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The Acorn Camarillo Acorn Moorpark Acorn Simi Valley Acorn Thousand Oaks Acorn |
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Mayor: E-Verify is ‘highly unreliable’ While I don’t intend to become involved in specific political issues that may arise over the course of this year’s municipal election, I do have an obligation, on behalf of the entire City Council, to ensure that the public has accurate information about deliberations publicly pursued by the council. In a July 23 letter in the Acorn (“Candidate says Simi needs EVerify”), Bob Huber implies that the city is failing to prevent the hiring of undocumented workers because it does not participate in the E-Verify program, an online tool whose purpose is to determine whether prospective employees are authorized to work in the United States. He goes on to state, “It is really not clear why the city has not taken this simple step to protect jobs in Simi Valley for hard-working and law-abiding citizens.” I would like the public to know that, in January this year, the City Council directed city staff to evaluate the feasibility of using EVerify. The council was, and is, very interested in what can be done to ensure the employment of properly documented workers. Upon conducting research into the program, staff learned that EVerify is not fail-safe and, in fact, has been highly unreliable. An independent evaluation conducted on behalf of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in early 2010 concluded that, when unauthorized workers are run through the system, they are inaccurately identified as being authorized to work 54 percent of the time. This error rate is no better than a flip of the coin. Rightfully, staff couldn’t recommend a system that couldn’t consistently be counted upon to fulfill its primary purpose. E-Verify may hold promise, assuming the system’s flaws can be corrected and a better record of accuracy achieved. Until that occurs or another alternative becomes available, I would be extremely reluctant to direct taxpayer resources or impose a regulation on employers to use such a system. I can assure the public that this issue remains a priority of the council and that we will keep tabs on the program and be poised to act when something reliable becomes available.
In the interim, we continue to require all contractors with the city to be contractually obligated to employ only persons who are authorized to work in the United States and to ensure all city employees are legally authorized to hold employment. |
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