In a 1997 interim rule, the  former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) reduced the  number of acceptable work eligibility documents from 29 to 27. As of April  2008, more than 61,000 employers have registered to use the program,  about 28,000 of whom were active users, according to USCIS. If participation in the E-Verify program were made mandatory, the  program would have to accommodate all of the estimated 7.4 million  employers in the United States. USCIS has developed cost and staffing estimates for operating a  mandatory E-Verify program. Although DHS has not prepared official cost  figures, USCIS officials estimated that a mandatory E-Verify program  could cost a total of about $765 million for fiscal years 2009 through 2012 if  only newly hired employees are queried through the program and about  $838 million over the same 4-year period if both newly hired and current  employees are queried. Mandatory implementation of E-Verify would also  require additional USCIS staff to administer the program, but USCIS was  not yet able to provide estimates for its staffing needs. SSA has estimated that  implementation of a mandatory E-Verify program would cost a total of  about $281 million for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 and require hiring  700 new employees for a total of 2,325 additional workyears over the same  5-year period. USCIS and SSA Are Implementing Plans to Reduce Delays and Improve Efficiency in the E-Verify Process

In prior work, we reported that secondary verifications lengthen the time  needed to complete the employment verification process. The majority of  E-Verify queries entered by employers—about 92 percent—confirm the  employee is authorized to work within seconds. With regard to the SSA tentative nonconfirmations,  USCIS officials told us that the majority of erroneous tentative  nonconfirmations occur because employees’ citizenship status or other  information, such as name changes, is not up to date in the SSA database,  generally because individuals have not notified SSA of information  changes that occurred. If the  employee’s information matched information in DHS’s databases and the  databases showed that the person was a naturalized U.S. citizen, E-Verify  would confirm the employee as work authorized. In addition  USCIS and SSA are exploring options for updating SSA records with  naturalization information from DHS records. Although this could help to  further reduce the number of SSA tentative nonconfirmations, USCIS and  SSA are still in the planning stages, and implementation of this initiative  may require significant policy and technical considerations, such as how  to link records in SSA and DHS databases that are stored according to  different identifiers. These efforts may help improve the efficiency of the verification process. USCIS has Identified Areas where E-Verify is Vulnerable to Fraud, but Proposed Actions Do Not Address All Types of Fraud and Raise Privacy Concerns

In our prior work, we reported that E-Verify enhances the ability of  participating employers to reliably verify their employees’ work  eligibility. However, the current E-Verify program cannot help employers  detect forms of identity fraud, such as cases in which an individual  presents genuine documents that are borrowed or stolen because the  system will verify an employee when the information entered matches  DHS and SSA records, even if the information belongs to another person. The use of the photograph screening tool is currently limited because  newly hired employees who are queried through the E-Verify system and  present documentation other than green cards or employment  authorization documents to verify work eligibility—about 95 percent of E- Verify queries—are not subject to the tool. Expansion of the photograph  screening tool would require incorporating other forms of documentation  with related databases that store photographic information, such as  passports issued by the Department of State and driver’s licenses issued  by states. USCIS reported that it is  working to address these issues by, for example, conducting education  and outreach activities about the E-Verify program. USCIS and ICE are also  negotiating an MOU to define roles, responsibilities, and mechanisms for  sharing and using E-Verify information.
Why GAO Did This Study

In 1996, the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, now within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Social Security Administration (SSA) began operating a voluntary pilot program, recently named the E-Verify program, to provide participating employers with a means for electronically verifying employees' work eligibility. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to require all employers to electronically verify the work authorization status of their employees. In this testimony GAO provides observations on the E-Verify system's capacity and costs, options for reducing delays and improving efficiency in the verification process, ability to detect fraudulent documents and identity theft, and vulnerability to employer fraud and misuse. This testimony is based on GAO's products issued from August 2005 through June 2007 and updated information obtained from DHS and SSA in April 2008. We analyzed data on employer use, E-Verify guidance, and other reports on the employment verification process, as well as legislative proposals and regulations.

What GAO Found

A mandatory E-Verify program would necessitate an increased capacity at both U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and SSA to accommodate the estimated 7.4 million employers in the United States. According to USCIS, as of April 2008, more than 61,000 employers have registered for E-Verify, and about half are active users. Although DHS has not prepared official cost figures, USCIS officials estimated that a mandatory E-Verify program could cost a total of about $765 million for fiscal years 2009 through 2012 if only newly hired employees are queried through the program and about $838 million over the same 4-year period if both newly hired and current employees are queried. USCIS has estimated that it would need additional staff for a mandatory E-Verify program, but was not yet able to provide estimates for its staffing needs. SSA has estimated that implementation of a mandatory E-Verify program would cost a total of about $281 million and require hiring 700 new employees for a total of 2,325 additional workyears for fiscal years 2009 through 2013. USCIS and SSA are exploring options to reduce delays and improve efficiency in the E-Verify process. The majority of E-Verify queries entered by employers--about 92 percent--confirm within seconds that the employee is work-authorized. About 7 percent of the queries cannot be immediately confirmed as work authorized by SSA, and about 1 percent cannot be immediately confirmed as work authorized by USCIS because employees' information queried through the system does not match information in SSA or DHS databases. The majority of SSA erroneous tentative nonconfirmations occur because employees' citizenship or other information, such as name changes, is not up to date in the SSA database, generally because individuals do not request that SSA make these updates. USCIS and SSA are planning to implement initiatives to help address these weaknesses and reduce delays. E-Verify may help employers detect fraudulent documents thereby reducing such fraud, but it cannot yet fully address identity fraud issues, for example when employees present genuine documents that may be stolen. USCIS has added a photograph screening tool to E-Verify through which an employer verifies the authenticity of certain documents, such as an employment authorization document, by matching the photograph on the document with the photograph in DHS databases. USCIS is exploring options to expand this tool to include other forms of documentation, such as passports, with databases that store photographic information, but these efforts are in the planning stages and require decisions about data sharing and privacy issues. E-Verify is vulnerable to acts of employer fraud and misuse, such as employers limiting employees' pay during the E-Verify process. USCIS has established a branch to review employers' use of E-Verify. In addition, information suggesting employers' fraud or misuse can be useful to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in targeting worksite enforcement resources. USCIS and ICE are negotiating a memorandum of understanding to define roles and responsibilities for sharing information.