ACLU of Ohio Communications Director Mike Brickner lays out some of the troubling statistics behind the federal government’s E-Verify program and why Ohio should not adopt the system.

Thank you to the Hamilton JournalNews for presenting some reasonable concerns over recently introduced legislation that would require Ohio employers to use the federal government’s E-Verify system to confirm an employee is authorized to work (“New immigration bill troubling,” May 19).

If this system were implemented in Ohio, it could lead to thousands of citizens and legal residents unable to work. The federal E-Verify system utilizes data provided by the Social Security Administration to confirm the identities of workers and their ability to work in the United States.

However, in its own report, the SSA found that more than 70 percent of the “no-matches” in their database would be for people who were native-born Americans, not undocumented immigrants. “No-matches” can occur because of a clerical error, misspelling, change in name, or the common use of multiple surnames.

A report by the Department of Homeland Security estimates that more than 3.9 million lawful workers nationally would have a “no-match.” This would mean that these people would not be permitted to work unless they could prove that the information was wrong, which could take weeks or months.

Given these numbers, the vast majority of people who may be adversely affected by implementing the E-Verify system would be legal workers whose information is simply inaccurate or incomplete. The cost to businesses for implementing this system and having to suspend or terminate employees whose information does not match the database could be astronomical.

Investing in a system that has been proven faulty and riddled with errors simply does not make sense and will only cost workers and employers time and resources.

Mike Brickner

Communications director

American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio