DHS expects companies will have to verify workers' immigration status

[The Straight Story]

DHS expects companies will have to verify workers' immigration status

By Chris Strohm
[e-mail]
The Homeland Security Department's budget for 2007 anticipates that employers will be required to verify the immigration status of their workers, according to officials and recently released documents.

Companies can currently voluntarily check the legal status of workers through the Basic Pilot employment eligibility verification system, which is managed by DHS' Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau. About 5,000 companies now participate in the program.

But the department expects Congress to pass a temporary worker program this year and to make it mandatory for employers to check the immigration status of employees, said Bill Strassberger, a CIS spokesman.

Accordingly, the department is requesting additional funding in its 2007 budget to establish a mandatory employment eligibility verification program. About $135 million is being requested for the program and for compliance with the 2005 Real ID Act, which requires state driver's license bureaus to verify the status of noncitizens before issuing federally recognized documents.

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