Pierce County Council vote to nix worker-verification program vetoed by the executive
Oct. 9—A partisan Pierce County Council vote this week removing E-Verify as a requirement for contractors was vetoed by the county executive, spurring criticism from those who say the program discriminates against legal immigrants, people of color and others.
E-Verify, a free, online program which verifies an employee's ability to work legally in the United States, was established as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 and is operated under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The program is essentially mandated by federal law for federal contracts but voluntary for contracts that use state or local dollars. On the strength of four Democrat votes Tuesday, the County Council passed an amended ordinance that explicitly exempted non-federal contractors from needing to enroll in the program.
The decision was sparked by concerns from organizations serving immigrants and racial minorities that the program was prone to errors that wrongly flagged legal residents as ineligible to work and needlessly ensnared them in the immigration system. The program was administratively burdensome as well as redundant, they said, because employers already must complete a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Form I-9, which is used to verify identity and employment authorization.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pierce-county-council-vote-to-nix-worker-verification-program-vetoed-by-the-executive/ar-AA12LDvy