E-Verify Helps Hotel and Tourism Industry Hire Legal Workers

by Alex A. Kecskes

The hotel and tourism industry utilizes the services of hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers to clean rooms, do laundry, wash dishes and perform countless other housekeeping chores.

Many people who cross our borders illegally and use stolen social security numbers try to find jobs in hotels and tourism. Companies that hire these workers are breaking the law. The problem is, many companies don't know these workers are illegal. That's where E-verify comes in.

E-Verify is an Internet-based system that compares information from an employee's Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to data from U.S Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to confirm employment eligibility.

Well over a quarter million employers across the United States use E-Verify to check the employment eligibility of their employees. The system is gaining in popularity as nearly 1,000 new businesses sign up every week.

Participation in E-Verify is voluntary for most businesses. Employers with federal contracts or subcontracts are required to use E-Verify. And most employers in Arizona and Mississippi are required to use E-Verify.

E-Verify notes that about two percent of employees who receive initial mismatches (in social security numbers they supplied) do not contest the mismatch. They either choose not to or are unaware of the opportunity to contest and are therefore not work authorized. The E-Verify program closely monitors uncontested mismatches and actively reaches out to employers to ensure that they are aware of their responsibility to inform employees of the right to contest.

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