What is E-Verify?

E-Verify is an immigration enforcement tool. It’s the government’s Internet-based system that employers use to check whether an employee is authorized to work in the country. Only 4 percent of American businesses use it currently, and it’s not required for all employers. But House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith has introduced a bill that would make E-Verify mandatory for all employers in the United States. So even if you only employ one person you’d be required to use the system.

Why is E-Verify such a problem?

E-Verify is just not ready for prime time. It’s expensive, it will hurt ordinary Americans, and it does not stop unauthorized immigrants from working here.

Let’s start with the costs: Small businesses—which make up over 99 percent of all American businesses—would have to spend $2.6 billion a year to use E-Verify, at an average cost of $435 per business. And the start-up costs for the first year of using E-Verify can be far higher—well over $1,000 for even the smallest employers. On top of that the system will cost taxpayers over $17 billion in lost revenue.

Worse yet, it doesn’t help American workers. Because of the system’s error rates, between 1 and 3.5 million Americans—many of them native-born citizens—will have to correct inaccurate information or either risk losing their jobs or the opportunity to start a new one. These people would have to spend hundreds of dollars of their own money—effectively a “right to work” tax—to fix the problems. Furthermore, we know from experience that up to three-quarters of a million people will be unable to fix their information and will be prevented from working because of it.

And to what end? These costs to businesses, taxpayers, and U.S. workers are all for a program that just does not work. The system is only 46 percent accurate when it comes to identifying unauthorized workers, meaning that it fails to catch people without status more than half of the time.

Is there a better solution than mandatory E-Verify?

The better solution would be to pair E-Verify with a program that stabilizes the workforce by requiring unauthorized workers to register and pay taxes. Doing so would improve error rates and cut down on identity fraud. A big program like this should also be phased in gradually, and we should be sure it works. No small business should be required to enroll in E-Verify until we’re sure that Americans will not lose their jobs because of government database errors.

These are tough economic times, and we should not be playing games with American jobs or breaking the backs of small business with costly mandates.