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1. E-verify currently in expired status
2. Stimulus to generate jobs for illegals
3. NC co. sheriff stands by 287(g)
4. Activists protest against 287(g)
5. Stimulus bans foreign bank hires

1.
Cheers, fears over E-Verify immigration program
By Tyche Hendricks
The San Francisco Chronicle, March 10, 2009

A voluntary electronic system to verify employees' immigration status, and thus their right to a job, expired Friday but is likely to be reauthorized by Congress as part of a budget bill due to come up for a vote this week.

Yet, even though President Obama has called for it to become the law of the land as part of a comprehensive immigration overhaul, the system, known as E-Verify, has become the subject of heated debate.

In wrestling with ways to make immigration laws enforceable, many Democratic and Republican policymakers believe that an effective, mandatory system to check work authorization would deter illegal immigration by making it harder for undocumented immigrants to find jobs in the United States. Such a plan could be more effective than border enforcement and immigration raids at restoring integrity to the nation's immigration system, they say.

Supporters of E-Verify say the Internet-based system, which checks a newly hired employee's identifying information against Social Security and Homeland Security databases, is quick and easy and has become increasingly accurate in recent years.

"It's really doing a nice job," said Janice Kephart, national security policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies. "It's a win for employers, a win for the country, a win for our government."

But critics - including business and labor groups and civil libertarians - say that the system remains fraught with error and could lead to wrongful layoffs. They say it encourages discrimination against workers who appear foreign and promotes more under-the-table hiring.

"We have not taken the effort to go through and fix the errors in people's files before we use this as an enforcement tool," said Timothy Sparapani, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Until we do, this system will be nothing more than a fanciful wish."

Pass or fail

A government evaluation of E-Verify released last year found that in 96.1 percent of cases, an employee's work authorization was confirmed immediately, up from 94.2 percent in a previous study. Of the remaining cases, 0.4 percent of the initial mismatches were confirmed after further checking. The final 3.5 percent were never confirmed, either because they were not authorized to work (as Kephart believes) or because (as Sparapani fears) they were fired or not hired without being given a chance to remedy a problem.

"You're talking about taking away someone's livelihood and potentially imposing sanctions on an employer based on a database that's not accurate," said Caitlin Vega, a legislative advocate for the California Labor Federation. "It's our hope that it won't be expanded as a mandatory program."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined with the ACLU last month to help scuttle a plan that would have required employers who receive federal stimulus funds to use E-Verify. Obama has put on hold a Bush-era regulation that would require federal contractors to use the system. Meanwhile, some Republicans, led by Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, are considering expanding the program's use as part of the omnibus spending bill.

"It would be a bomb-thrower kind of amendment outside the context of the immigration debate," said Marc Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. "We know that electronic verification is something we need and it will be part of whatever immigration reform we pass, but to do it outside of that is not good public policy."

Since 1986, employers have been required to confirm that a newly hired employee is authorized to work in the United States. Workers fill out an I-9 form and show identification to prove citizenship or legal immigration status. But employers say they can't always tell if an ID is fraudulent. And some look the other way.

The government began a pilot electronic system in 1997 that is now available in every state. As of January, 100,000 employers have signed up and 6.6 million queries were run in 2008, double the year before.

Already in use

Hundreds of businesses in California voluntarily use the program. In the Bay Area, they include restaurants, nursing homes, investment houses, a medical device manufacturer in Redwood City and a software company in Pittsburg.

Fifteen states now require some or all employers to participate. But in Arizona, which began requiring E-Verify in January 2008, a recent study by the University of Arizona found that fewer than 6 percent of employers had signed up. Other research found that undocumented workers there were now more likely to use a stolen ID or to work off the books.

As conservatives like Sessions call for more widespread use of E-Verify, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, has called for a review of the program. If the system became the law of the land, it would need to process 63 million queries a year.

"We feel it would not be a problem to ramp up to mandatory," said Sharon Rummery, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. "Our computer system could accommodate that."

But even Kephart, one of E-Verify's biggest boosters, was wary.

