Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

If Congress made E-Verify mandatory, what would the impact be?

https://immigrationforum.org/article/fact-sheet-e-verify/

Moving to mandatory E-Verify would pose significant burdens on both employers and employees.

Tens of thousands of legal workers would be prevented from getting new jobs due to errors in the system. If employers were required to submit their current workforce through E-Verify the impact would be even greater.

While individuals affected by E-verify errors are only a fraction of the workforce, they face significant hardships. Barred from working through no fault of their own, they are unable to earn a living or support their families, at least until they can clear up these errors.

Such individuals have limited recourse to correct the errors and be made whole. And those who are able to win lawsuits against the government over such errors, often do so long after the fact, potentially months or years after being prevented from working, and already having suffered significant harm.

Unless mandatory E-Verify is accompanied by guest worker and visa reform provisions sufficient to meet employer demand, industries that have a shortage of legal workers will face serious worker shortages. Employers would essentially be faced with a choice between breaking the law, operating with dramatic labor shortages, or outsourcing to other countries that have sufficient workers.

Moving to mandatory E-Verify would also impose significant costs on employers, who would need to devote time and resources to worker verification. While this cost might be marginal for some employers, particularly larger employers with fully-staffed human resources departments, it would likely to lead to hardship for smaller employers