A failed approach

Thursday, May 22, 2008 | 2:07 a.m.

A bill in the House of Representatives would require America’s 7.4 million employers to check with the federal government before hiring an employee.

The bill would mandate preemployment checks of candidates’ Social Security numbers. It is being touted as a measure against illegal immigration, and supporters of the bill say it is simple — employers just plug a Social Security number into a Web site and within seconds they’ll be able to determine whether the would-be employee is legally able to work in the country.

However, the program, being examined in a pilot program called E-Verify, has shown itself to be costly and far from perfect.

The Government Accountability Office says about 8 percent of the searches in the pilot program have found a person ineligible to work in the United States, but many of those findings are a result of errors in the Social Security database.

Someone found ineligible can challenge the finding, but that can be a serious hassle. Audits of the Social Security Administration show that people who visit the agency’s offices encounter long waits due to understaffing.

The agency reports that it has seen an increase in work because of the program and estimates it will need 700 more workers if every employer in the country is required to use the program. The federal government will need to make costly upgrades to the database as well.

The GAO estimates it could cost $1.7 billion in the first four years of the program, and some estimates have placed the cost to the U.S. Treasury as high as $40 billion over the first decade of the program.

In addition, the Government Accountability Office says the system could be vulnerable to fraud and abuse.

The problems cataloged here are more than trifling. How does creating a costly, error-prone and potentially fraudulent system make sense?