Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at the Press Availability on the Employment Eligibility Verification System at the Fort Myer Construction Corporation

Release Date: June 15, 2007

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

Secretary Chertoff: All right.

Mr. Caro: Basically the system that we're currently using, the pilot system to make sure that the immigrants that we want to hire are eligible here—so we use the—

Secretary Chertoff: I guess this is just for putting it up here.

Mr. Caro: Where we could see it. And what we wanted to do was just take you through a little demo.

Secretary Chertoff:Good.

Mr. Caro: What we wanted to do was just show you first—I'm going to use my own information, so don't shoot my social up there on the screen, but we'll use my information and we will show how the thing works correctly. And then we will make a mistake in the information and show you how it will come up.

So basically this is—she works this every day. We probably do three to five of these a day, of these verifications.

So here we'd be entering all the information about someone who we just hired recently. We're going to use my information here. So again, my social is going in.

Secretary Chertoff: Don't film that anybody. It's not putting your age up either.

Mr. Caro: Okay. Once we get all the data entered in, we have a drop down screen. We're going to pick the type of reporting that we need, the type of verification. In this case I'll just list the big documents.

Secretary Chertoff: Okay.

Mr. Caro: And then we're going to submit the initial verification and you'll see how quick the system comes back. Now we check the information to make sure that everything is correct, that we didn't make any mistakes. So it gives us a second check, and then we go in, do the actual verification.

You see, immediately you see employment authorized.

Secretary Chertoff: That's just about a second it took to get that.

Mr. Caro: I am legal to work. That's what it's saying.

So now we're going to take this out and we're going to close this out, resolve the case and basically go back. And we're just going to do the exact same information over again, and this time we will just make a mistake in the social security number for example.

I think rather than use a demo this is a nice way to show an actual live test. So we'll make a mistake there in the social.

Question: Mike, how many of these do you run a year?

Mr. Caro: As of January, from January 1 until now we ran 295 so far. So we hire quite a few laborers and we do checks quite frequently.

Okay. Same thing. Now we're going to submit the initial verification.

Secretary Chertoff: This tells you that you can check it.

Mr. Caro: Now we go over there and make sure the information for example is—if we saw that we entered a wrong social, then we'd correct it then and we'd submit the data. Now here you can see SSA tentative non-confirmation, social security does not match.

Now at this point the employee is already working for us, so we're going to go to the next screen and we're going to print this notification. Why don't you highlight that? And we're going to go through all this information with the employee. And here down here where it says contest or not contest we're going to give them the opportunity to decide what to do.

The interesting thing that we have found is that nine out of ten employees say they want to contest. But then when we send them to go contest the information, only one out of ten actually does contest and come back.

Secretary Chertoff: So it really is a self-selection process. People who know they're bogus are not going to appear.

Mr. Caro: Yes, and actually we try and see if the documents are fraudulent up front but we usually tell them we'll be doing a Homeland Security test on you, and a lot of people then kind of self-select at that point. It's very helpful for us.

In the past we had issues where we couldn't—you couldn't tell if documents are fraudulent or not. And this system is excellent because now we don't worry about that. We put it in the system and if it's legitimate it comes back fine. And then we know we're in good shape.

Secretary Chertoff: You're not in our system. We have a pilot with respect to the photograph. Are you on that?

Mr. Caro: Actually Monday they're signing us up. They showed the demo and we're very excited because now if you had someone with a false picture but you had live documents we would have no idea. So now we have an extra ability to make sure that that works. So we're excited about that.

Secretary Chertoff: Right, and the beauty of that is that we're beginning, with a naturalization database and the employment authorization—is you'll be able to compare literally the document, the photo and the document in your hand with the photo on the screen. So that eliminates the identity theft problem.

I mean the one hole in this system here is if there were a legitimate person with a legitimate number in your name, but it was let's say Jacques instead of you who came in, having stolen your identity. Without the picture, Jacques would be able to get away with it. The picture would not come out.

And as we continue to build on this system we're going to build additional controls to do this.

Mr. Caro: Yes, sir.

Secretary Chertoff: Great.

Mr. Caro: For us, we found the system extremely effective, and I say we use it every day.

Secretary Chertoff: How do you find it?

Ms. Schmidt: It's very simple. I use it every day. It just takes a couple seconds. And it's pretty user-friendly. It tells you exactly what to do.

