number of visits i have to go to the so security administration because of other databases that are actually going to be pulling information from is going to be less and so i feel very strong about it spent a lot of a lot of time just as you and others have of looking at house even has and has really from its conception to now how strong the and accurate the system really is ten under your leadership the mindset of at least the two remaining members on the panel i agree that we have to do something as a relates to immigration reform and i know that in horsemen is very important i spoken to the distinguished gentleman from north carolina he knows of my interest in ensuring that those who are here undocumented have the ability now working paying taxes to pay more money either by way of fines to legalize their status or to access legalization at the better terminology but also to pay for benefits whether it is the utilization of the public hospital system the utilization of an education system the utilization of the highways and byways that we use and i can assure you that my constituents in texas want to do that they want to be in a system of legalization that allows them to  become contributing additionally contributing members of this is side so they always say expose your card to my cards are that i i believe in the comprehensive approach albeit i'd like to call upon another name maybe the americanization approach for people who are here to be part and i must say to the chairwoman let me thank her for her consistent journey toward that and the chairman of the full committee as we work together in the minority  reaching the same point but i do want to applaud you for finding some aspect that needs to be addressed and i'd like to approach it in that context before i do so let me just quickly say in the verification  report of two thousand and seven made a number of points that i think is important to put on the record that in this either for cation we've had employers of not train employees we've had employers who have used the process for pre percent of employees report that they restricted work assignments while employees were contesting their particular predicament and then their employers didn't fire these employees and there were also those who did explain to the employees so we know that we have so weaknesses in this process congresswoman giffords what i like about what you are proposing is the idea of separating us citizens from those who are immigrants and they go on to d h is that correct and the citizens have a nother process so security i heard my colleague question so let me ask you what are the privacy protections that we would have in the system that you are purporting in your legislation there's quite a few privacy protections and the legislation is quite a bit different of course from the verify system first of all it creates an alternate voluntary secure electronic verification system to identify employees identity and  ibility through a lock basically at once it is verified and all the established is a network of pride sector government certified companies to authenticate new employees identified dennehy utilizing existing background check and documents green so this is outsourcing if i might you would be and what protections in terms of those outsourced companies what kind of vetting would they go through and let me recall of course the loss of records by the veterans administration and others  they would they would be certified through a process as well so that these firms if the employer chooses to go through them would go through a certification now in follow up to congressman with the added comment there would also be  viable truck and then to fire if employers chose to to present that information and go that route but there is more protection under social security there's a better ensure meant under the workforce plus it fundamentally shifts where us citizens where our databases should be held and would you support if i might with this system working comprehensive approach or an americanization approach where we want to address it to have those who are here find a vehicle of way into  legalization status i'm not sure i understand your question repeated if if this was to go forward would you also see a complement to that a comprehensive approach to immigration congresswoman jackson lee i was a co sponsor of strive act because i believe that the enforcement of portion portion of illegal immigration is critical i talked about what the impacts of illegal immigration has to southern arizona but we need to fix the system as a whole and i'm i'm not happy that our senate and this congress has not moved forward faster i know it's complicated and i want to congratulate and compliment chairwoman lofgren for moving as much as we possibly can but yes we need to have an overall fix which inquires a lot of different aspects the illegal immigration system that we have our system for immigration is broken in this country but i believe that this portion this small portion for employee verification is much better than we really have an arizona well let me congratulate both of you and certainly i want to congratulate mr shuler who i think has done a very hard task and we've had some legislation like that miss issue in the past that even democrats have supported so let's find our way to a compromise and we can work through these issues tell me if they think that well that well i think we can acknowledge that the current system is not perfect this issue if you believe that in general verification ory verify provides a useful tool for willing employers to identify whether employees are legal or illegal yes it does it goes through this the screening process and also kind of follow up on jackson lee it is it's not to be used for a prescreening process you hire the person and then you fill out the appropriate forms where the be online or call in and go through the the process so in doing that it will actually be able to meet your qualifying the congressman goodlatte arizona we can i don't think you're here for that my my initial testimony became the first and state to roll out a mandatory requirement for employers to use a verifiable we have heard from our business community  not just southern arizona but around the state i had over a dozen chambers of commerce from the state of arizona here last month to come and present their information that it has been burdensome and unreliable and very difficult to maneuver through with their with their employees a lot of documentation to talk about that so i'm urging congress before we move forward with a national requirement to use the either a five system that we look at arizona's example and there are some real issues i'm co sponsored legislation with congressman sam johnson as an alternative to the either a five system which would instead require us citizens to use a social security database the deadbeat database that ninety five percent of all employers are currently using now foreign born workers will be required to go through department of homeland security but you know there's significant difference with the bills i think this approach is better in that regard because i certainly favor verification technologies whether we agree on a particular want to use or not i think is worthy of further exploration but in general do you believe that the use of these verification technologies has resulted in more or less hiring of illegal aliens by those employers that use them i support verification technology as well i believe that all employers should be required to verify the status of the workforce i think that's clear do you think that what has been done thus far has resulted in hiring fewer illegal aliens luck it is difficult to say because in arizona for example we have about fifteen percent of our employers that are using the very feisty we really don't know yet because we don't have everyone currently using the same system for those employers that are choosing to use it i believe that they are complying with the law now whether or not that the documentation that's being provided to them is legal documentation the i nine form i'm not sure again neither takes away the i nine form and uses better forms of documentation more solid three forms instead of what the verify system allows and i think again that is a better system well let me let me ask mr schuler obviously our effort here is to protect u workers and to make sure that employers have the workforce they need but that they are workers that are illegally in the united states do you believe that if we made it mandatory the net result would be fewer illegal aliens getting hired in violation of the law yes i think so many companies now are using a verify they're actually see and that they're not having to be document experts