California government employees must prove citizenship through E-Verify

from Harry JohnsonCalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

About 4,000 California Department of Public Health employees have been notified that they must use a federal verification system to prove they are US citizens.

Agency leaders said in a memo obtained by CalMatters that the inspection is necessary to receive federal funding, but employees and unions oppose the directive.

In the memo, the deputy director of human resources asked employees to meet a series of deadlines, culminating in April 10. A separate document released by the department said that failure to comply with the verification could result in a loss to the state contract with the Centers for Disease Control for the National Death Index, which collects death certificate data from authorities across the country.

The department is also taking steps to address incomplete work eligibility records identified in a recent audit, according to Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents the department’s roughly 3,000 employees.

As with other US employers, all new California Department of Health employees complete a federal Form I-9 to prove their citizenship. The department is now asking them to enroll in E-Verify, a program administered by US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration. This system compares information provided by an I-9 clerk with records in federal databases, including Social Security and the Department of Homeland Security. In some cases, it also prompts employers to compare each applicant’s ID photo with the one they provided during the E-Verify process. The memo says employees will specifically use E-Verify+, which combines I-9 completion with verification. Employees hired before November can opt out of using this particular version of E-Verify.

SEIU Local 1000 President Annika Walls told CalMatters in an email that forcing all employees to use E-Verify “raises serious concerns for our members about privacy, data security and unnecessary re-verification of workers who are already legally employed.”

The union sent a petition to the state agency’s leaders last month to raise concerns about the vetting and stressed that employees had provided documents proving their citizenship when they were hired. Walls told CalMatters that the health agency is currently the only state department in California that the union is aware of that has asked its employees to verify their citizenship status. The union represents about 100,000 state employees in 140 state agencies, boards, commissions and departments.

“When federal systems and funding conditions are used to justify expanded data collection from workers, it raises red flags — especially when those workers have already met work eligibility requirements,” she wrote. “Our members are concerned about their personal data being sent to federal systems with known accuracy and security issues. And this comes at a time when both US citizens and immigrant workers are understandably concerned about how employment data may be accessed or used by federal agencies.”

The E-Verify+ requirement creates fear and uncertainty among employees and could affect recruitment and retention in the future, said Jacqueline Tkach, president of the California Association of Professional Scientists – UAW Local 1115, a union that represents roughly 800 health department employees. With reports of ICE activity at workplaces and people being taken off the street, the timing couldn’t be worse.

“E-verify+ is not a neutral administrative tool. It is deeply integrated with DHS databases, including the systems used by ICE, and relies on biometrics and interagency data sharing,” she said in a statement shared with CalMatters. “To introduce this at a time when immigrant communities and public health scientists are being openly attacked by the current federal administration is extremely chilling.”

The California Department of Public Health did not respond to multiple requests to answer questions. State Information Officer Nicole Snow told CalMatters that the California Department of Human Resources does not monitor how state agencies verify employment eligibility and that the use of E-Verify is determined at the department level.

“This is alarming – especially when these workers have already met eligibility requirements for work.”

Annika Walls, President, SEIU Local 1000

Since becoming available in the 1990s, E-Verify has been a voluntary program for employers by default, but over time it has become mandatory for more employers. The federal government requires E-Verify for certain contracts since 2009 and more than 20 countries already require E-Verify for their own contracts or to issue business licenses. Florida lawmakers passed a bill earlier this month that would require employers of all sizes to use the federal program.

Critics of E-Verify say the program needs reforms to address cases where it makes mistakes, including when people commit identity fraud they get jobs they shouldn’t have and false positives that cause people to lose jobs they were legally allowed to do. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and E-Verify’s error rate, if Congress were to pass an E-Verify mandate today, the citizenship status of more than 120,000 people would be incorrectly labeled, allowing ineligible immigrants to work, and some U.S. citizens would be labeled ineligible for work, which could result in lost wages or lost jobs, said Congressman Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland. during a hearing last month where members of Congress debated a bill that would require the use of E-Verify for all federal contracts.

The health department’s push to prove citizenship comes as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is ramping up the I-9 audits that may precede attacks. It also comes on the heels of ICE agents shooting and killing two people in Minnesota, the death of multiple people in ICE detention centersand numerous news reports that the Department of Homeland Security wants to implement similar tactics in California and New York.

The department may want to prepare for or prevent an ICE audit. I-9 audits have increased in Minnesota in recent weeks, Minneapolis-based immigration attorney Matthew Webster told CalMatters. Webster said some appear indiscriminate, such as audit notices “basically just being left door to door,” and some appear vindictive, such as a hospital where staff protested The ICE treatment of a patient shortly before the hospital was audited, and a St. Paul toy store that handed out whistles that protesters use to alert neighbors to ICE activity also shortly before being audited. Webster expects such audits to become more common as tens of billions of dollars continue to pour into the law enforcement agency from the federal budget.

A set of “Frequently Asked Questions” prepared by the California Department of Public Health and distributed to employees describes E-Verify+ as designed to “reduce errors, streamline onboarding and improve the overall employee experience.”

But one official, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation, told CalMatters that in light of recent events, they are concerned about the department providing photos of DHS employees under E-Verify. They also said the health department should have made clear that employees can opt out of the “plus” version of E-Verify and should extend that option to people hired since November who must always use E-Verify+, according to the question paper.

“Nowhere in the memo does it tell us we can opt out,” they said. “This information only came after staff raised concerns with the principal.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.