"It's still a young program, and it's got to be able to build up over time," she said. "You need to get to point where the technology can handle that amount of data."
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/10/MNC316AKSH.DTL

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2.
Stimulus Loophole Gives 300,000 Jobs to Illegals
By David A. Patten
Newsmax, March 9, 2009

An estimated 300,000 construction jobs paid for by the stimulus plan will go to illegal workers after leading Democrats removed a provision requiring verification of citizenship, a leading immigration expert tells Newsmax.

The House version of the $787 billion stimulus bill required verification of the legal residency of anyone put to work by its spending. But that provision was removed from the bill before members of Congress met to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill.

Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), tells Newsmax the verification provision was deleted by Democratic leaders even before the bill reached the conference committee, where differences between House and Senate legislation are normally ironed out.

“When it got to conference, the top people -- not just the conference members, but the top people: Reid, Pelosi, and Obama -- chose to kill the provision and not include it,” Camarota says. “This was a purposeful decision.”

The provision would have required that workers’ names to be vetted through the Internet-based E-Verify system. E-Verify, a joint project of the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration, gives employers a quick means of verifying employee eligibility.

“E-Verify is our most effective tool for preventing illegal immigrants from getting jobs, and they chose not to use it,” says Camarota.

The estimate of 300,000 construction jobs is based on U.S. Census and other studies showing that approximately 15 percent of U.S. construction workers are illegal immigrants.

Construction projects funded by the stimulus bill are expected to generate 2 million jobs. Assuming 15 percent of those workers are illegal, 300,000 illegal aliens would be employed. The actual number could be higher, however, because many of the projects are in states with high immigrant populations, such as Texas, California, and Florida.

The CIS estimates are accepted by the conservative Heritage Foundation, and even groups that advocate on behalf of illegals don’t quibble with them much. One activist for illegals, however, told USA Today that the CIS report amounts to “fear tactics.”
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http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/stimulus_illegals_jobs/2009/03/09/19002...

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3.
N.C. sheriff keeps immigration stance
The Associated Press, March 9, 2009

Charlotte, NC (AP) -- A North Carolina sheriff says he'll continue to use a controversial program that allows deputies to report suspected illegal immigrants after they're arrested on other charges.

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Chip Bailey said Monday that deputies don't actively look for illegal immigrants. He said all individuals are asked about their citizenship while being booked into jail. If they say they're not a U.S. citizen, they are reported to immigration officials.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/6301711.html

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4.
U.S. urged to bar use of police as agents
By Elizabeth Llorente
The Herald News (Hackensack, NJ), March 10, 2009

Morristown, NJ -- A statewide coalition of immigration advocacy and civil rights groups Monday urged the Department of Homeland Security to refuse Morristown final approval to deputize its police as immigration agents.

In a letter sent to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the executive director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network said that when local police are deputized to enforce immigration laws, they create rifts in their communities and make immigrant victims and witnesses reluctant to report crimes.

"The [Morristown] mayor has repeatedly indicated that among his reasons to have police officers of Morristown deputized include housing and loitering," wrote Charles "Shai" Goldstein, executive director of NJIPN. He added that the federal program 287G, which trains and authorizes local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws, "arose from concerns involving terrorism and major crimes, not as an avenue to enforce local ordinances."

The letter comes a week after Mayor Donald Cresitello told The Record that he recently had signed an agreement with Homeland Security outlining how 287G would be implemented in the town, which has one of North Jersey's largest populations of day laborers. Shortly after he applied for the program two years ago, the mayor faced fierce opposition by immigration advocacy groups, who held rallies and spoke against 287G at Town Council meetings.

Cresitello could not be reached for comment Monday.

The controversy over Cresitello's proposal made national headlines in 2007, when many local officials were taking immigration matters into their own hands, citing frustration over failed attempts by Congress to reform the immigration system.

Cresitello's plan seemed doomed last year after Morris County officials denied the mayor's request to make unused space at the county jail available to non-criminal 287G detainees. But the mayor said last week that he persuaded Homeland Security officials to waive their requirement that the jail cooperate. The mayor said he was awaiting a final written agreement from Homeland Security officials, and that he would then seek the Township Council's approval.

Homeland Security spokesman Michael Keegan said that the agency is reviewing the way its agreements are worded, in light of criticism – including from the Government Accountability Office last week – of 287G. He said Napolitano is undertaking a broad review of many immigration programs.

