Dec 13, 2006 8:28 am US/Mountain
Can Companies Really Detect Illegal Workers?
by Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ―
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In July CBS4 launched a new franchise called Good Question that is now a regular part of CBS4 News at 10 p.m. It's an opportunity for reporter Alan Gionet to drill past the basic facts of a story and give it some depth and perspective. (Originally, this fr
Ask at a restaurant like El Noa Noa on Santa Fe and the management is concerned about their ability to check on a worker's legal status.
"Well, you know if you're doing the right thing you don't have to worry about it," said assistant manager Vidal Banuelos. "The problem is going to be knowing you're doing the right thing."
He can check the ID's of workers, but there's no way to verify if they are real, or if they belong to the person he may hire.
"I have no way of knowing without calling somewhere," Banuelos said.
That's the problem. After Tuesday's bust at the
Swift meatpacking plant in Weld County, the company said it had been checking the status of hires with the government's "
Basic Pilot" program. But that program is not designed to reveal if the ID's are stolen or if they were bought as investigators believe many were.
"Technology has not yet made available a single, unified, national, foolproof, instantaneous system where an employer can punch in the identifying information and get back a result," said Colorado House Speaker
Andrew Romanoff.
Employers like El Noa Noa face further requirements after Jan. 1. That's when House Bill 1017 goes into effect. It requires that employers hang on to paperwork showing they've checked an employees immigration status.
Without evidence of checking, employers would be subject to a $5,000 fine for the first violation and $25,000 for each employee after that. It could easily drive many companies out of business with multiple violations.
Chuck Douglas works for a company now positioning itself to help businesses navigate the new laws. He said the Basic Pilot program and a Social Security program to verify eligibility are limited.
"They're not going to get confirmation of multiple users. They're going to get confirmation that Joe's Social Security number is associated with Joe. But Mary, Jim and John are also using that," Douglas said.
So to the answer to the question of whether companies can detect illegal workers or not: they can. But far from every time. The government doesn't provide the mechanism to check thoroughly.
Additional Resources
- In 2006, Colorado was ranked as the fifth worst state when it comes to identity theft. For a list of resources if you think you think you might be a victim, check out the CBS4 story What To Do If You're An Identity Theft Victim.
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