Committee backs worker verification bill

A House panel on Tuesday gave a nod to a bill requiring public employers to use a federal electronic verification system to check the work eligibility of new hires.

The Public Utilities and Technology Committee voted 9-1 to send HB98 to the House floor for debate, after a hearing in which sponsor Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, portrayed the issue as one of identity theft.

Although Donnelson did not mention illegal immigration, the bill would be used to make sure employees are in this country legally. It is the first of several measures dealing with illegal immigration that lawmakers will consider this year and is also one of at least three that deal with employment verification.

Donnelson portrayed the problem of identity theft as "an extremely serious growing problem" in which parents with bad credit, child molesters and deadbeat parents are using phony Social Security numbers to avoid detection.

After the meeting, he declined to say whether the overwhelming support is a positive sign for other measures dealing with illegal immigration he's sponsoring, including a repeal of a law allowing some undocumented students to pay in-state tuition.

"I crafted this one for identity theft," Donnelson said. "We have to get a hold of this as a state."

Assistant Attorney General Richard Hamp said the Department of Workforce Services reported last year that 20,025 Social Security numbers were being used by more than one person. He also said that illegal immigration is responsible for more than 90 percent of the workplace identity theft cases he sees.

Questions from the committee focused mainly on the effectiveness of the program and whether or not it was redundant with criminal background checks already required for many of the jobs covered under the bill.

HB98 would require public employers, ranging from the state to school districts to independent entities such as the Dairy Commission and the Heber Valley Railroad, participate in the Internet-based federal E-Verify program. The program, formerly called Basic Pilot, is currently an optional program in which employers enter a new hire's name, date of birth and Social Security number. Those are checked with federal databases and an employer is told whether it's a matching identity.

Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, D-Salt Lake, the only dissenter, said she's concerned about the number of bills seeming to deal with just one side of the issue. She was also concerned about the focus on criminals, given that the program was designed to check work eligibility.