the forms a perfect example they look at the information if it's a potential employee comes in they don't have to thousand employees nine hundred forty two get instantaneous verification fifty three of them are non confirmation mismatch and five percent only five of those fifty three are actually content of those thousand actually contesting it so we're seeing that fifty three out of a thousand are actually walking away because they are here illegally so i think we're seeing that the proof is there with the companies who are body and by the laws we presently have on the books by went just ask one more follow up so in other words when we utilize some form of a verification system and i appreciate both of yours efforts to come with one but even the verify system which clearly has some error rate there's no doubt that some people are going to experience something they're that nonetheless gives the employer and  our government our citizens if you will with regard to our policy of not hiring illegal aliens a much more sophisticated additional check to the documents that are presented to the employer which we know are often  fraudulent and cannot be by themselves often verified on their face by the employer who is not an expert in these documents so taking it to the next step even if it does raise question with a certain percentage of those who are checked the remainder of the people are either cleared through or found to be illegally in the country and those that are in a question mark area well we need to take further steps beyond that to figure that out but at least we have  significantly improved upon the process of simply relying upon the paper that's in front of the employer absolutely and it takes the law build the off of the employer want to verify and they download they put up a copy of the  california for five minutes and then we will thank you very much madam chairman and let me thank you for the tremendous work that you're doing trying to deal with the serious problem that c congress that we are having difficulty dealing with the comprehensive immigration reform but you are certainly are getting into all aspects of it to this committee i'm just wondering there are several articles in today's newspapers about the f b i s inability to do the screening and that you have a lot of illegal immigrants who are waiting for years to get their citizenship now as i understand it if these legal immigrant are in the system and they cannot get i guess their visas and their citizenship how are they treated in the in the  obviously will have the confirmation that will they they have the right to work in the united states well question all of these systems question the fact that the f i cannot do the verifications they're backed up they don't have enough employees the technology is outdated i question whether or not we really know whether or not there is a point five percent error  foremost it's been proven it's been over there since one thousand nine hundred six when it was actually verify was in place it's not a system that we're having to rethink or revamp it's actually a system that's been in process for quite some time the statistics show that  multiple system and remember even similar to googling when you type in the information you get the verification back actually in my office i did myself and it came back confirm for what are you complaining about congresswoman we have numerous examples including the g a o including the inspector general that said that the basic pilot or the  system has significant weaknesses which includes a reliance on these government databases that have an unacceptably high rate of error my colleague who i applaud for his hard work continues to talk about how every member here in the congress is able to just fly through the system yet we have one of our our important staff members tracy hong's with us who herself had an issue when she went to go apply to the system and there's an article here in the u relies on the social security database you can't talk about one and not the other you can't pull out part of the database has fuzzy math to say that that you verify only has a point five percent reliability rate if it requires the use of a social security database i think what we all want is the same system again what i'm saying is that you know i have a case model in my state where the system is not working as well as it needs to be and there are some philosophical differences with the system as well as far as protections for u s citizen journalists if i may guess thirty more seconds let me just say this that there's been a lot of talk about the social security system here and of course in our office we do get social security complaints and we work on them but i am a big supporter of the social security system and i think it does a good job for the millions of americans here and i would just disagree with those who think that somehow the social security system is so flawed that it could not do a good job with this so i just want to speak up for social security all right are today well noted we'll turn now to congress and one going for his illegal for employers to hire legal aliens we put that in as a balance to the other side of the bill which was the legalization program the most successful and large large scale legalization program in the history of the country the legalization part work force one part never did and i hope my friend mr shuler understands what the term slow walking means  we can postpone this and we can find every problem and we can understand that every pebbles a boulder and we can make sure that we don't put something into the system is perfect and we'll be right in  situation twenty years from now that we're in right now we never enforced it we never enforced it if we wait until the social security system is perfect will never put this in their imperfections involved as the gentleman from virginia suggested the purpose of this is to make sure that american workers who are here illegally whether they're native born or whether they've been legalized or whether they have a permanent resident alien card have the right to get a job and the people here illegally do not have the right to get a job when that's what we're talking about and we're talking about millions of jobs that are taken by those who are here illegally and so i hear well we might have a couple thousand people that will be an initial check turned down but as you suggest on secondary check almost all of those are taken care of so i hope we put it in the proper context as i sit here i'm reminded this is the week of d day and the follow on that my dad was involved in and had eisenhower faced d day the way we seem to be looking at this problem we never would have left england because we were waiting for the absolutely perfect weather we would have made sure everybody had their proper assignment  no one was dropped in the wrong place we were made sure that the germans absolutely were asleep in every single situation and we never would have succeeded sometimes government has to rise to the challenge and it seems to me mr surely you've suggested to us that the time is now for us to rise to the challenge would you have any problem in your proposal to have one element of the other bill put on that is that we move towards biometric as we move along with this system biometric identification the social security system i couldn't agree more with you about moving along one of the things that we have to do it can't be a voluntary basis like the other piece of legislation has to be a mandatory if not no one's going to use a system and we're going to be just like we are today twenty years from now it's kind of in the last twenty years yes it's been that way so why go through voluntary system like the other piece of legislation we've been talking it has to be mandatory but we are in that we have that process it is complete the secretary says it's ready for a national rollout so i feel very comfortable very confident in the system not not authorized to use now you know if there were i'm just going to ask you whether that is the initial check so then what is the what is the decline rate after the second if you start with three thousand what do we go down to we don't know it's not it's actually closer to thirty for the state of arizona and we don't know what is it on there eight days to be able to follow up and clear up your paperwork and if it doesn't if you don't resolve the within you may be fired whether or not that resolution happens we don't know because we don't know what that number is we don't know we don't know and i was also interested in your comment about agriculture i happen to believe that the case for agriculture is proven i mean we've had it in your state had fifteen degree temperature working in one situation it was