"One of things that came out of the review is that the [287G] agreements were not clear enough on what were the roles and responsibilities of local authorities," Keegan said. "We're rewriting agreements."

Goldstein, a former Atlantic County assistant prosecutor, and other immigration advocates are vowing to renew their fight against the implementation of 287G in Morristown, which would be the first town in New Jersey to have the program.

"We're going to do everything we can not just to stop it, but to kill it," he said.

E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com

A statewide coalition of immigration advocacy and civil rights groups Monday urged the Department of Homeland Security to refuse Morristown final approval to deputize its police as immigration agents.

In a letter sent to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the executive director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network said that when local police are deputized to enforce immigration laws, they create rifts in their communities and make immigrant victims and witnesses reluctant to report crimes.

"The [Morristown] mayor has repeatedly indicated that among his reasons to have police officers of Morristown deputized include housing and loitering," wrote Charles "Shai" Goldstein, executive director of NJIPN. He added that the federal program 287G, which trains and authorizes local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws, "arose from concerns involving terrorism and major crimes, not as an avenue to enforce local ordinances."

The letter comes a week after Mayor Donald Cresitello told The Record that he recently had signed an agreement with Homeland Security outlining how 287G would be implemented in the town, which has one of North Jersey's largest populations of day laborers. Shortly after he applied for the program two years ago, the mayor faced fierce opposition by immigration advocacy groups, who held rallies and spoke against 287G at Town Council meetings.

Cresitello could not be reached for comment Monday.

The controversy over Cresitello's proposal made national headlines in 2007, when many local officials were taking immigration matters into their own hands, citing frustration over failed attempts by Congress to reform the immigration system.

Cresitello's plan seemed doomed last year after Morris County officials denied the mayor's request to make unused space at the county jail available to non-criminal 287G detainees. But the mayor said last week that he persuaded Homeland Security officials to waive their requirement that the jail cooperate. The mayor said he was awaiting a final written agreement from Homeland Security officials, and that he would then seek the Township Council's approval.

Homeland Security spokesman Michael Keegan said that the agency is reviewing the way its agreements are worded, in light of criticism – including from the Government Accountability Office last week – of 287G. He said Napolitano is undertaking a broad review of many immigration programs.

"One of things that came out of the review is that the [287G] agreements were not clear enough on what were the roles and responsibilities of local authorities," Keegan said. "We're rewriting agreements."

Goldstein, a former Atlantic County assistant prosecutor, and other immigration advocates are vowing to renew their fight against the implementation of 287G in Morristown, which would be the first town in New Jersey to have the program.

"We're going to do everything we can not just to stop it, but to kill it," he said.

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5.
A Hiring Bind for Foreigners and Banks
By Jonathan D. Glater
The New York Times, March 10, 2009

What could be worse than graduating from an American business school this year with an interest in banking?

Being such a graduate who is not a United States citizen.

A provision in the economic stimulus package limits the hiring of foreign workers by any company receiving government bailout money. In finance, that is nearly every big employer.

At least one financial institution, Bank of America, has rescinded job offers to foreign citizens, citing the new law, signed by President Obama last month.

Some banks are quietly trying to sidestep the limits — and perhaps to make good on their job offers — by finding positions abroad for noncitizens, according to college officials.

Financial institutions seem to be tiptoeing around the core debate about whether it is best to protect American jobs or allow unfettered competition, wishing not to alienate the very lawmakers who are dispensing taxpayer money that is keeping some of them afloat.

Absent precise regulations, which have yet to be issued, big banks are being forced to re-examine the hundreds of students that many of them would normally add to their training classes at the end of the academic year. The bill affects people who might have obtained what are called H-1B visas, typically granted to foreign professional workers with skills sought by United States employers. Existing workers are not affected.

Patricia Rose, director of career services at the University of Pennsylvania, said companies were coming up with ad hoc policies. “Each bank is consulting with their outside legal counsel,” she said, “and trying to determine what they can and cannot do.”

The provision — sometimes called Made in America, because it is intended to preserve jobs for Americans in this time of distress — is being criticized by some immigration advocates and deans of business schools, which draw significant numbers of students from overseas.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/business/10visa.html