Would the biometric card replace the current E-verify system?
Ruthizer: The E-verify system is a strange animal. It has been around as a pilot project for a number of years now, but only a handful of U.S. employers have signed on, mainly because they are operating in a handful of states that actually make it mandatory. The problem with the E-verify system is really twofold. One is that it has what I would consider to be an unacceptably high error rate. You have many cases of U.S. citizens being told that they are not work authorized, and, in fact, they are U.S. citizens, but there is no quick remedy to fix the problem. The other issue is that it is easy to game the E-verify system because there is no photographic identifier. If an individual obtains somebody else’s Social Security number, an employer really would have no way of knowing that the person he thinks is John Smith is really not John Smith. The new system that Senators Schumer and Graham are proposing would effectively replace the E-verify system with a different system that requires th
