House Democrats expressed skepticism today about the Homeland Security Department's voluntary electronic employee verification system and warned that before any regime is made mandatory for U.S. employers, the government must fix a number of problems with the existing system.

Comment on this article in The Forum.The lawmakers included House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and other members of Lofgren's panel who met to hear from lawmakers and experts on the subject. Conyers cited concerns that an expansion of the program, known as E-Verify, could create a giant database of personal information on all Americans and impose burdens on small businesses. In addition, he said, some have warned that it will drive undocumented workers further underground and cost up to $17 billion in lost tax revenue.

Lofgren's panel held the hearing a day after President Bush issued an executive order that will require federal contractors to verify the legal status of all employees hired to work on new contracts. She noted that 11 bills are pending before the 110th Congress that would mandate the use of electronic employee verification. Homeland Security proposed the E-Verify mandate for federal contractors last October, but adoption of the system remains mostly voluntary.

Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith defended the program, saying the accuracy of the databases that underlie E-Verify has been "unfairly maligned." Employers who use the pilot program are pleased with the results, and an outside evaluation found that less than 1 percent of employees who are eventually determined to be work-authorized receive a tentative non-confirmation and undergo secondary verification, he said. Immigration Subcommittee ranking member Steve King, R-Iowa, also praised E-Verify and said the alleged kinks in the Internet-based program will be solved once its use is more widespread.

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., who testified alongside several other bill sponsors, said that E-Verify is not perfect, but remains "a very good system" that protects employers and employees' rights. Meanwhile, another witness, Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, said the Social Security Administration, not Homeland Security, should verify employment to better protect the privacy of law-abiding citizens. A bill he introduced with fellow witness Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., would do that. Giffords called for "a realistic, long-term solution for the undocumented population living in the U.S."

In the following panel, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Deputy Director Jonathan Scharfen said Homeland Security's employment verification program is "an essential tool" and must continue. More than 69,000 employers are signed up and the number of those registered is growing by 1,000 per week, he said. E-Verify can handle up to 60 million annual queries, Scharfen added, which meets projections about the number that would result from making the program mandatory. But American Civil Liberties Union Senior Legislative Counsel Tim Sparapani warned that a compulsory regime would create a government roster of eligible recruits who would be wrongly prevented from working. He urged Congress to scrap E-Verify and discuss new approaches to immigration policy.