Database may offer faster notice of workers' immigration status
Immigrants' status tough to find quickly

By NAOMI SNYDER, Staff Writer - Tennessean
Published: Friday, June 2, 2006

Gustavo Torres, co-owner of La Hacienda restaurant, thanks a customer on Thursday. The restaurant business relies heavily on immigrant labor, but Torres said it's "very difficult" to verify if a worker is in this country legally.

Four or five times per year, Gustavo Torres finds out one of his workers at La Hacienda on Bell Road didn't have a valid Social Security number, or that it didn't match the worker's name.

By the time the Social Security Administration informs him of this six months after the hire, that worker normally is long gone.

"It's very difficult," Torres said of his attempts to verify if a worker is in this country legally.

The restaurant business is one of several that rely heavily on immigrant labor — but pretty much every workplace would be affected by one of the many changes in immigration law proposed by the U.S. Congress.

Senators and House members will have to hash out a new version of their widely different immigration bills if they are to make it into law this year.

The Senate version attempts to create a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million or so people in this country illegally, and it creates a new guest worker program. Business groups have been clamoring for an increase in legal immigration, saying there is a shortage of available workers, particularly in certain fields such as construction.

The House version focuses on security, border fencing and enforcement of existing laws, raising the fines significantly against employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants.

But one thing the House and Senate both agree on is this — they want a national database to be mandatory for all employers to verify if someone is legally able to work, without waiting six months for an answer like Torres does.

The Social Security Administration already has a voluntary way for employers to verify Social Security numbers on the phone or on the agency's Web site. About 12,000 employers used that system last year. It can be accessed at www.ssa.gov.

Also, the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration have a Basic Pilot Program, also voluntary, to check the work status and Social Security numbers of employees (it also is available on www.ssa.gov). Only 6,509 employers out of 6.6 million employers use that.

One problem could be lack of knowledge about those databases. Torres, for example, said he did not know that the Social Security Administration offered the service. Torres said he wouldn't have a problem using a national database to verify employment.

But some employer groups are worried the federal government won't be able to provide fast, accurate information if the system was mandatory and millions of employers were trying to use it on a regular basis.

"Don't tell me you're going to create a system where two weeks or four weeks or six weeks later, you're going to figure out whether to employ them or not," said Bob Pitts, the president of the Middle Tennessee chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors Inc.

The federal government's General Accounting Office raised questions in a report published last year about whether responses would be handled quickly if a database system became mandatory for everyone.

A mandatory phone-based checking system similar to the Basic Pilot Program could cost $11.7 billion per year, according to the General Accounting Office. It noted that a Web-based version could be cheaper.

Current law mandates that employers fill out a Form I-9 and ask for certain documents from a pre-approved list.

But it's easy enough today for illegal workers to find forged documents.

"I see them advertised in the newspaper," according to Barry Nadell, the president of InfoLink Screening Services Inc., a Kroll company. "You can buy them on the Internet."

If the documents look legal to the employer, that company has done its duty by federal law.

Nadell thinks relying on such a paper-based verification process is relying on 1980s technology, the decade of the last major immigration legislation.

He thinks it's inevitable employers eventually will be required by law to check a national database before hiring someone.

InfoLink already sells an electronic I-9 service where employers can pay a few extra bucks to check Social Security numbers. But while the Form I-9s are required by law, the Social Security checks are not.

Mabel Arroyo, an immigration attorney in Nashville's office of Stites and Harbision, says laws already are on the books that aren't being enforced.

"I know there are employers hiring people illegally," said Arroyo. "My clients have told me 'my employer knows.'"

Immigration officials are trying to show they are doing something — the recent raids on IFCO Systems North America offices throughout the U.S., including the arrests of 34 people locally in April, illustrate that, Arroyo said.

But many in the business community are trying to shift the debate — to the need for legal workers to fill jobs and for hardworking individuals to have a shot at living in the U.S.

"One of our basic rights is if you come to this country and do well and work hard, you are rewarded and that's what makes this country great," said Mike Kelly, the president of the Tennessee Restaurant Association and the co-owner of Jimmy Kelly's Steakhouse.

A sign hangs in his restaurant that he dates from the turn of the century: "Help wanted: no Irish need apply."

"We're enriched by immigration," he said. "I would hate to lose that part of our country."

Workplace enforcement measures in proposed federal immigration bills:

House version:

• Increases fines for knowingly hiring or employing an illegal worker. The current fines are $250 to $2,000 per illegal worker. The new fines would range from $5,000 to $7,500 per worker on the first offense.
• Creates a national database similar to existing basic pilot database program maintained by Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security.
• Requires employers to verify employment eligibility of new hires immediately; and current employees within three to six years.

Senate version:

• Raises fines for knowingly hiring or employing an illegal worker, but less dramatically than House version. First offenses would warrant not less than $500 and not more than $4,000 per illegal worker.
• Creates a mandatory electronic verification system.
• Increases number of investigators for workplace enforcement by not less than 2,000.

SOURCE: INFOLINK SCREENING SERVICES