Nathan Burchfiel
Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) - The immigration reform bills in the Senate and House share little in common, but one thing both chambers agree on is the need to verify potential employees' eligibility to legally work in the United States. Supporters of immigration control say an automated system to do just that is already in place and could be implemented nationwide soon.

The Employment Verification Basic Pilot Program (EVP) was created in November 1997. It was originally offered to employers on a voluntary basis in California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas but has since been expanded to allow employers in all 50 states to join.

The EVP allows businesses to verify a job applicant's eligibility to work -- usually instantly -- by comparing the personal information provided on an application with Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security databases.

The automated process could replace the current mandatory system, which only requires employers to certify that eligibility documents provided by an applicant appear to be genuine.

The EVP compares the data provided on the form completed by employers with government records instead of relying on the employer's ability to spot forged documents.

The Senate immigration reform bill (S. 2611) mandates that some type of employment verification system be used to ensure that only legal workers are hired in the United States. The House bill ( H.R. 4437) would make the existing program mandatory nationwide.

A Temple University study of the original EVP found that an "overwhelming majority of employers participating found the [program] to be an effective and reliable tool for employment verification."

The study found that the verification system confirmed the "vast majority of employees (87 percent) as work-authorized, of which almost all (90 percent) were immediately and automatically confirmed by the computerized comparison of data."

It found that the "greatest Federal shortfall" was a delay in one-third of the cases that had to be verified by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

John Keeley -- a spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for implementing the EVP nationwide -- said the system works well on its current, voluntary basis, and that the "lone looming issue" is readying the program to accommodate millions of requests.

In a December 2005 letter to Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who sponsored the House immigration reform bill, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President for Government Affairs R. Bruce Josten wrote that while the concept "may be theoretically sound, it is questionable whether a new mandate of this breadth, applicable to over seven million employers and over 140 million employees, can be realistically implemented."

Josten argued that the system has already seen "many practical compliance problems under the program" that would only worsen under the increased demand.

"While improvements have been made," Josten acknowledged, "the extension of the program to a much broader universe creates serious questions as to its practicality in the real world."

The program currently verifies employee eligibility for approximately 10,000 American businesses.

The Temple study warned that the program would come with an "extremely high" price tag for the government, employers and employees. If the EVP is made mandatory, the study estimated, it would cost $11.7 billion every year to screen applicants for more than seven million employers.

According to estimates by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, that cost could be more than offset by reducing the number of illegal or "guest" workers in the country, who cost local governments as much as $36 billion annually in education, medical and prison expenses.