Arizona passed a new bill requiring all businesses to E-Verify all of their employees--and terminating those that do not meet the verification criteria on
Personally, I think this is a great thing. This is definitely a step in the right direction.
Why?
Well, see...what happens when you fill out an I-9 is as follows:
HR representative makes a big deal about you having all of your information on the date of hire.
You fill out the form.
You give said HR rep. your completed form and specified identification. If you do not have your identification, your HR rep. tells you to bring your identification (by law, has to be by the third day of employment or you can be terminated).
However, that's not the way it works most of the time. If you didn't bring your employment information, your paperwork is placed in a drawer somewhere among other neglected HR paperwork. HR rep. forgets.
However, if you are the good employee, you bring your identification on the date of hire/orientation date or within the alotted three days.
Copies of your identification are made.
Copies of identification are stapled to original paperwork.
Paperwork is then holepunched and placed in a binder (hopefully in alphabetical order, although obviously...not all the time -- ugh) and forgotten.
Those papers in the drawer...are eventually found covered in cracker crumbs and leftover strands of white out tape. But then to realize that the employee was terminated a year ago and the proper paperwork was never filled out.
So basically, this paperwork is never 100% verfied. Why go through the task of filling it out if the company could have illegals/unverified workers for several years and not even know about it until an audit--which rarely happens.
Why should we (as HR and employees) have to fill out paperwork that is never checked? The E-verification process is very helpful and very much needed in the workplace.
How the E-verification process works:
The company sends the paperwork that is already existing to a third party.
Third party types everything in.
New hires transmit everything electronically, and copies of identification are emailed or faxed to third party.
(This cuts out a lot of work on the HR end...(haa. opening the drawer, hole punching, and eating those crackers to leave crumbs on the discarded I-9s is a lot of work...)
The third party then submits all numbers to the government.
If employee is approved and verfied, they continue working.
If employee is not verified (aka red flagged as an illegal), they are then placed in limbo and their information is again put through ten days later.
Seems good enough. I like this idea.
However. (you knew that was coming)
We cannot verify employees before their hire date. So, the employees are trained regardless if their citizenship status/eligibility is confirmed or not. Meaning, they are trained, the company is notified they have been rejected, and then the employee continues to be trained until the second run through ten days later?
I say if the employee didn't run through the first time, send them home.
WHY ten days? Why not a month? A year? Never?
We run prescreening background checks and drug tests. Why can't we check their eligibility to work in this country before they're hired, too?! Is THAT not important? Yes. That's right. BY LAW no employer can run a check to see if someone is a citizen of the United States BEFORE they are hired...but employers CAN run drug tests and background checks.
Why is this? Does this make sense to anyone?
No frickin wonder so many businesses have illegal immigrants. Some companies sincerely do NOT know they do.
Even WITH the I-9 E-verify system, they cannot send the employee home during the 10 day waiting period, so they not only have to compensate the employee for the 10 days, but can be held responsible for hiring an illegal worker?
That's a complete waste of time and resources. And a breeding ground for lawyers. *shivers*
If every company would actually get their I-9 forms confirmed, illegal immigrants would go elsewhere for jobs. They're already leaving Arizona.
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