Wednesday, March 17, 2010

E-Verify: Truth in Numbers

Department of Homeland Security
Blog
Lauren Kielsmeier is the Chief of Staff for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Recently, some media reports have used statistics that appear to call into question the effectiveness and accuracy of E-Verify. I’d like to set record straight. A report by the independent research firm Westat, using a sample from a three month period in 2008, concluded that E-Verify was accurate 96 percent of the time. Since then, the Obama administration has taken significant steps to further improve E-Verify.Read the report for yourself here.What else did this report tell us about E-Verify?
93.8 percent of workers screened by E-Verify were authorized for employment—and the system instantly and accurately confirmed more than 99 percent of these eligible workers.
The remaining 6.2 percent were not eligible for employment. Out of this estimated 6.2 percent, approximately half were told they are work authorized when they were not—just 3.3 percent of the overall population screened by E-Verify.
To be clear, this means that only an estimated 3.3 percent of all workers screened by E-Verify were incorrectly told they were work authorized.The system’s accuracy and efficiency continues to improve, reflecting the changes and improvements to E-Verify that USCIS has made over the past year—and continues to make.

Full Blog Post: http://www.dhs.gov/journal/theblog

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