do you really think we can't get american workers to work in construction in these other areas congressman i was making a point about how challenging it is in southern we will give you an additional minute i mean i just happened to i mean i've been here back and forth over a thirty year period of time and one of the things that is absolutely is how we don't do something firm increase job opportunities for inner city youth for african american males between eighteen and thirty and it just seems to me that the construction trade is a tremendous opportunity for them and i seen over the last twenty years the presence illegal aliens in the can strike industry grow and grow and grow and grow and now i hear arguments that somehow we need to legalize people who came here illegally for the construction trades and while i am very sympathetic to the fact that american employers need to have an available workforce and it ought to be proven i just look at what's happened in the last twenty five years and i have to throw up my hands and say don't we have an obligation to take care of americans first as generous as we are to the rest of the world and when we have high unemployment rates particularly among african american males aged eighteen to thirty thirty five  we have some obligation to think about them first before we start thinking about others and maybe that's an unconventional thought but i think that ought to be wrapped into the process of why we want to have a verification and then move on perhaps is i think that to some extent really in defense of what we're doing there there was no examination of this subject by my predecessor as chair i mean we just i think we had more hearings in the first month of than we had in the prior congress so you know we need but we do need to examine where we're going before we leave it seems to me and i think there are some things that need to be pointed out i mean the fact that someone walks away from a mismatch doesn't mean that there legal right now this is a voluntary system and if you're going to be a busboy at one restaurant that's using a verifiable and it's a problem you can just instead of going to the social security system five times you can just be a busboy at the restaurant next door that doesn't use even if i so we can't make assumptions based on that we need data it's hard to get  i would note also that if there we don't know exactly what the percentage of mistakes are in the database it's social security but if we've got five percent unemployment and we've got let's say four percent of the u s citizens get a wrong information we give it to have unemployment go to nine percent of american citizens if some of the information we're being told is correct so we want to make sure that we know what we're doing before we move forward and i'll just mention misgivings you did that we have a texas lawyer here sitting to my right tracy hong who's been naturalized american citizen has been an american citizen for several decades and the house of representatives uses a verify and so when i hired ms hong she went down and she got a report that she wasn't authorized which came as quite a surprise to her and i mean she gets like all of us do her social security center once a year how much you can expect in your benefits and the like but they did the social security and mr just had a wrong i mean it took her six separate trips to try and straighten this out and she's an immigration lawyer working for the chair of the immigration subcommittee so i think you know we need to make sure that the rights of americans are protected and whatever system we were i give both of you loads of credit for the the time and effort that you put into the subject is an important one i think we all agree that we need to have a system in place and your contribution is going to be very material as we move forward in this effort so i thought i just had one question and it's for you congresswoman giffords as you describe the outsourcing for lack of a better word i was reminded i'm a clear path member of so i can i have a little bio metric card whenever i go to the airport i put it in and i route we have a lot of flexibility if there's it's mandatory requirement that you go through the verification system but that would be an additional step of protection that employers could have with you know the government wouldn't answer so we have all of that there be that level of protection that what you're proposing we have to pay and all following i'm going to thank you both for coming for your hard work on this and and for the information you've given us here today thank you thank you very much will now ask our next witness to come forward  we will i'm pleased to welcome jonathan scharf an who is the acting director of the u s citizen and immigration services mr scharf and retired from the united states marine corps and august two thousand and three after twenty five years of active duty service he then served as counsel and deputy staff director of the house international relations committee until july two thousand and six mr sharpton received his bachelor's degree from the university of virginia his jurist dr degree from the university of notre dame and is l l and from the university of san diego he also attended the u s army war college in carlisle pennsylvania where he studied national security strategies married and has three children as you know mr scharf and you are full statement will be made part of the official record of this hearing we would ask that you give your testimony in about five minutes if you would please i think your microphone is not on thank you much but thank you very much chairwoman loughlin ranking member king members of the subcommittee i'm grateful for the opportunity to be here before congress to discuss our shared goal of affective employment eligibility verification at v h s u s c i s responsible for administering the five program in partnership with the social security administration any participating company can access through our user friendly government website that verifies information submitted by employees with more than four hundred forty nine million records in the social security administration database and more than sixty million records and v h s immigration databases the fair only available tool for employers to gain quick and easy verification information for their new cars over sixty nine thousand employers representing over two hundred sixty nine thousand work sites use the program and the number of registered employers is growing on average over one thousand per week the number of employers and rolled this fiscal year has already more than doubled since november since two thousand and four verify has been available to employers in all fifty states and in most u s territories last august the ministration pledged to commence a rule making process to require all federal contractors and vendors to use even rafael in this proposed rule has been submitted to the federal register for eminent publication yesterday secretary chertoff designated a verifiable as a system federal contractors shall use in partnership with the social security administration we have made significant improvements to decrease mismatch rates and ensure data accuracy and sure that the program is user friendly and photo screening tool for d h s documents to combat document fraud established monitoring and compliance units and privacy functions to maintain system integrity added new databases that are automatically checked by the system and established a new process for employees to call us c i s toll free number to address citizenship mismatches as an alternative to visiting the social security administration in an effort to establish efficient and effective verification the most recent statistics appear to show that the share of legal workers who are not automatically confirmed by a verifiable as work authorized is decreasing furthermore u s c i s plans to add the ability to query by passport number to a verifiable this fall which will further reduce error rates and is also working to add visa and passport photos to the photo tool function additional improvements seek to ensure that the data relied upon by a verifiable is up to date as possible independent studies show that  accurate and effective tool currently ninety nine point five percent of all work authorized employees queried through a very were verified without complication or having to take any type corrective action overall the westat evaluation found that over ninety four percent of all cases are automatically found to be employment authorized the even five program has substantially increased its customer service and program staff over the past two years in an effort to work with employers and ensure that every question or difficulty that arises is