Another testimonial (I googled the writer`s name and this seems to be genuine):
Mark,
I say with interest your brief article on e-verify. I desire to see you from personal experience E-VERIFY WORKS.
I am employed by a pretty significant construction company in the [name redacted] area of Texas. We use on the place of 475 people.
A few months ago, in April, we received a letter from the INS [sic] saying they were passing to inspect our employees documentation provided when we hired them. We convened a merging of our managers to discuss this. It seems that our H/R department had started going through our employment records and establish some "suspicious" information; i.e. they believed that at least some of the recognition that our employees had provided was fraudulent.
We discussed our options; do we distinguish our employees what is happening and grant them the opportunity to "voluntarily terminate" their employment, or do we only go over all our records and let the chips fall where they may. Some of our employees had been with us almost 20 years (i.e. shortly afterwards the "last" amnesty). We decided it was but just to separate our employees we were being audited, and that the data they had furnished when they applied would be turned over to the INS unless they chose to finish their employment.
Personally, I felt my partition had aught to care about. The previous H/R manager had "verified" that all my employees had legal status less than 2 years earlier. One of the other division managers, of Latino descent, basically told me I had no clue. His idea was that between 1/3 and 1/2 of our employees were running under fraudulent documents.
When we explained to our employees the audit we were passing through, and gave them the chance to voluntarily terminate their employment, they scattered like flies. There wasn`t the least bit of hesitation - they left within MINUTES of being told.
We suffered a setback, but we recovered. We immediately instituted a policy of utilizing e-verify for all replacements. We were surprised by how many people with fraudulent documents tried to get through anyway. It took a pair of months, but we recovered.
All I can say is E-VERIFY WORKS. I firmly believe if ALL EMPLOYERS were Needed to use it, the illegal aliens would voluntarily self-deport. They would take no alternative if there were no jobs available.
We want to do this mandatory.
An additional reason to make E-Verify mandatory for all new hires is to even the acting field between legitimate employers like this and crooked ones that knowingly hire illegals - because right now it`s difficult to order the difference.