Online Update: Bush Orders Contractors to Verify Employees' Immigration Status President Bush has ordered federal contractors to verify the immigration status of all employees who work on most future contracts. Under the June 6 executive order, contractors will be required to use the Homeland Security Department’s Internet-based E-Verify system to check each employee’s identification against Social Security records. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the system clears 99.5% of legal workers “essentially instantaneously,” but critics have charged that the records are often wrong. The Federal Acquisition Regulation councils published a proposed rule in the June 12 Federal Register. It says certain contracts will be exempt from employer verification: contracts for commercial-off-the-shelf items, contracts below the $3,000 micropurchase threshold, and work performed outside the United States. The requirement will apply to subcontracts for services and construction worth more than $3,000. The proposed rule is open for public comment for 60 days, and the new policy will become effective when a final rule is adopted. Chertoff said it would “be up and running later this year.” This is the first time any large group of employers has been required to use E-Verify. It is voluntary for other businesses, but a few states have mandated its use. The Federal Acquisition Regulations councils estimated the rule will cost contractors at least $550 million over 10 years. They expect that 168,324 companies will be required to enroll in E-Verify, and an additional 3.8 million employees will be vetted through the system. “It is always embarrassing, frankly, when we have these periodic operations in which we discover illegal workers working on federal projects paid for by federal money that is ultimately paid for by the taxpayer,” Chertoff said at a June 9 news conference in Washington. “So we are going to make sure we finish getting our own house in order first, even as we work to continue to make sure that others in the private sector use this system.” The presidential order states: “Where a contractor assigns illegal aliens to work on Federal contracts, the enforcement of Federal immigration laws imposes a direct risk of disruption, delay, and increased expense in Federal contracting. Such contractors are less dependable procurement sources, even if they do not knowingly hire or knowingly continue to employ unauthorized workers.” Industry groups were taken by surprise. Several said they have questions about the reliability of E-Verify. E-Verify has come under attack both from employers and advocates for immigrants. They say the Social Security database is chock-full of errors, leading companies to fire or refuse to hire workers who are legal. Critics also say the system cannot catch illegal immigrants who use genuine documents stolen or borrowed from legal workers. E-Verify is “a system that doesn’t really work,” said the Human Resources Initiative for a Legal Workforce, a coalition of business groups that is pressing Congress to mandate a better verification system. It said forcing federal contractors to use the system will overwhelm it and the Social Security Administration. Several members of Congress have proposed making E-Verify mandatory for all employers, while other members have called for development of a new system. The Homeland Security Department says more than 69,000 employers have used E-Verify so far this year to check the status of 4 million workers. In a June 10 report, the Government Accountability Office said about 92% of queries “confirm within seconds that the employee is work authorized,” but about 7% cannot be confirmed immediately. The auditors found that most mistaken denials of a worker’s legal status “occur because employees’ citizenship or other information, such as name changes, is not up to date in the [Social Security] database, generally because individuals do not request that SSA make these updates.” The proposed rule is at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-13358.htm.. See the executive order at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/06/20080609-2.html..