Pa. official: Verify immigrant status of workers

GREENSBURG — A Pennsylvania lawmaker says a new law aimed at ensuring that employees on projects paid with public money are legal residents should be extended to all employers in the commonwealth.

The measure requiring contractors and subcontractors on public work projects totaling $25,000 or more to use the federal E-Verify system to check the immigration status of their workers goes into effect in the new year. The state Department of General Services will oversee compliance with the measure, which is expected to cost the state $1.3 million in the first year. Penalties range from warnings to three-year bans from state projects and fines up to $1,000.

Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that he sees the measure as just the first step. He said he plans to reintroduce legislation to require the use of the system for all employers in the commonwealth.

Requiring the use of the free federal E-Verify system is a commonsense policy that will ultimately stop illegal aliens from stealing American jobs, he said.

While industry officials told the paper that they generally accept the new law as a cost of doing business, immigration advocates criticize such measures.

We think the mandates are problematic because at their core they really don't provide solutions, said attorney Emily Tulli of the National Immigration Law Center in Washington. What we need is a way for workers to become qualified and aboveboard. E-Verify does nothing toward that.

Tulli said the experience in other states has shown that many employers don't comply with the laws, and the E-Verify system can produce false results for which there is no clear appeals process.

E-Verify mandates create unfair competition for high-road employers, Tulli said. And the more people you apply it to, the more errors you are going to have.

Pennsylvania was the 22nd state to pass E-Verify legislation; 20 states have voted down such bills, according to the law center.

Richard Barcaskey, executive director of the Beechview-based Contractors Association of Western Pennsylvania, said he doesn't recall any immigration issues with public works contractors over the past decade and a half.