E-Verify

E-Verify

E-Verify is an Internet-based system that enables employers to electronically verify the work eligibility of newly-hired employees. It was created during the Clinton Administration as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.³⁴ Currently, 216,721 employers are registered to use the E-Verify system voluntarily.³⁵

The “Legal Workforce Act,” introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on June 14, 2011, by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), would mandate the use of E-Verify by every employer in the United States.³⁶ The act could directly impact the 1 million to 1.5 million unauthorized farm workers in the United States, their families, and their employers.

Smith and his supporters say that the program will clear unauthorized immigrants from jobs that should be filled by unemployed legal workers. “It addresses the jobs crisis and provides needed jobs for those who want them,” Smith says.³⁷

Growers say that mandatory E-Verify will deny them a labor force. “If it were implemented it would be … economically ruinous,” says Washington Growers League President Mike Gempler.

The bill allows growers to count returning seasonal workers, those hired in previous seasons, as current employees who don’t need to be verified.³⁸ Although this would provide some workers with a legal means of working, it provides little comfort to them outside of work, where they would still be considered illegal and, accordingly, subject to deportation.