addressed that even our five program outreach staff has conducted numerous training programs and workshops across the country to inform employers about the system and then the benefits of using a verified to verify the work authorization of their employees and effective electronic work authorization verification program is critical to reducing the jobs magnet that encourages illegal immigration but the program also must include robust tools to detect and deter employer and employee fraud and misuse we are aware that some aliens without work authorization use it to any fraud to obtain employment in this country to help prevent this problem that even five program introduced a photo screening capability into the verification process last september this tool allows employers to determine if the d h s s document presented by the employer has been photo substituted through use of the photo tool several cases of document and  fraud have been identified and on authorized workers have been prevented from illegally obtaining employment when congress created what is now the a very five program in one thousand nine hundred six it initially set a five year time limit on the program recognizing the importance of electronic worker eligibility verification congress has twice chosen to continue the program since its initial authorization the current language of the statute h s to terminate the program at the end of november of this year i respectfully urge the committee to act immediately to extend a verify permanently efforts to improve agency systems and policies related to a verifiable that have been ongoing since two thousand and three continues to show positive in tangible results d h s s will continue to work with the social security administration to operate and enhanced  program thank you for the opportunity to testified today i am grateful for the support of the members of this subcommittee and ask for your continued commitment to the program thank you thank you very much mr sh and now is the time when we can post some questions i began one of the things that i had really not thought about before the westat report is the is this question we don't know we've thought a lot about the ploys being screened but if they're correct there's not really any screening of the employers we have an agreement and the issue of miscreant could pose as an employer sign a contract with the age ass and obtain personal information about americans for that would th would be used for identity theft or crime can you address that issue yes ma'am first of all the employer who would want to do such a scam would have to have an employment identification number that they have to first get from the social security  you like again i agree it probably would not be that hard to get but the system itself is designed in such a way that the employer isn't reaching up and grabbing personal information from the system and pulling it into his into his possession what he's doing is he's up loading names social security numbers date of birth and that information that he's collected off of the i nine program which is already collected so he's getting a yes no he's getting your data yes ma'am that i appreciate that answer let me ask you on about data security it seems like every day we open the paper and there's some story about you know i never had the idea that government employees would have entire databases of v a and everything on laptops that then go missing what steps are you take taking to secure the integrity of the data that you have i'm going to make two points on that ma'am is first of all the a verify system is using a features than earlier versions of the computer systems and so that the enterprise service bus has more firewalls and other protections that a modern computer system has that's number one number two is that we have been having reviews of the system consistently and periodically and then finally we have a management clearly this is of a concern to t h s and c i s and we have made it a focus of management  to ensure that a verifiable data that has been quarried that's been provided by different employers doing their course is given all the protections and safeguards it deserves both under the law and as a prudential matter what we can do as managers let me ask you this is sort of a philosophical question i think the point made by congressman johnson and congresswoman gi is that u s c i s is jobs to deal with immigrants and it's you don't have jurisdiction over americans i mean and that there may be an issue here of whether we really want to turn over to the immigration part of our government the whole function of clearing hundreds of millions of american citizens do you have a thought on i do ma'am the as i said in my oral statement ma'am that even if i system is a partnership between the social security administration and d h s s and so we're not doing this alone we already are working with the so security administration in partnership and  system that we have now if we were to to redo that and somehow put the focus over to another agency you would end up having to just reinvent a partnership again between the two agencies and i think that  the the answer to those concerns are your previous question is how we work with the so security and what safeguards we have in place to ensure that that information is given the protections made with regard to we don't know whether they're legal or not if they walk away from following up on clarifying their records for myself i reflect back when i was about sixteen years old i just started paying taxes and there was a mistake by social security and my two numbers and my social security number i was livid and determined and i cleaned up those records and it took me several years but it's a lot easier today i would think than it was then because at least we have some electronic records and we can get some more immediate response rather than waiting for long as just from letters but i would think that it's the duty and responsibility of someone who is lawfully present united states and can legally work here to clean up their records is it is it is it true that either either  who are unlawfully seeking work in the united states or if there is a rejection it identifies a record that needs to be corrected i think as a basic proposition that's generally accurate  and i thank you for that and then as i look at these records i know that we've had a conversation about linking your query to the database of naturalized citizens and that brings another level of the efficiency here that i don't think reflects is reflected in this accuracy data that has been testified to today and i don't want to ask you to go on record for the results of that but i would just ask you what do you anticipate will will be what do you think is going to happen once that including in the system a check of the c i s naturalization databases as well as the real time arrivals information from the port of entries and so the combination of those two new data sources that are now being included in a verify system we believe that that's going to reduce the point five percent mismatch rate for eligible or authorized employees will reduce it by half so you'll be going from one half of one percent to one quarter of one percent if i'm i could just add one those are all just kind of percentages but if i could just give you a real number there are data shows that since may fifth we have identified three thousand five hundred employees who were naturalized in other words are naturalized citizens and they s s a and it comes back and says verifies or not then you send a corey out to do your records and this is verified or not so what would be the distinction between the proposal made by mr johnson and misgovernance about setting up a so security system that under the so security to send according to their database and then a corridor database how would that function differently than it does today i think that's a that's a point obviously i agree with is that if you didn't if you're going to do away with a verify and come up with a new system you're just going to have to really invent the verify you're going to have to have a partnership between the social security administration and d h s slash cia asset to run this program and i really think that  the congress was correct and initially authorizing this program it was correct in its two instances of reauthorizing it and it is the best available tool today to do employment eligibility verification error with the basic pilot program i want to know if you can if you can verify that or what you might comment on that particular statement right i think mr treuer was saying was that those individuals who have gone through  o clarify perhaps say a tentative non confirmation as a citizen we have no reports that