US may strengthen identity verification system for workers
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
US may strengthen identity verification system for
workers
By: Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post
The federal government is exploring the possibility of using a
credit rating giant like Equifax to verify the identity of American
workers, a move that could make it far more difficult for
undocumented immigrants to get work using stolen Social Security
numbers.
The plan by the Department of Homeland Security, which is still
preliminary and would probably require congressional approval,
could have far-reaching consequences. The government already allows
employers to check the legal status of employees using a system
known as E-Verify, but
hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants beat the system by
using stolen Social Security numbers.
If workers had to use the verification systems in place to apply
for a mortgage or a bank account, they would not only have to
present a Social Security number to an employer, but also answer
questions about their personal history and financial background to
establish their identity.
On Monday, the government announced that it would begin allowing
individuals in the District, Virginia and four other states to
voluntarily use a system provided by Equifax to verify their
identity. Once they did that, they could access a federal database
to verify their authorization to work. The move will help the small
number of legally authorized immigrants and U.S. citizens who
encounter problems each year when an employer runs their Social
Security numbers through the E-Verify system.
By giving workers the ability to check their records before they
apply for a job, authorities said that citizens and immigrants who
are authorized to work will be able to take care of spelling
mistakes and other common errors. The voluntary
program will be piloted in the District, Virginia, Arizona,
Colorado, Idaho and Mississippi. It will be expanded nationwide in
the coming months.
Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services, said the government planned to use the initiative to
evaluate how the third-party verification system worked, with a
view to making the tool available to employers.
Mayorkas added that only Congress could compel employers to use
third-party verification systems. The main E-Verify system is also
voluntary for employers, but House Republicans have indicated that
they would like it to be mandatory.
Private identification systems might reduce Social Security
number fraud, but Mayorkas said he has concerns about how the
federal government would deal with errors in third-party
databases.
Neither employers nor the federal government will gain
information about worker queries under the new self-check system.
Mayorkas also said that employers will not be permitted to force
employees to do self-checks.