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Wal-Mart Could Have Avoided Illegal-Alien Embarrassment With Simple Policy Change
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On November 23, 2005, NumbersUSA praised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for effectively enforcing U.S. immigration law in last week's bust of 125 illegal workers at a Wal-Mart construction site in Pennsylvania. NumbersUSA further urged all businesses and local government entities to take part in the Basic Pilot Employment Verification Program in order to ensure adherence to immigration law by verifying that all employees are eligible to work in the United States.
“This bust has shown ICE’s ability to effectively and speedily enforce our laws,” said NumbersUSA Executive Director Roy Beck. “It would be enormously easy for ICE to do a significant raid a day across the country and send a powerful and constant message that outlaw businesses will be caught and penalized under the law."
Wal-Mart itself did not hire the illegal workers. In fact, after a number of embarrassing incidents involving illegal aliens, Wal-Mart became a participant in the Basic Pilot Employment Verification Program. The illegal workers arrested last week were hired by subcontractors. By law, Wal-Mart is not allowed to ask the workers of a subcontractor if they are eligible to work in the United States.
"Businesses and government entities can save themselves from embarrassment like that suffered by Wal-Mart last week by adopting a simple policy that they will not do any business with subcontractors unless they can prove that they also are participants in the federal Verification Program," Beck said. “The public humiliation and tarnished image Wal-Mart is now facing should make every business and government entity in the country very nervous about whether they could get caught in this kind of mess. All they have to do to avoid a similar situation is just take a few minutes to sign up for the Verification Program.”
E-Verify (formerly Basic Pilot Program) is available on the Internet. To register for E-Verify Web-Based Access method, employers can go to https://www.vis-dhs.com/EmployerRegistration and follow the instructions. The program checks Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security databases to verify the employment authorization of all newly hired employees. In addition to providing a reliable, timely way to confirm the employment eligibility of employees, E-Verify removes the guesswork from document review, improves the accuracy of wage and tax reporting, and protects jobs for authorized
United States
workers. Participation in E-Verify is free to participating employers.
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