none of them were able to resolve that and be able to establish their eligibility one point that i think you know well sir is that while that's ongoing that person gets to continue in employment and that they're they're employed and there's no right to fire that person and i think it's being resolved and in just it just briefly just to conclude this is if the statement that there has been no one denied employment was a u s citizen doesn't it come back to the basis that actually they in the final analysis you are the measure itself against whether this is against which everything else is weighed and that you make that verification and you run that out against social security ministration your own database and then you up the records and so if there's going to be a measure in this you will have corrected that a process of cleaning up the record sold by definition then zero would be the numbers that correct that's correct we're dedicated to getting the right answer and in fact we've as you know we've created a new call line where people can call how many what is this two hundred fifty thousand or sixty six sixty six thousand employers who have who have two hundred fifty thousand work sites but maybe millions of employees not going to be necessary how can how can you with a staff of twenty one people even get to the front door of your own office much less handle the challenge that you've been in for less than two years the the numbers that we have that are working on this program for the program staffs are this is  there's three hundred sixty employees for just the outreach staff alone we have sixteen and please for the privacy staff alone we have eight employees five full time employees three contractors for the monitoring compliance units are we have twenty eight located at headquarters alone in the field we have about thirty monitoring compliance in our regional office that is going to grow in the next well that takes care of everything then we can see more comfortably in our beds and night now that i know that some day soon under a new administration there's going to be five hundred some employers use a verifiable screen job applicants reported by sixteen percent of long term users and then presumably either deny applicants an opportunity to work or postpone their starting work in other words they prescreen them and what about other employers who  prohibited adverse action like this is all set up to get the employers off the hook and we're not getting him to her we keep looking at some more desperate so guy that wants a job here and worried about him and where it came from but the employers have got the upper hand in here and guess what do you know how many people you ever refer are over to the department of justice for prosecution employers we were just discussing that no excuse me then you have to also include the cases referred to ice have been over forty cases referred to ice at their request two cases have been identified by our new monitoring compliance tain the others were requested by ice and so if you add those up i can i can add those are single digits i can add them you don't have to add them up for me in other words the employers are walking away from this huge system and anybody that they consider an organizer or a system the that the system is based on automating a nine program that was already in existence and i think that if you are going to have an employer abuse of employers who are going to violate the law i think they can probably do that some cases examples of unlawful conduct by employers because you now have a database that you can analyze for employer misconduct in fact the monitoring and comply you know what  if this wasn't so serious i would think you are kidding me you give me those puny numbers and tell me that this is strengthening you that it would be there even fewer employers prosecuted if you didn't have this system and i'm supposed to feel better about that and then next year we're going to get some time or we may get up to five hundred i think that the monitoring compliance units that we are creating sir we're looking forward to creating an analysis system that would end up looking for patterns that would indicate discrimination and i think that's going to be a tool that's going to be useful to fight  yes sir thank you you're more than welcome chairman's time has expired and all time has expired for this witness and we do thank you for your appearance here today mr scharf and if we have additional questions we will forward them to you and ask that you respond promptly thank you ma'am and i agree with the opportunity to testify appreciate it we will now ask our third panel and final panel of distinguish witnesses to come forward first i am pleased to welcome dr carolyn shadel who is the senior study do akhter at westat with over thirty years of experience and research design survey methodology dabbled data analysis report writing sampling and research management during the past ten years she has led evaluations of the even five program and its precursor programs prior to her work at westat she worked at temple university the national science foundation and the u s department of health and human services she has a ph d in sociology with a major in research methods and statistics in the university of wisconsin madison are next to it this is tim is tim i'm just mispronounced your name pardon me senior legislative counsel for the washington legislative office of the american civil liberties union ministers spera pani focuses on protecting the right to privacy defending the rights of immigrants and shielding civil liberties in national security matters his effort focuses on preventing violations in unnecessary intrusions into america's privacy by both government and private organizations and individuals mr spar pani also monitors the effect of federal state and local national security policy on civil liberties to ensure that americans remain both safe and free next i am pleased to welcome chris williams a chicago attorney who is currently the executive director of the working hands legal clinic and has extensive experience in the areas of labor in employment law prior to practicing law he worked for over a decade as director of organizing for chicago area labor unions he also served as director of the shirt cargo workers collaborative mr williams has worked extensively with workers centers on issues related to the abuse of employment eligibility verification systems and no match letters and finally the last witness is glenda who's worked in the hospitality field for over twenty years the vast majority majority of which she has spent as a human resources director in the washington d c area missing groom has been with embassy suites for the last four years as its director of human resources she has been certified by the society of human resource management for over nine years as with our other panel your full written statements will be made part of our record we would ask that your testimony be about five minutes so that we'll have an opportunity to ask questions and dr shuttle we will begin with you we have to turn it on now yes very good thank you madam chair and members of the septa miti i want to thank discrimination and privacy i'll talk first about what we found at the time of this evaluation which is it some time ago and then i'll talk about observed in future trends as far as employer non compliance goes we did find substantial noncompliance and the find is are based on employer self reports for the most part which we have evidence to believe it is logical these are under reported noncompliance so there is substantial in terms of a particular example i think you already mentioned the twenty two percent of the of the employees suffer some kind of ad reaction to the jobs restrictions and we've had other examples of the prescreening and rejection of pay is less likely and so on as far as discrimination goes that is a complex issue with that has been hotly debated since the beginning of employment verification when we did find evidence on both sides and i think some of this has been quoted today as far as the good news in terms of reducing discrimination we did find that nineteen percent of employers we asked said they were more willing now than they were prior to the program and four percent said that they were less willing to hire immigrants and this led to leads to the conclusion that there's a net decrease of discrimination at the hiring stage because of the program the bad news though i think we've also been hearing which is that foreign born workers are more likely to receive a tentative non confirmation prior to being work authorized and this particular error rate has been quoted a lot today for those so the point what we're talking about is among those who work authorized and