Date: 2008-07-30
Speaker: ZOE LOFGREN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today in support of H.R. 6633. This bill. negotiated by Members of both parties. will extend the basic pilot. otherwise known as the EVerify program. for 5 years. while also ensuring that the Social Security Administration can continue to participate in the program without endangering its core mission of providing needed benefits to our seniors and the disabled. Without this bill. the authorization for the basic pilot program would expire this November. H.R. 6633 also commissions two studies. which should help Congress evaluate the basic pilot program as it continues to work through the issues raised by the electronic employment eligibility verification systems. One of the studies seeks the causes. the remedies. and the effects of tentative nonconfirmations of employment eligibility. Implicit in the concept of false negatives is the converse. false positives. We naturally contemplate that the GAO study will address the question of erroneous confirmations as well. To understand the effectiveness of the basic pilot. we must not only know about U.S. workers falsely denied the authority to work. we must also know when it clears people who are not authorized to work. This Congress has been very active on the issue of electronic employment verification. Several committees. including the Judiciary and Ways and Means Committees. have held no less than five hearings on the subject. The Judiciary Committee alone held three hearings over the past year on electronic employment verification. In those hearings. we have learned that because the Department of Homeland Security relies on the Social Security Administrations databases and staff to query work authorization and fix erroneous records. the basic pilot program places significant burdens on the Social Security Administration. We dont want to jeopardize SSAs ability to carry out its core mission. which is to provide benefits to Americas senior citizens and disabled Americans. We confirmed that electronic employment verification systems pose complicated issues. issues with serious consequences for American workers who could lose their jobs and even their right to work if employment verification isnt done right. We heard testimony in April. 2007. from the Service Employees International Union. in which we learned that. and I quote. "Unless database errors are cured. 24.000 of the 300.000 estimated workers in each congressional district would be erroneously denied eligibility to work by basic pilot." That is 24.000 Americans and legal workers in each of our districts who could be stripped of their right to work because the government cant design a proper verification system. An independent evaluation of the basic pilot program commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security and conducted by Westat identified numerous issues with how the basic pilot program works. The Westat report documented abuse and misuse of basic pilot by employers. For example. 22 percent of employers who responded to Westats survey recorded that they restricted work assignments to employees contesting tentative nonconfirmations. It also noted significant privacy concerns in the program. In short. we have learned that there is much work still to be done and there are many questions left to be answered. Based on these findings. I do not believe that we can permanently reauthorize the basic pilot program or make it mandatory at this time. But as we continue to Work comprehensively to reform our immigration system. we certainly should allow the basic pilot to continue as a voluntary program. I would like to especially thank my colleagues. MIKE McNULTY from New York. LAMAR SMITH from Texas. and SAM JOHNSON from Texas. for their tremendous efforts in working to negotiate this consensus bill to bring it to the floor today. as well as the author. Congresswoman GIFFORDS. and the principal Republican cosponsor. Congressman CALVERT. whose leadership is truly remarkable. I look forward to working with my colleagues to reform our Nations immigration laws and to improve the electronic employment verification process. We certainly hope that our efforts will be bipartisan. If all goes well to refine and improve this system going forward. it will not take the 5 years that is provided for in this act. But certainly none of us wants the current system to go away while we continue to work to improve and get an even better system. I think that this bipartisan bill is necessary to pass. I urge my colleagues to support it. I reserve the balance of my time.