Support of E-Verify Program Grows, But Critics Remain

As reported in The Los Angeles Times, the E-Verify program recently received a few boosts, with the Obama administration announcing that it wants Congress to allocate an additional $12 million to the program in the next fiscal year (bringing its budget to $112 million) and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano stating in a congressional hearing that E-Verify was "a cornerstone of workplace enforcement across the country." Almost 125,000 businesses are signed up for the E-Verify program. Some argue, though, that E-Verify will not solve the issue of illegal immigration and that expansion of the program would only push more undocumented workers underground. Others generally support E-Verify but criticize the program’s accuracy rate. The government reports that E-Verify has a 96% accuracy rate, and Napolitano has stated that the government plans to improve the accuracy of the databases.