only those what percentage go to attend a non confirmation process before receiving their final confirmation the error rate for all work authorize employees would be higher we know it's biased downward it's it's very difficult to estimate that though because for the ones that don't close finish up the system we don't know really what percent  percent or not and as you've heard the rate is to cheekily high among naturalized citizens at around ten percent compared to u s born folks where it's one tenth of a percent or one out of a thousand and non citizens are in between even if employers were completely compliant these do script in season error rates would be discrimination it may be not employer intent but because they receive have to go through additional hurdles to get their authorization we have seen over time a number of improvements in all in noncompliance and in terms of of at the error rate we also mentioned that employers do not consistently convey information in a private setting and one example of that was employees who noted that their employer just posted a list of people who they said were not work authorized as i said they've been improvements some of the improvements can be attributable to changes in worker and an employer characteristics as we go from a small program in five states with high immigration populations to the full volunteer program we have today but there are also improvements that we believe are attributable to program changes and we just heard from just about those  in the future we expect that they will use a more changes due to programatic improvements what we don't know is what will be the impact if we go to a mandatory program on the whole system in particular employer compliance since it's reasonable to believe that pulling people live in involuntary lay will the a worse problem we have now if you could wrap  up in some way we do see a problem that u s citizens and not citizens with are affected negatively was seen improvements over time in part because the program changes that have are ongoing and the biggest question is the question of mandatory things may change we can't predict what's going to happen there and the chairman i'd like to thank you and the subcommittee for listening to me and if people want more information about this report or prior reports of a fridge the u s c i s website that has the report you very much thank you  pani imagine the horror of a constituent who is unable to start any new job due to government bungling and bureaucracy this horror show would surely confront thousands of workers upon implementation of a new verify type system like the infamous no fly list populated by thousands of americans wrongly blocked from working by their own government the cost associated with mandatory electronic screening cannot be overstated and any benefits are speculative at best proponents  screening as a technological cure all for beleaguered american workers who fear for their jobs and wages however mandatory electronic screening would impose unacceptable burdens on america's workers and businesses without resolving the immigration dilemma because it cannot prevent the hiring of undocumented workers all focus on two reasons to oppose electronic screening one mandatory screening will invade american workers privacy vastly increasing not creasing the incidence of identity theft and document fraud by turning identities into black market commodities and to mandatory screening will untangle american workers in a massive not of government red tape but to get hired and resolve data errors and that's all because of the poor data quality we've heard so much about this morning and the problems with administrative judicial redress which we haven't yet talked about mandating electronic screening will endanger law abiding americans privacy because it makes the work eligible identity a highly valuable commodity and creates a black market for those identities requiring government permission to work would lead some desperate undocumented immigrants and those smuggling in illegally employing them to steal work eligible american identities in short you verify will increase not decrease identity theft similarly government databases will be targeted by identity thieves because they contain workers identity data no database can be entirely secured from hackers and the government's information security track record is poor at best this privacy threat is wholly unnecessary because even if i and similar systems are so easily evaded by ineligible workers presenting fake documents neither employers nor government databases would detect this fraud congress should ask why endanger americans privacy if it will not prevent the hiring of undocumented immigrants the u also opposes electronic screening unless the government is forced to rapidly correct data errors and compensate workers it's in errors injure the a c l u again for season you know work list consisting of those eligible employees who cannot work because of data errors and government bureaucracy congress should not mandate prescreening but it should require s s a india just to systematically review files to eliminate errors only after systematically improving data should congress even consider mandating pre eligibility workers injured by due by data errors will need quick permanent resolutions so they do not become presumptively on employable any legislation must allow workers to ease we access and correct iranian government data  s s a and d h s must hire sufficient staff to handle the millions of additional worker increase they will surely receive congress must also provide fair administrative and judicial procedures to resolve errors promptly to get workers back to work none of the pending proposals unfortunately promise real relief any worker challenging erroneous government data deserves a presumption of work eligibility the government should bear the legal burden to demonstrate a worker's in eligibility rather than forcing the worker to prove his or her eligibility after all know on documented work or would fight to federal agencies through administrative and judicial procedures for fear of being caught and deported it's just simply illogical to imagine that kind of scenario therefore administrative law judges should be empowered to order records correction and reimbursement of workers costs plus lost wages and interest the government should bear cost to minimize worker's injury we recommend a strict liability standard for government errors to encourage the government to improve its data quality finally if the administrative process fails then workers need court access because suing is expensive the government must bear costs for any judicial process and workers should be a reimbursed for lost wages and opportunities plus interest in conclusion failure to mandate real administrative and judicial redress will surely result and it list of employees who are wofully eligible to work but who whom employers lawfully employ this blacklist will truly be a no work list that will endanger american workers privacy and their right to work thank you thank you very much mr williams now good morning thank you want to thank you madam chairwoman and so committee for the opportunity to speak today as is mentioned i'm an attorney in chicago i work with a nonprofit organization that assist low wage workers are dominantly in the temporary staffing industry and i think the perspective i can bring today is how the verify program and other employment eligibility verification systems are affecting people on the ground and i submitted written testimony so i won't repeat that here but we've heard a lot of numbers thrown around about accuracy rate and so forth but i think there's something that's been given a little bit short trip which is the role of employers in this system because employers are very important part of the employment in the verification system they play a role and they have those numbers have to be counted in you heard a claim that there was a point five percent error rate you heard a claim that not one person has been denied employment because of the verify system and that's just not accurate first of all the system is based on the social security administration database which by all accounts has seventeen million or more errors and i personally have a little little history with that i just received my daughter my newborn daughter so security card and my last name is her middle name and it was spelled with three l and my name is spelled williams with two l's so it's very common to have error and error in the so scary database you couple that with employers not being resistant to participating in these employment verification system programs right now it's voluntary with all of the errors and problems we've heard about these are employers