news-record.com

Last week's raid of a manufacturing plant in Mississippi put the spotlight back on illegal immigration. Netting almost 600, it's the biggest immigration raid ever made on a U.S. plant.

The raid also put the spotlight on problems associated with E-Verify, a federal program that provides employers a link to government databases to determine workers' legal status.

The company, Howard Industries Inc., was using E-Verify and other methods to check immigration status, yet it still employed hundreds illegally.

Much of the anomaly could stem from employees hired before the company began using E-Verify. It was reported that enforcers began investigating two years before Howard began checking workers' status that way.

With such a large number detained, you have to wonder if someone at Howard didn't mind hiring undocumented workers. Still, Howard's employment problems likely also resulted from a glaring weakness of E-Verify: It has a hard time detecting identity theft.

If an illegal immigrant has stolen someone's identity and is using both that person's name and Social Security number, E-Verify often can't determine that.

E-Verify is set to expire on Nov. 1, unless Congress reauthorizes it. Democratic Rep. Health Shuler, of western North Carolina, has proposed legislation that not only would continue E-Verify but expand it. Called the SAVE Act, it would phase in mandatory use of E-Verify by all employers.

Shuler's legislation might be good if there were no glitches in the system. But there are, and it's not just the matter of E-Verify missing identity theft.

Studies of E-Verify have found that it can provide initial "false negatives." One study found that it mistakenly flagged .1 percent of U.S.-born employees as problematic and 3 percent of employees who are foreign-born.

Other studies have found that the databases E-Verify taps into are riddled with errors. For example, the Social Security Administration's own inspector general estimated that 17.8 million records in its agency's database, which is used to check employment eligibility, contain inaccuracies.

Americans already have plenty of experience dealing with faulty information. Look at the indignities many have suffered because their names somehow were erroneously added to the No Fly List. The last thing we need is to have employers -- and workers -- ensnarled in similar problems.

E-Verify shouldn't be scrapped. Employers need an electronic way to check immigration status. But the kinks need to be worked out of the program before it's made mandatory.

A group representing business, educational and nonprofit interests sent a letter in recent weeks to Congress containing sound suggestions. They want funding to clean up problems in the Social Security database that's a part of E-Verify, and they also suggested a trial program to target identity theft.

Those ideas should be incorporated into E-Verify reauthorization.