SB81 requires E-Verify checking for workers

Bingham is among several business leaders who have announced their opposition of SB81, and the House bills. They instead favor another Senate measure, SB97, which would create a task force to study the issue.

The employers are also concerned about other provisions in SB81, including one to create a private cause of action for legal workers to sue if they're fired by employers who also employ undocumented immigrants.

SB81 is modeled after a new Oklahoma law, which is considered one of the nation's toughest crackdowns on illegal immigration. That law has prompted a federal lawsuit filed by a coalition of business leaders including the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce.

Anecdotal evidence points to Oklahoma law has caused an outflux of many of that state's estimated 100,000 undocumented immigrants. In that state, construction companies are have problems completing jobs and businesses that cater to Hispanic clientele are suffering, The Chicago Tribune has reported.

E-Verify is used by more than 52,000 employers nationwide. There were nearly 3.3 million employees checked by the system in fiscal year 2007 and more than 1.7 million checked so far in this fiscal year, according to CIS.

Some 93 percent of the people who are checked by the system are immediately given an OK to work, according to CIS. Of the remaining, 7 percent, roughly 1 percent take steps to rectify the situation through either CIS or the Social Security Administration.

The implication is that the remaining six percent take themselves out of the process, "they know they're not eligible to work ... they self disqualify," said Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, an agency spokeswoman.

A report done for CIS by the Maryland-based Westat last points specifically to the program's ability to accurately verify the work eligibility of naturalized citizens.

"The accuracy of the USCIS database used for verification has improved substantially since the start of the Basic Pilot program," the report states. "However, further improvements are needed ... "

When it comes to errors, Dastrup says, there haven't been many issues, though a few people have had to correct their information.

"Very, very rarely to do we run into an issue that needs to be followed up on," he said.

Only 0.1 percent of U.S.-born employees were considered no-match, according to the report. However, that rate was 3 percent for foreign born employees. Naturalized U.S. citizens were more likely than work-eligible non-citizens to be considered mismatches, although Garcia-Upson said the agency is trying to address that problem.

That discrepancy is troubling to immigration attorney Roger Tsai, especially given that under E-Verify, employees have only 10 days to clear up a no-match with the Social Security Administration or with CIS.