who are voluntarily participating in this program you makes that you use roll this out to be mandatory you mix that with employers small employers who do not want to participate small employers who do not want to play this role who do not have the resources to access the proper legal advice you're going to have a disaster and i do know somebody who's been denied employment his name was fernando to no co he was a client of mine he went to apply for a job at issue called a poultry plant and he came back a tentative non confirmation he was given the information he went to social security administration he got the necessary documents to show he was eligible to work the company didn't want to take him it was too risky then i know another person he lost his job went out and applied at a different locations finally apply at the  location was was told he got a tentative non confirmation he never heard back from the first seven now did they all check his status to check you verify and did they determine that he was not eligible to work that they prescreen him this is a problem that is not to be reported with all the problems we heard about in the west that report this is a problem we're not going to hear about in any reports this is a serious problem where employers have the ability to check and prescreen we know this is happening even from self reporting the rate is high without self reporting we don't know how high the rate is but employers who are resistant to participating in a mandatory program anyway and who are risk averse are just going to make the decision why bother just don't hire the person and that's a problem somebody mentioned earlier the social security no match letters and i realize that's a different thing these are something done at the time of higher social security no match letters come out and when someone is employed and working but they both depend on the same flawed database and i have dealt with literally thousands of workers who have been wrongfully terminated by employers sometimes quite honestly innocently by employers who receive a no match letter and there are safeguards in place with the no match letters no match letter itself says this is not indication of someone's immigration status the employer just makes the determination they see on the news they read in the paper employers are getting arrested it's easier just to get rid of the employees and to deal with the mess some of them find their way to me or other organizations like ours and they get assistance but most of them do not some employers i've sat with them and one employer fired thirty workers all his he told me w once they fill the form out then we put it into our basic pilot are now known as easier five system and we wait for whether it's going to be a confirmation or non confirmation you know those documents  instead of employees we basically bring that individual into the office into the privacy of our office and we sat down with them and we explained it to them this is what we receive here's what you need to do you have a choice you can make a phone call or you can go down we tell them we read it to them we tell them they have eight days they can still continue to work this does not affect they don't have to be suspended pending further investigation anything they continue to work once they get the document we go back into the system and come from and then that's fine we have had some team members that have chose not to contest it and so they leave but we still encourage them you know if you feel that your documents are correct please make the phone  call if it comes back that we still can't get a confirmation that we have to do a termination we don't say you can't come back here we say once you get your files together or your documents together you're more than welcome to come back and reapply for the job  and that happens to every single person that comes out they fill out that you know they go through that process with us so i'm confident of the company that i work for my colleagues that we do  procedures and every year we're audit not aware audit by our own company to go into i ninety five the make sure and when you're printing that data it has a date so you're going to look at the date to say that you couldn't to prescreen because you had the date that the president only hired you have your p a after his on the date that you had the person and you had the date that the confirmation was done but we are at it by our company as well to make sure that we're in  e i think it's a great says the man to work with and is free and i think that that's another tool to help you to ensure that you are in compliance thank you thank you very much now is the time when we'll have a chance to ask a few questions before we conclude and i'll begin you know one of the things that struck me i mean we're all trying to get our heads around this if you come in and you say you are jane smith an american citizen and you've got the social security number and it's you stole that id from the real jane smith i don't see how the bills before us really uncover that fact can you comment on that mister anyone who they don't and they can't and that's part of the problem with not only the verify but all the other pending legislative proposal despite the fact that this program concept has been around for thirty years really since nine hundred seventy eight we really haven't been able to resolve the underlying problem of document fraud and it's going to be a devil this program because the database of every american with a picture or bio metrics and i say thank god for that but i'm not say arguing a or nay i'm just noting that fact and that's exactly right  let me ask in terms of the one suggestion i think that that mr johnson than giffords bill is suggesting to as a potential remedy for that is to use something like the clear path system that does collect biometrics but also has a de id fraud component to it do you think that would advance that effort whoever wants to answer no  i don't and there are lots of reasons for that one every time we put private information into even private hands in this case we run the risk that that data is going to be compromised and again there is no database which has been proven to be secure the hackers are always at least one step usually many steps ahead of the best information security protocols and that's because they have an economic incentive to bridge them and therefore we can always expect the data is going to be compromised that people's identities are going to be stolen and so we think that this is sort of a a mr rection to go down to try to focus on identity is the key to doing immigration foresman i think it leads you down a series of paths which sound promising but when they actually get to implementation are very difficult to actually pull off and really provide a weakness that has never been overcome conceptually this shuttle do you want common o only those who are legally permitted to work are working but we don't want to have the adverse consequences we don't want to marathons to be denied jobs or other people who are legally permitted to work to be denied jobs we certainly don't want whatever system that we create to be used for improper purposes such as discriminatory purposes or or the like i'm just remembering you know if the stakes are very high for an employer they're going to fire people to protect themselves i mean we had a swift in here last year and they sort of had the worst of both worlds i mean they were first charged with discrimination because they were looking at latino employees which they shouldn't have done so they stopped doing that and then they had employees that were lawfully permitted to work and there was a way they lost forty million dollars after the enforcement action so you know which way to do we want to have a system that works well do you see any of these bills before some of you had a chance to study all them that might actually avoid the adverse consequences of you know either use for labor or discrimination but also allow employers to have confidence that they're doing the right thing  one thing i would say in this point was made earlier is i think that there's a flaw in the idea that you can just deal with one aspect of this recipe comprehensive reform i agree with that and so you're going to end up in this process because there's a lot of pressure on both the employer employee and in terms of getting work what i see one of the things we see in illinois is the increasing use of temporary staffing agencies as a way of kind of laundering people through the mental the liability is in for the employer moving liability away along with all all other sort of labor rights and standards that go along with it just as my colleague said the hackers are always one step ahead there's always