Mr. Caro: And I'm not arguing with employees about their identity or anything because we have a way to say—

Secretary Chertoff: Does this keep a record, once you've got someone on board you have a—

Mr. Caro: Absolutely, we keep it. In fact, I printed out reports. It comes with all kinds of reportings. Any of my staff that use this, I can go in and get a report on everything they've done, all the eligibles, how many we've done. So it's a very good tool. It's a good system.

Secretary Chertoff Well, I was going to say, we've been running this system for a while, and we actually brought a consultant who periodically on an interim basis reviews how we're progressing and getting the system scaled up. I think that report was done in 2002 that showed that we were at about 79 percent ability to instantly get a work authorization like you have here.

They did a report which we're sending up to Congress today, and as of last December when the report was essentially tested we were at over 90 percent, 92 percent. So we're getting these things done very quickly, better and better.

As we have said, I mean there is this one hole about identity theft, but if Congress passes the current bill, which does give us the authority to get into the social security database and make sure that we can check to determine that in fact there isn't a second person using your identity, that's going to give us the power to build the system so it actually detects identity theft.

That would close that one vulnerability the current law leaves open. So I think it's a great, great tool. And of course our vision is ultimately to make it mandatory. And my question for you, since you have to use it, is has this made your life easier and has this made complying with the law better as far as your job is concerned?

Mr. Caro: It absolutely has made our job easier and complying with the law now—as an HR director you always worry about, are the documents legitimate. You've done your job but you still end up hiring illegal people because you've still done your job. This takes away that concern, so it's very effective.

Secretary Chertoff: Well, I'm pleased to see it's working and I'm pleased to get another opportunity to look at how it actually works in action. I guess we'll take some questions at this point.

I'd like to introduce the owner and the president of the company, Mr. Rodriguez, an immigrant from Argentina many years ago.

Mr. Rodriguez: Yes.

Secretary Chertoff: And you have actually a great story about the way America works.

Mr. Rodriguez: Yes. I've been here for 48 years.

Secretary Chertoff: That's the beauty of this country is we attract the best—from all over the world and they long to become Americans. And I think what this is about is finding a way to continue to attract the best and the brightest all over the world, give them a legal way to work here, give the employer a legal way to check, and then I think we're on the road to really getting this system to work.

So thank you for hosting this.

Mr. Rodriguez: You're welcome.

Secretary Chertoff: Questions.

Question: Mr. Secretary, can you talk about the revived Senate immigration bill? How many Republicans more do you need to get that bill passed do you think?

Secretary Chertoff: As you know, I mean ultimately you get—60, so you got have some combination of Democrats and Republicans. And of course I'm pleased and I frankly was always optimistic the bill was going to revive. They just needed a little bit more time to get ducks in a row.

So now I'm eagerly anticipating having the debate continue and then having it concluded and getting a bill out of the Senate so we can go to the House.

I think a short version of the answer is we're delighted the bill is going to be coming back up. I was always optimistic that was going to happen. A little bit more time was necessary to finalize some of the details about the amendments that would be considered. That's been done. So now we're looking forward in the next couple weeks to resuming the discussion about the bill and then within a short period of time thereafter I'm optimistic we're going to get a bill out of the Senate and we're going to go to the House.

Question: Are you hoping for a revision that the Republicans revised is the sunsetting of the worker program after five years?

Secretary Chertoff: You know, I think we publicly discussed the fact that we're disappointed by that sunset provision. Whether that gets revised in the Senate, whether it's something the House takes up or it's addressed in conference is going to be up to the members of Congress. I think what's important is that we have a basic structure. We have a bill that is very tough on enforcement. We have $4.4 billion now in mandatory spending in the bill. That is money which will become immediately available once this bill passes. We have an employee verification system like this for one that's mandatory, and we have a temporary worker program and a way to resolve the problem of 12 million undocumented workers.

So that structure is there. It's actually survived quite well, not perfectly but quite well against attacks from all sides. And now I think we have a very good running start to finish this job up.

Question: Mr. Secretary, ICE recently raided Swift company that uses the same system here, the employment verification system, and it still netted more than 1,000 illegal aliens. Critics are saying this program is not going to be effective at ending illegal immigration. I guess I'm curious about your response about how the program netted so many.

