Social Construction of Business and Labor in States Adopting E-Verify

• In Event: Labor, Taxes, and Fiscal Federalism: American and Cross-national Studies

Abstract

E-Verify is a voluntary, federally maintained program designed to allow U.S. employers to quickly and easily confirm prospective hires’ work eligibility. Twenty-two states have passed laws concerning E-Verify use for employers operating in their jurisdictions. However, as its uneven adoption across the fifty states might infer, E-Verify is controversial. The program draws criticism not only from civil liberties groups and immigrants’ and workers’ rights advocates who fear its unfair use, but also finds resistance among employers who see regulatory burdens and red tape. Whose concerns matter when a state adopts E-Verify? Do these, in turn, determine extent of E-Verify implementation?

To answer these questions, this paper employs a comparative case study of E-Verify adoption and use in three states with large sectors dependent on immigrant labor that have also adopted global, partial, or restricted deployment of E-Verify in their jurisdictions. It applies social constructions of target populations theory (or SCTP, Schneider & Ingram 1993; 1997) to legislative debates, and public commentary from stakeholders in order to compare how different target groups are depicted as state officials justify their adoption and use of E-Verify.

The last decade and a half has witnessed and increased emphasis on immigration enforcement at the national level, which in turn has depended on state and local cooperation with federal imperatives (Ferris & Holman 2017; Varsanyi 2014; Newton & Adams 2009). While enforcement usually calls to mind policing, workplace raids and employer audits comprise an increasingly high profile avenue for immigration control. This paper positions state adoption of electronic employment verification (E-Verify) as part of a multilayered complex that accomplishes immigration control with surveillance and technocratic measures that blur jurisdictional boundaries (Newton 2012).

Author

• Lina Newton, CUNY, Hunter College