The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Jan. 28 released a report stating that E-Verify wrongly authorizes about 54 percent of illegal immigrants to work in the United States.
The study, conducted by Westat, a social science research firm contracted by USCIS to evaluate the usefulness of the E-Verify program, used data collected between September 2007 and June 2008. Westat also found that employer participation in E-Verify has risen – approximately 184,000 of the 7 million to 8 million employers in the U.S. use E-Verify – and that the number of workers processed through E-Verify increased eight fold over the past three years.
Despite failing to catch more than half of all illegal immigrants, E-Verify is getting a boost from the Department of Homeland Security’s $56.3 billion fiscal year 2011 budget request. The E-Verify program is scheduled to receive $103.4 million for increased monitoring and compliance efforts.
To read a summary of the report, click
here.