Secretary Chertoff: You put your finger on the one vulnerability, which I spoke about a moment ago. This system works extraordinarily well in determining whether a social security number is false or doesn't match the name in question. There's one weakness in the system and that is that if I take a genuine person and I get their social security number and name and I pretend to be that genuine person, an identity theft, this system will not pick that up.

Now we're doing one thing within the system to try to address that, but there's a more important thing Congress can do and must do to let us close that gap. Right now the law forbids us from getting into social security to determine whether we can verify in fact the genuine owner of the number and whether we've got two people using the same number at the same time. If we had that legal ability, which the law now forbids, we could close the gap that was involved in Swift.

The only way to get that is for Congress to pass this bill. So for the people in the Swift company who said, hey, look, I did the best I could but there's a vulnerability here, my answer is, I agree. Congress has to give us the legal tool that will let us close it. If Congress doesn't give us that legal tool this vulnerability will be very difficult to close.

Question: Mr. Secretary, the President talked yesterday about the $4.4 billion coming from the money that undocumented or illegal aliens will pay in fines as they legalize themselves. Isn't that money going to be used as well by USCIS to finance that processing of 12 million immigrants?

Secretary Chertoff: No, there would be two separate fees. There are processing fees, which will be charged for anybody who gets a visa under the system whether it's people coming in from overseas or people who were undocumented. And that will be fixed at the cost of putting this system in. That is meant to cover that cost.

As you know, there's a fine as well and penalties as well under this system for people who are here illegally. That's a separate payment that has to be made and that money is going to be dedicated as essentially the repayment of the $4.4 billion. But the important thing about the provision which has been proposed is it wouldn't require us to wait until we collect those fees. The money will be immediately available with the understanding that as those fees come in it will be repaid. It's a little bit like financing construction based on your future proceeds.

Question: Mr. Secretary, today there were reports from Boeing that they're testing—virtual fence in Arizona. How confident are you that this virtual fence will buy that security that the Republicans in Congress crave?

Secretary Chertoff: They actually have been testing all along. They're continuing to test. It's not that there's a single day.

I'm very confident that as part of a total package this gives us what we need, so let me describe what the package is. Part of it is we have to make sure we can detect anybody who crosses a border illegally and stop it. And some parts of the border we use fence because the border is so close to a city that if we don't slow people up at the fence we're not going to be able to get to them in time.

In desert, parts of the desert, like in Arizona where we're building this network of cameras and radar and sensors, the distance to get to the nearest city or the nearest highway is quite a bit longer so we don't have to literally catch people at the border, and it's actually more efficient for us to see them coming and then determine where we should intercept them in a way that's most convenient and most efficient for us. And that's what this second piece of the system gives us.

But there's a third piece, what's bringing people into the country in the first place. Because if we can minimize that magnet, we reduce a lot of the pressure at the border itself, and what's bringing most of these people in is illegal work. And the only way to prevent that illegal work from being offered is to require the employers to use a system like this one and then say, if you see that someone is illegal under this system you can't hire them.

And that is what is going to address this magnet that comes in. So this whole package, a temporary worker program, which is legal and does fill the work needs that are currently being filled by illegals and employment verification system, high tech at the border and fencing at the border. All those things together bring us a complete set of tools that will address this problem.

Question: Mr. Secretary, how tough is it for you, DHS, ICE—for instance you had a raid earlier this week on the West Coast and it seems more and more they're getting to Bedford, Portland. And when you've got local officials, state, local officials crying foul, we didn't know this was coming; these are innocent people, that kind of thing, how hard is that for you, for you guys to carry out your mission and your policy?

Secretary Chertoff: Well, it is hard. Now look, I sympathize with the fact that people who we are arresting in many cases have committed a violation of immigration laws but other than that they haven't hurt anybody. But it is the law that we do have to enforce against those who violate immigration laws. And so you do see some very unsettling pictures of young men and young women or older men and older women in tears because they've been caught and they're worried about being sent back home again. Nevertheless, we have to enforce the law.

Now we've got to do it as humanely as possible. But frankly one of my requests of all those who are throwing stones at the bill, throwing stones at the government and saying, you're not enforcing the law is, stand up and defend us when we do enforce the law; get up there and explain and support us when we do go in to enforce the law. And to those in the communities who are offended or who are troubled by the pictures that they see and which are heart wrenching, I agree with that, my statement to them is pass an immigration reform bill that puts us in a position where these people can come forward, pay their debt to society, pay a fine but then not have to live in the shadows any longer.

