Some employers already are taking extra measures to ensure their workers are here legally.

The Social Security number of every new employee would be screened to keep illegal immigrants out of Oklahoma's work force, if the governor signs a contentious immigration reform bill sitting on his desk.

Some businesses have already changed their hiring practices because they're sure House Bill 1804 will become law.

Becco Contractors Inc. hired a third-party contractor five months ago to verify that new employees were legal to work.

"We knew the bill was coming up, and we wanted to be sure our house was clean," said Ed Smith, the owner and vice president. "If you wait 'til the last minute, you're going to get into trouble."

Other businesses fear it could dry up an employee pool of immigrant workers they've relied on.

It is already against federal law for any employer to "knowingly hire" an illegal immigrant.

"We all rely heavily on the Hispanic work force, and if they eliminate it, we are all going to be hurting," said David McDaniel, franchise owner of Labor Finders, a temporary worker agency that advertises "daily work -- daily pay."

The company goes beyond current requirements to run its 800 to 1,200 employees through the Social Security Administration's verification program, McDaniel said from his Broken Arrow office.

A small percentage of his employees are Hispanic, McDaniel said, but he's worried about some of his customers who hire

"It would probably hurt us more by our clients getting hurt than by it hurting me," McDaniel said.

Many businesses were hesitant to talk about the possibility of screening for illegal immigrants. Some owners refused to comment when contacted. Others hung up the phone immediately.

Illegal immigration is one of the most emotional issues in America today. About 36 million foreign-born people live in the United States and make up 12 percent of the population.

One-third of those individuals have become U.S. citizens, one-third are legal U.S. residents and one-third are unauthorized immigrants, according to the Report of the Task Force on Oklahoma Illegal Immigration Issues. The report was released in March.

The fact is that immigrants are helping replenish a workforce that's dwindling as baby boomers retire.

Between 2000 and 2020, there will be no net increase in native-born workers ages 25 to 54, according to the task force report.

"I know being a baby boomer myself," McDaniel said. "The economy is strong. The unemployment rate is extremely low (3.9 percent in Tulsa County) . . . Yes, it's hard for staffing companies and permanent workforces to find anybody right now."

No doubt requiring employers to verify legal working status of incoming employees would prevent many illegal immigrants from obtaining many jobs.

That's a coup, according to supporters of the House Bill 1804, which has been watered down since state Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, wrote it.

Yet the employment verification systems the bill requires have holes because they depend on sometimes faulty data entry and cannot flag falsified Social Security documents -- a mainstay for illegal immigrants to get a job.

The bill requires employers by July 2008 to register with a "Status Verification System" and to "verify the work eligibility of all new employees."

It gives businesses a few options, including the only verification system developed to confirm legal working status -- the federally funded and operated program called Basic Pilot.

The program is free to employers, but it has flaws.

Even the department that operates it, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, admits that.

Basic Pilot is "not fraud-proof and was not designed to detect identity fraud," Jock Scharfen, deputy director of USCIS and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said in a hearing last month.

Last June, the Government Accountability Office reported that Basic Pilot shows promise but pointed out weaknesses in the program, like its inability to detect fraud and delayed updates to Homeland Security's databases.

The program uses Homeland Security and Social Security information for verification. That in itself makes Basic Pilot problematic, said Tyler Moran, employment policy director at the National Immigration Law Center, which promotes the rights of low-income immigrants.

HB 1804 is "bad public policy because of the inefficiencies and inadequacies of the Basic Pilot program," Moran said.

Social Security, which the program relies on, has some 17.8 million record discrepancies related to name, date of birth or citizenship status, according to a 2006 Congressional Response Report on the accuracy of the Social Security Administration.

The USCIS received $114 million in fiscal year 2007 to expand and improve the Basic Pilot program, or Employment Eligibility Verification.

The department is working to implement photographs to better police worker fraud.

An independent evaluation of the program, commissioned by Homeland Security, found that 96 percent of employers who use it think it's effective for verifying work status.

But not many are using Basic Pilot. Thirty businesses in Tulsa and about 16,000 nationwide are signed up, according to USCIS.

Staffmark Staffing Co. is one of those local businesses.

Cynthia Boales, Staffmark's director of operations, said the program is easy to use and effective. About 10 employees in the last year haven't immediately passed the verification process, which takes seconds.

Staffmark launched Basic Pilot in all of its 260 locations in April 2006 and uses its membership as a selling point to customers.

"We did it completely for a competitive edge and to give our customers a peace of mind," Boales said.

Leigh Bell 581-8465
leigh.bell@tulsaworld.com

Employer options

A controversial immigration-reform bill called the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 passed the state Legislature and now awaits the decision of Gov. Brad Henry to veto or sign the bill into law.

The governor has until midnight Tuesday to decide.

Among the bill's proposals to target illegal immigration is a requirement for employers to verify that new employees are legally in the United States.

It gives three basic options for employers to do this:

• The federal government's Basic Pilot program

• Background checks

• Social Security Number Verification Service

Facts about the Basic Pilot program

• It is the federal government's employment eligibility verification system to see if a person is legally in the United States and authorized to work.

• It is voluntary and free to use.

• It is an automated, Internetbased system that allows employers to verify newly hired workers. Information is taken from the new employee's I-9 form.

• The information goes through the Social Security Administration (SSA) to check validity of the Social Security number, name, date of birth and citizenship provided by the worker.

  The data on noncitizens is verified by the SSA and then sent to the Department of Homeland Security to verify work authorization against the agency's immigration records.

• Verification arrives in about three seconds.

• 92 percent of queries are authorized automatically.

• If a new hire isn't authorized, the employer must notify him or her.

• A new hire who isn't immediately authorized has eight business days to contact an SSA office to correct the SSA record. The employee cannot be fired during this time because of the nonconfirmation.

• Some 16,000 businesses nationwide and 30 in Tulsa are signed up for the Basic Pilot program.

For more information about the program, visit www.uscis.gov

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