Biometric checks on the way for all US workers?

New York Senator Charles Schumer wants to introduce a new bill before the end of September that would force all American workers to prove they are eligible to work in the United States with biometric technology.

Schumer stated that the bill will require businesses to not only validate Social Security numbers but also to run fingerprints through the system using an E-verify system that contains a biometric identifier.

According to the Senator, the current E-Verify system, which only requires that workers submit their social security number, is not enough since workers can simply offer someone else’s personal information if they do not have their own.

The Department of Homeland Security would simply like to make the use of E-Verify mandatory for all employers, which it will be for federal contractors beginning on September 8th.

The Senate would like to expand the bill to check not only new hires, but also those who are already working.

Yet, Schumer who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship, said that even with full use, E-verify is still too easy to get around and that only biometric identifiers offer a fool proof solution.

The introduction for the bill allows for the approximate 12 million illegal workers to seek working status in the United States, but the main focus of the new measures would be to prevent additional illegal workers from joining the workforce.

The biometric addition could not be used for law enforcement measures, but simply to make sure that only legal workers are employed in the United States workforce.

Opponents say that the E-verify system has too many bugs in it, and that it currently holds the wrong data on over 12 million people, so stringent use could prevent at least 600,000 legal works from obtaining employment.

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