Tuesday, May 05, 2009
By P. Solomon Banda
Denver - Attorneys for Oklahoma went before a federal appeals court Monday to defend a law that requires companies doing business with the state to use a federal database to verify their workers and contractors are eligible to work in the U.S.
Sections of the law were blocked by a federal judge in Oklahoma in June after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others challenged it, saying the "E-Verify" program is unreliable and unfairly imposes penalties on employers.
State attorneys told a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Monday that Congress didn't bar states from requiring employers to use E-Verify.
The appeals court judges did not indicate when they might rule.
The electronic system allows employers to quickly verify a worker's eligibility through a computer with an Internet connection using information from an I-9 form, which is a required from everybody working in the U.S.
"Isn't it a lot simpler" to used the computer system instead of a paper form that takes days to mail, Judge Paul J. Kelly quizzed Carter Phillips, an attorney representing the chamber. "Isn't it the same database?"
"I don't understand what the big problem is, quite frankly," Kelly said.
Congress created E-Verify as part of an immigration bill in 1996 as four-year pilot program in five states, but later expanded it to all 50 states in 2003. Most states don't require employers to use it.
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A judge in Maryland has upheld a rule requiring federal contractors to verify the legal immigration status of workers through an electronic system, E-Verify, run by the Department of Homeland Security. In a ruling late Wednesday, the judge, Alexander Williams Jr. of Federal District Court, dismissed a lawsuit by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Associated Builders and Contractors, and several human resources associations, who argued that the system imposed unreasonable costs on employers. The rule requires federal contractors to check the immigration status of current workers as well as new hires. The decision clears the way for the rule to take effect on Sept. 8....