Comprehensive Immigration Reform on the horizon

The article "Comprehensive Immigration Reform on the Horizon" was circulated in my office last week. When I read it, I became interested in what it had to say. Basically, what it tells us is that employers are obligated not to knowingly employ people who do not have the legal right to work in the US. During the Bush administration, the "No match rule" was proposed which basically said that employers would have to fire employees whose social security numbers did not match the records of the Social Security Administration. That rule never went into effect because of oppositions in Federal court by advocates for immigrants and businesses. Because of that businesses can only do their best in trying to not employ people who do not have the legal right to work in the US.

On September 8, 2008 the Obama Administration which will require businesses that solicit or win federal contracts to use the government electronic database to verify their employees' employment eligibility through a web based program known as e-Verify. e-Verify works by comparing I-9 data to Social Security Administration Data & the Department of Homeland Security databases. The results are returned within seconds. Although this move will only affect businesses who deal with government contracts, there may be a move for all businesses to verify employment eligibility using this system.

The government has come a long way with respect to the technological advances and the ease at which information can be obtained. What is unfortunate is that there are limitations to the utilization of these technological advances because of "red tape". I am all for employee rights with respect to employment opportunities, but what good does having technology if you can't use it?

It is very awkward when I have to tell someone whom we have employed through our company that there social security did not match. It's almost as if I'm accusing them of doing something illegal, which is not the case. We have had instances where people's identities have been stolen and Social Securities have been mis-entered into our system. As an employer, we are just doing our jobs. I hope that this will get easier with time, or government will think of an ethical way to handle these situations.