going to be a way to get around the system and they're going to move around the system and so i think what we're trying to do is we're trying to fix one aspect of this without fixing the overall problem and you know employers need the workers and they're going to they're going to find a way to find it before turning to mr king i'll just note that i think  sorry the burden of proof of id i find intriguing because i think you're right if you americans should have a right i mean we have a right to go support our families and i  if there's a contest contested thing i mean people are here without their documents tend to want to go underground they don't want to be found it's unlikely i would guess that they're going to walk into court and contest the finding instead they're going to hightail  and try and find some other job so that's that's an intriguing idea i would turn now to mr king thank you madam chair you know as i said here and listen a few thoughts crossed my mind and one of them is that for every single illegal person working in the united states of america there's a corresponding disenfranchised american somewhere either looking for a job or earning less wages and benefits and they would otherwise because a lot supply and demand certainly directs the value of labor and benefits and so we are here wallowing around and looking for some kind of guilt about maybe disenfranchising a single person when we know that for every illegal that slips through the system there's at least one corresponding disenfranchised american or legal worker in the united states who is here  lawfully and can work here lawfully another point that i would give is that this this self imposed guilt about profiling is a national idiocy it's always been an important part of law  mean if you if you put out the identification of a person who has committed a crime in the neighborhood and you can't use those characteristics to identify that person we will put ourselves up for those crimes to be committed over and over again no i don't think we should go on discriminate against people based upon their race or their ethnicity or those outward appearances i think you ought to have a right to work in this country if you're legal but we can't say it american people you can't be prudent you cannot profile you can't stereotype someone made that that's something that has been that message you get sent constantly and i think we need to be smart about what we do and with regard to the concern about the previous testimony the chairman's remarks about well the forty of prosecutions referred to ice last year of employers information it's implicit that they're asking you and giving consent to go out and use a verifiable they're willing to give you the data on the i nine why aren't they willing to accept the data that comes back on e verify we could solve a lot of these problems that way you'd be face to face up front when i hire employees i look him in the eye look at their driver's license i look at their data and i ask them questions because they're the people that i'm going to trust the profitability of my company on and so i think that's a responsible thing i presume the employer is responsible not unethical and i think we can operate with that presumption then so then dr shuttle i want to ask this question to you and what percent of illegals are eroni asli approved by you verify that's a subject that i don't think has been addressed today do we know the answer to that could you turn your microphone on please sorry we don't have a good estimate of that the problem is that we don't know when there are you know the problem is where is no way to say for us easily to say who is and who isn't work authorized the on with the system out with which is why we're using this error rate based just on the work brought the rise we're hoping to look a little more closely at this in our next evaluation where we're doing many more interviews with employees who received tentative non confirmation swigart lists the whether or not they were resolved let me ask you that you would where they fit into categories  those approved erroneous label you verify and one category we know about would be those who presented false documents that belong to a person who was legal to work in the united states and we know that that exists out there we don't know the number but it could be huge and we think it is and then  another category perhaps we haven't talked about could that be those who have who would not be a lawful to work in the united states who have somehow created a database that identifies them that we know anything about that let's let's just say do you do you are you aware of any creation of data that would support someone's employment who was illegal that might be i unique to them for example a digital photograph on a green card of someone who wasn't who was circumvented the system and got into the database that could then one day become a citizen get a passport because they have created the foundation for their false identity right i don't have an estimate of how frequently that happens but we definitely know reliable like a birth certificate where you don't have a picture and so on so yes there's definitely that game happen how often it happens i couldn't tell you i think and then just just quickly as time clicks along was there about especially thank you for your testimony when you took this job on you really didn't expect to be sitting before congress testifying and i understand that i appreciate it but the question that i have to ask you mention that your company audits your attempts to use a verif is there a corresponding verification that records each of your taps attempts in the database of either that can be used to validate your company's audit to make sure that you're not using a verify until there's a legitimate job offer to chairman conyers for any questions at all so i don't know if mr conyers when you were here when we did opening statements if you want to do open when you're welcome to do that as well thank you very much i  think this is been a very important hearing let me ask you about verification company for having so many safety checks in place i know that that's not the standard and i know if you roll it out past the voluntary use right now you'll have employers even more resistance and just one little side note i apologize if i was unclear th as an evaluator i feel that this is not something that i should be giving opinions on because they're clearly documented in our report there are advantages and disadvantages and i think that tradeoff the consequences of doing mandatory screening are going to be extraordinary and when we design big government databases and systems that are going to apply to every worker in america we have to write the law in such a way as to think about that case we have to think about those extraordinary individuals whose data doesn't work because those are the weaknesses that will be exposed when you take a system like this nationwide where every worker it's going to be a huge set of problems and congress has to have that squarely in mind before does anything and especially if you include everybody that works in america i don't need a calculator one hundred sixty three million and twelve million and so i'm  one is that every one of the twelve million people have taken somebody else's job one for one now that presumes that there are a lot of people looking f to labor that want to be seasonal employees that want to work below minimum wage without a union and i i'm i'm i'm going to be learning more about that as the immigration there is continue and then he has the most challenging theory of all  the presumption of employers good intentions in terms of hiring these people that are the twelve million i presumed  there immigration circumstances involved in the employment there are a lot of rascals that are employers i hate to say this on the record but these are these are some of these folks the things that they're pulling are shocking and i used up all my shot quotients my shop this the presumption of good intentions of employers that because that's going to have to be scrutinized by the immigration committee very carefully yields back and at this time all of our time has expired and we are required to go to the floor to vote let me just thank each of the witnesses here for sticking with us i know it's been a long day but your information is very helpful and a lot of people watching don't realize you're volunteers you're just here to help the congress get this right and we do appreciate your contributions if we have additional questions we will for them will be open for five legislative days for members to submit additional questions and that's without objection and now we will adjourn this hearing with thanks to all of the witnesses