OPINION: Idaho bill would require employer use of verification database

Watch closely the progress of and commentary on Idaho House Bill 252, which may tell you a lot about this Legislature’s priorities — and Idaho’s.

This bill would require every employer in the state to use E-Verify, a website (and database) run through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and which is set up to determine whether a specific person is eligible legally to work in the United States. Presumably, if every employer ran E-Verify checks on all employees, and used the results as indicated, few people who are in the country illegally would be able to work.

E-Verify uses information in databases, including Social Security numbers and other government records. If records indicate a person isn’t in the country legally, that data is returned to the employer.

There’s a false-positive (or negative, depending on how you look at it) to the process, estimated at less than 1%. The American Civil Liberties Union outlined it this way: “There are currently about 154 million workers in the U.S. A 0.26% error rate represents a best case scenario where 400,000 people will be wrongfully caught up in E-Verify and forced to prove their right to work.”

The service (a question: Will it too be caught up in the Department of Government Efficiency rampage?) is widely used, but in a spotty way. Reports differ on just how widely the federal government, most of which is supposed to use it, actually does. Federal contractors are required to. States vary greatly. Most (including Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming and Montana) have no state rules requiring its use. Ten states (Utah is the nearest, and most are in the south) require its use generally by employers. Idaho is one of the states that hasn’t required it for private employers but does for public (governmental), as well as for public contractors.

A report on Wikipedia said, “Research shows that E-Verify harms the labor market outcomes of illegal immigrants and improves the labor market outcomes of Mexican legal immigrants and U.S.-born Hispanics, but has no impact on labor market outcomes for non-Hispanic white Americans. A 2016 study suggests that E-Verify reduces the number of illegal immigrants in states that have mandated use of E-Verify for all employers, and further notes that the program may deter illegal immigration to the United States in general.” It also might motivate some of those workers to move from E-Verify states to non-E-Verify states.

The new Idaho bill, sponsored by Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d’Alene, would expand the Idaho requirement to private employers, with enforcement by the state attorney general, and penalties that could involve shutting down the business.

There’s also this: “Any resident of this state may petition the attorney general to bring an enforcement action against a specific business entity or employer by means of a written, signed petition.” It’s not hard to imagine groups of people who dislike immigrants targeting any business which might employ them, with potential extreme business or financial impacts.

The prospect of that ought to send a chill through the operators of many Idaho businesses, and it probably does. The Idaho Dairyman’s Association, for one, has been vocal on this. Its website highlighted this comment: “The success and growth of Idaho’s dairy industry is not achievable without the contributions of the talented, predominantly Hispanic workforce who has toiled beside Idaho’s dairy farm families for generations.”

So there is a conflict here. The E-Verify system does seem to work, at least generally, with some flaws, and could reduce (not eliminate) the number of people in the country or in the state illegally, since the vast majority are here to work. But a number of legal workers likely would be snagged in the system, and (under terms of this bill) a number of employers could find themselves at war with neighbors, and businesses damaged or shuttered.

Up to now, this isn’t terrain the Idaho Legislature has been eager to visit. Whether it does this year may say a lot about what it, and Idaho, think about the state and the people in it.

Stapilus is a former Idaho newspaper reporter and editor who blogs at ridenbaugh.com. He may be contacted at stapilus@ridenbaugh.com.