for blocking immigrant crackdown
by Frank James
The Homeland Security Department is suing Illinois to undo a new state law the federal agency says would make it more difficult to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.
The law is an amendment to Illinois’s “Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act” which would make it impossible, says Homeland Security, for employers to participate in a voluntary federal program many currently use to verify whether new employees are legally entitled to work in the U.S.
Called E-Verify, the Internet program allows employers to transmit to the federal government certain identity information which permits immigration officials to confirm (or not) whether the employees can be legally employed.
About 93 percent of such queries come back either immediately or, if a manual check is necessary, the next day, confirming that an employee is eligible to work in the U.S. The rest are categorized as “tentative non-confirmations.”
The employee can decide not to contest the non-confirmation. If he does contest it, Homeland Security will further investigate the matter, but that can take weeks.Here’s where the new Illinois law comes in. It essentially says that until Homeland Security can conduct 99 percent of those investigations within three days, it’s illegal for all businesses operating in Illinois to participate in the E-Verify program.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/09/dhs_sues_illinois_for_thwartin.html
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1153