Most California Employers Embracing Fed's Law on Illegal Immigration; Leading the Nation on E-Verify, Regardless to What State’s Pro-Illegal Immigration LAWS Say:

Most California Employers Embracing Fed's Law on Illegal Immigration; Leading the Nation on E-Verify, Regardless to What State’s Pro-Illegal Immigration LAWS Say:

By Marc Chamot

Good Riddance! There’s great illegal immigration news coming out of California.

California employers are bracing the Federal government’s VIEW, rather than state of California’s over E-Verify. Mandated everywhere, except in California it’s only voluntary, state employers are leading in checking statuses of new hires.

While state government want to give away illegal immigrants free taxpayer handouts, securing a job for undocumented aliens in California will be tougher. Corporate giants like Apple, and Chevron and Kaiser Healthcare non profits have all signed up with E-Verify.

However, the state has forbidden localities and municipalities on enforcing Fed’s E-Verify laws. That’s okay, it’s a great start.

California liberal politicians have gone out of their way to ban E-Verify, checking immigration statuses of all employees. Source: San Jose Mercury News; “As a growing number of states require public and private employers to use E-Verify, California has gone out of its way to make it voluntary, passing a law this month that bans local governments from forcing firms to use electronic verification.

Still, the number of California job sites using E-Verify to scrutinize their workers -- usually on the first few days on the job -- increased by 37 percent to more than 90,000 from a year ago, according to government records. The state has more job sites using the electronic verification system than any other.”

Retailers have been particularly eager to join in recent months, said attorney Ann Cun, of San Ramon-based workplace consultants INSZoom. That could affect who gets hired as stores and warehouses prepare for the annual surge of temporary work over the holidays.

A Target store in Walnut Creek made news just before Christmas 2009 when an internal audit forced out 40 immigrant workers on the overnight shift.

Immigration agents have conducted their own investigations of companies across the state -- usually in low-key visits to audit I-9 forms and occasionally in a splashy public raid. All these probes make businesses worried.

"Employers have been finding out about the E-Verify program mainly after reading about these raids," Cun said. "That's usually what triggers companies to evaluate whether they want to enroll."

Database editor Daniel Willis contributed to this report.

How E-Verify works

Every new employee must file a federal I-9 form verifying their right to work in the United States, but E-Verify adds another layer of verification to the hiring process. The electronic system instantly checks I-9 data and photographs against millions of records from the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

Of the 15.6 million queries submitted to E-Verify in the 2010 fiscal year, 98.3 percent were confirmed to be legal workers in less than five seconds, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The other 1.7 percent is called "tentative non-confirmations."

Employees not immediately authorized can contest the findings, and the Department of Homeland Security will do a manual records check. About 18 percent -- 47,000 employees -- were found to be legal workers after a challenge. Of the remaining 218,000, most quit.

Who uses E-Verify?

As of Oct. 22, there were 297,433 employers nationwide using E-Verify, representing 968,981 job sites.

Of those numbers, 26,125 employers and 90,318 job sites are in California. California has the most job sites using E-Verify and the second most employers after Arizona, where E-Verify use is required.
According to a government database, a sampling of Bay Area employers that use E-Verify includes:

Retailers: The Gap, Ross Dress for Less, Williams-Sonoma, Cost Plus
Schools: UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Oakland Unified School District, Morgan Hill Unified School District
Tech: Facebook, Apple, Oracle, Intel, Hewlett-Packard
Restaurants: Chipotle Mexican Grill, Black Angus Steakhouse, Baskin-Robbins, Sizzler USA

For a list of every California employer with at least five employees signed up for E-Verify, go to www.insidebayarea.com or www.contracostatimes.com. Not included on the list are out-of-state E-Verify users, such as Walmart, that employ workers in California.

States and E-Verify

States with the most job sites using E-Verify:
California 90,318
Arizona 74,235
Texas 55,420
Georgia 54,182
New York 52,370
Florida 49,428
Pennsylvania 42,655
Missouri 41,707
North Carolina 35,851
Virginia 35,311

Note: Arizona has required all employers to use E-Verify since 2008. Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia require it for some employers, usually public agencies or their contractors.