Despite a variety of challenges, progress in adoption and deployment of E-Verify by American businesses has been significant over the past two years, witnesses told a Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement at a hearing titled “E-Verify: Challenges and Opportunities," held late last week.

In testimony Gerri Ratliff, Deputy Associate Director of the National Security and Records Verification of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) cited statistics from a new USCIS study showing that E-Verify is now being used to determine work authorization for 1 in 4 new hires.

The number of queries so far in 2009 is about 6 million , Ratliff said, nearly what they were for all of 2008 and twice that for 2007. If the current rate of use continues, Ratliff added, E-Verify will be queried nearly 12.3 million times this year.

“Not only does the E-Verify Program continue to grow, but it also continues to improve,” Ratliff said, citing an analysis of E-Verify which found that approximately 96.9 percent of all cases queried through E-Verify were automatically verified as work authorized. “The 96.9 percent figure is based on statistics from October through December 2008 and represents a significant improvement over earlier evaluations,” Ratliff added.

Of all the cases verified through E-Verify, 3.1 percent of queries resulted in a mismatch, or a Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC). A TNC is issued when the information queried through E-Verify does not match the information in SSA or DHS databases and requires further action by employers and then by employees to resolve their cases with SSA or DHS, which is a process that we—in partnership with SSA—continually strive to improve.

Angelo I. Amador, Executive Director of Immigration Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce voiced his organization’s concurrence with the concept of E-Verify.

“The truth is that employers are willing to do their part to address this controversial issue as long as the system is fair and workable,” he said.

Nonetheless challenges and caveats remain in gaining the full support of US business, especially smaller sized businesses, Amador acknowledged. In particular, he said, “the Chamber urges that in any mandated roll out of E‐Verify, businesses with less than fifty employees be exempted, as Congress studies the impact of such a mandate on small businesses and potential alternatives for compliance, such as a telephonic option.”

“While these smaller businesses do not employ the majority of workers in the U.S., they still create millions of jobs in the U.S. economy,” he added. “The burdens placed upon these entrepreneurs must be considered.”

Another concern, Amador said, was that contractors do not bear vicarious liability for subcontractor actions unless the contractor knew of the actions of the subcontractor.

“Without evidence of direct knowledge by the general contractor,” he explained, “ it should not be held liable for undocumented workers hired by a subcontractor, particularly when both would be required to independently verify the work authorization of their own employees.”

David A. Rust, Deputy Commissioner for Retirement and Disability Policy House Oversight and Government Reform, outlined steps being taken to streamline the E-Verify system to make it more “user-friendly” and efficient for business.

“Next month,” he said, “ we will complete a much-anticipated improvement to our systems that support E-Verify. We currently use the same system developed in the 1990s to support what was then a small pilot program operating in just five States. The new system is the result of months of collaboration with DHS to determine how best to meet both of our agencies’ requirements.”

The upgrade, called the “Isolated Environment,” will, according to Rust, isolate E-Verify workloads from mission critical workloads.

“Under the current system,” Rust explained, “ the processing of our core workloads takes precedence over E-Verify. The new system, however, will ensure that there is no interference between our own mission critical workloads and E-Verify workloads”.

This, he added, would insulate E-Verify against the effects of unrelated workloads and system outages, dramatically increasing capacity for E-Verify queries.

Jena Baker McNeill, J.D. Policy Analyst for Homeland Security, The Heritage Foundation, urged that Congress permanently reauthorize E-Verify and provide adequate funding for implementation.

“Congress should extend E-Verify as a voluntary program and provide the funding needed for its continued and aggressive expansion and improvement,” she said.

“DHS will never be able to arrest and identify every illegal immigrant in our country,” she said. “However, the choice between mass roundups and amnesty is a false dichotomy. A third alternative exists: By seriously enforcing the laws against illegal immigration in the U.S., the government can remove the incentives for illegal immigrants to enter and remain in this country, thereby causing the bulk of them to return home and sharply reducing future inflows.”