I mean this dilemma in which my agents are frankly put in the middle of a dilemma, they are caught in the crossfire between those who say enforce the law and those who say when you enforce it it's inhumane. And the answer is we need to reconfigure the law so that it's more effective and more humane. And that's what this bill is all about.

Question: Secretary Chertoff, how do you respond to senators like Bob Menendez who have been complaining that the bill has gone to the right and that it's very punitive and doesn't do enough for family reunification.

Secretary Chertoff: Well, let me first—with respect to family reunification, one of the things the bill does do is say, for those people who have a current expectation under the current system of coming in as family members with family relationships, many of those who have waits of 40 or 50 or 60 years before their turn in line comes, this bill accelerates their ability to come into the country so they can get here within eight years.

I would think that's a huge plus for people who are coming in on the current family basis that have waits that are really impossibly long. That's part of my answer to that.

The other part of my answer though is as we choose the rules and as we try to make the rules more merit based going forward, as we create a temporary worker program that is legal and as we afford the people who are here illegally an opportunity to pay their debt to society and then get out of the shadows, we do owe the American people one very important thing, that we're not going to repeat in the future the mistakes of the past.

And that means it's got to be clear, we're going to give you a way to better yourself if you play by the rules, but if you don't play by the rules you really are going to get punished. And I think that's a fair bargain to say up front to someone, in the future we're going to give you a way to come in. It's a legal way and you're going to get identification, and you'll be able to work here, and if you choose to reject our offer of a legal way to do it then you need to understand we will be very tough when you break the law.

And I think that bargain between a path to doing it the right way and a punishment if you do it the wrong way, everybody understands that, not just Americans. I think people overseas understand that as well.

Question: Could you answer that again to the camera so that we could get that?

Secretary Chertoff: I guess, to the criticism that some people say that this bill is too tough I would say this. With respect to families you've got many people who have played by the rules but they're now facing impossibly long waits of 30, 40, 50 years to get green cards even though they've never violated the law. And for those people, this bill actually gives them the possibility of accelerating their efforts into this country to within eight years. So I think that's a very positive step for family members who have done the right thing.

But for those who say we're being too tough, I do have to make this point. We are creating a possibility for people to come into this country and work, doing it the right way, getting identified and paying their taxes, a legal path to satisfy this country's work and labor needs. For those who choose to reject this opportunity and want to break the law, we owe the American public a promise that we really are going to be tough.

So this bill basically gives two choices to somebody. Choice number one is follow the law, play by the rules, we will give you an opportunity. Choice number two is if you reject the lawful path and you decide to break the law, we will punish you and we will be very tough in doing that. And I think that's a fair bargain that Americans understand and I think the whole world understands it.

Question: Yes, Mr. Secretary, today the House voted to postpone the WHTI until June 2009. Do you think that this is a wise move, especially since you guys have delayed it during the summer?

Secretary Chertoff: Here's what we need to do, and first let me explain what this Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative is. This is implementing one of the top recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which is that we should make sure that the people who enter this country, not only by air but by land, have a reliable form of identification. Under current law we get presented with 8,000 different kinds of identification at our border with Canada and our border with Mexico, and that's really an impossible number to manage. So we need to get reliable forms of identification as a requirement of entering this country. That is basic border protection and national security 101.

Now we are currently looking at beginning the process of implementing this new set of rules for reliable identification next January. We're going to make sure that as we implement this we give people adequate time to get the identification. And we think that can be accomplished during the first part of next year.

So we're not looking to put people in an impossible situation. On the other hand, if we put this process of implementation off we are leaving a vulnerability at our border that puts us at risk with respect to not only criminals but frankly terrorists coming into this country. We had a vivid reminder of this with respect to the TB patient who came across the border from Canada just a matter of a couple weeks ago.

Ask yourself this question. Why did this individual avoid coming directly into a U.S. airport and instead fly into Canada and then try to drive down through the border? It was because he had the perception that the weakest area of our border protection is that land border with Canada because of some of the vulnerabilities we have.

We are working very, very efficiently and very quickly to close those gaps, but a critical part of closing that gap is getting a reliable form of identification in people's hands next year and closing the door on this loophole during this President's term in 2008.

###

 

 

 

This page was last modified on June 15, 2007