My column in today’s AJC.

I wrote in response to a piece last week by editorial board member Mike King, which I include below the text of my column. Letters to the AJC editor should go to letters@AJC.com

The AJC is blogging my column – please take the time to leave your comments. HERE
The crazies in the illegal alien lobby surely will.

Federal database assures a legal work force
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Monday, May 19, 2008

By D.A. King

While political candidates promise “more jobs for Americans”, we shouldn’t dismiss the tools made available by the federal government to attempt to ensure that those precious jobs do not go to black-market, taxpayer subsidized labor.

It is a federal crime to knowingly hire an illegal alien.

With a better chance of being struck by lightning than being sanctioned for violating the law, far too many employers disregard it.

Far too many who will settle for nothing less than a repeat of the failed “one time” illegal alien legalization scam of 1986 as the solution to the current illegal immigration and illegal employment crisis misrepresent the effectiveness of an electronic federal data base – E-Verify – that serves to verify employment information provided by workers.

With documented cases of multiple employees working in the same building using a common Social Security number – either false or stolen from Americans – use of the instantaneous E-Verify electronic system has proven to be far too effective for the open borders gang.

Originally known as the Basic Pilot program and presented as a mandatory method of verifying work eligibility, E-Verify is presently a voluntary system that should be expanded, better funded and made mandatory with the goal of eliminating the magnet that draws illegals to our nation. Few will be surprised to learn that it was a coalition of the business community and the far left ethnic lobby that was successful in making use of the system voluntary.

That relatively few employers have chosen to use the no-cost tool provides alarming, but unsurprising, insight into the intent of those who have not enrolled in the program.

When used to verify work eligibility of newly hired employees, a false negative response does not result in termination of the employee until completion of a lengthy and thorough appeal process. Using scare tactics about Americans losing jobs because of E-Verify is at best, unproductive.

Participating employers have successfully matched more than 90 percent of new hires to Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration database information. Of those who do not match, less than 2 percent contest the result.

This is obvious evidence of the effectiveness of the E-Verify tool and the immigration status of those who then look for illegal employment where the program is not in place.

It is irresponsible to not make it clear that the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act which began to go into effect in July of 2007 requires not only most, and in 2009, all, public contractors in Georgia to use E-Verify. Also all public employers – the state and county and municipal governments – have to do the same.

Voters in coming local elections should know that as of May 1, more than 60 of Georgia’s 159 counties were in violation of state law by not having enrolled in the E-Verify system. Far too many municipal governments show the same disregard for the rule of law as well.

The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act is merely a state law that essentially mandates that in Georgia, we use available tools to comply with federal law.

No law can work unless it is enforced. Georgians should be asking a lot of questions of their local governments about compliance and question all resistance to and criticism of the best tools we have to insure that American jobs – and tax dollars – go only to those who obey American laws.

D.A. King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society, which is actively opposed to illegal immigration and illegal employment. The Dustin Inman Society is enrolled in the E-Verify system.

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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/05/15/everifyed.html

OUR OPINIONS

Verifiably mistaken
Error-prone employee database is unworkable and bogs down Social Security Administration

By Mike King
The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionPublished on: 05/15/08

If you’ve divorced or changed your name recently, you’d better gird for battle with a computerized bureaucracy. The next time you apply for a job, it may assume you are an illegal immigrant.

Two years ago, the state Legislature proclaimed a crackdown on government contractors who hire undocumented workers. But the federal computer database used by Georgia and other states to enforce that crackdown isn’t up to the task. The system, known as E-Verify, is error-prone, kicking out an alarming number of mismatches for U.S. citizens and foreign nationals who have permission to be in the country. Many are flagged in error because of name changes or change in marital status, and as many as 10 percent of job applicants may be affected.

In most states, use of E-Verify is voluntary. The database is administered by Social Security and the Department of Homeland Security to check the immigration and work status of job applicants; since it was created four years ago, just 61,000 of the nation’s 7.5 million businesses have signed up for it.

You can’t blame them —- the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, unions and trade groups complain the system is a mess, and they’ve joined forces to stop legislation in Congress to make its use mandatory nationwide.

But under the 2006 Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, most companies with public contracts in this state are already required to use the system. Several local counties, including Cobb and Gwinnett, also have employee-verification rules for contractors.

There’s nothing wrong with requiring employers to use a government database to verify job applicants’ legal status. But E-Verify just isn’t reliable enough to perform that task, and the Social Security Administration isn’t the agency to handle it.

The checkerboard of state employee-verification rules is another result of Congress’ abject failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform. That forced the issue onto state legislators, who saw employment-verification laws —- enforced through the E-Verify system —- as a quick solution.

Rather than spend the money to create a new database that works, the states browbeat the federal government to force the Social Security Administration to do something it was never meant to do —- become an immigration enforcement agency. And as it has scrambled to make quick fixes to E-Verify, Social Security has fallen behind on its real job, determining whether elderly and disabled Americans qualify for social services and benefits they have spent years supporting through payroll taxes.

The backlog for appeals in disability cases is now more than 500 days. If the administration is forced to spend $40 billion over the next 10 years to make E-Verify work, the basic services of Social Security will surely suffer even more.

At some point, the federal government —- not the states —- must accept responsibility to create a national system that works. That system will no doubt be tied into Social Security’s database, but it must be accompanied by checks and balances to assure accuracy and protect workers who fall between the bureaucratic cracks.

And the system cannot be implemented in isolation. A truly comprehensive approach —- one that recognizes the nation’s need for many of the illegal immigrants already here and clears them a pathway toward legal status —- remains the only real solution to the vexing problem.

—- Mike King, for the editorial board (mking@ajc.com)