Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification

In last summer’s debate over immigrationreform, Congress treated a national electronicemployment eligibility verification (EEV) systemas a matter of near consensus. Intended tostrengthen internal enforcement of the immigra-tion laws, electronic EEV is an Internet-basedemployee vetting system that the federal govern-ment would require every employer to use.

Broad immigration reform failed before Con-gress thoroughly considered national EEV, but thelines of debate have been drawn. Advocates inCongress will try to attach a nationwide worker reg-istration system to any immigration bill Congressconsiders, and the Bush administration recentlyannounced steps to promote such a system.

A mandatory national EEV system would havesubstantial costs yet still fail to prevent illegalimmigration. It would deny a sizable percentageof law-abiding American citizens the ability to

work legally. Deemed ineligible by a database,millions each year would go pleading to theDepartment of Homeland Security and theSocial Security Administration for the right towork. By increasing the value of committingidentity fraud, EEV would cause that crime’s ratesto rise.

Creating an accurate EEV system would re-quire a national identification (ID) system, cost-ing about $20 billion to create and hundreds ofmillions more per year to operate. Even if it werefree, the country should reject a national ID sys-tem. It would cause law-abiding American citi-zens to lose more of their privacy as governmentrecords about them grew and were converted tountold new purposes. “Mission creep” all butguarantees that the federal government woulduse an EEV system to extend federal regulatorycontrol over Americans’ lives even further.

Electronic Employment Eligibility VerificationFranz Kafka’s Solution to Illegal Immigration

by Jim Harper

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jim Harper is director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute and author of the book Identity Crisis:How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood.

Executive Summary

No. 612 March 5, 2008

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Introduction

More than a decade ago, a Cato Institutestudy opened with an urgent alert:

Republicans in the House and Senateare moving quickly forward with Or-wellian legislation that would create anational computerized registration sys-tem for all American workers. The newfederal computer worker registry, whichis intended to reduce illegal immigra-tion, is the crucial first step toward theimplementation of a national identifica-tion card system for all 120 millionAmerican workers.1

In their paper, “A National ID System: BigBrother’s Solution to Illegal Immigration,”John J. Miller from the Center for EqualOpportunity and Stephen Moore of the CatoInstitute called this system “an ill-conceivedidea that would grant the government vastnew police-state powers, require citizens tosurrender basic freedoms and privacy rights,and fail to halt illegal immigration.” The lead-ers of virtually every libertarian, conservative,and civil liberties organization in America,they reported, had denounced the computerregistry as “misguided and dangerous.”2

Miller and Moore’s study evidently educat-ed policymakers and helped stave off such asystem. Nevertheless, a pilot program begunthen now threatens to resurrect the nationalcomputerized registration system they warnedof, with all the big-government ills that sur-round it. A dozen years later, it is time tosound the alarm again.

In last summer’s congressional debate onimmigration reform, a worker registration andnational identification (national ID) systemwas treated almost as a matter of consensusagreement. It remains a viable—even promi-nent—policy option in the immigration area,and legislation requiring national worker reg-istration and a national ID system couldadvance with any immigration-related legisla-tion moving through Congress. The Bush

administration announced a number of stepsin mid-August 2007 to promote registrationand tracking of American workers.

About 10 years before Miller and Mooresounded the alarm in their Cato study, theImmigration Reform and Control Act of 19863

introduced the concept of “internal enforce-ment” into U.S. immigration law. IRCA condi-tioned Americans’ ability to work on provingtheir legal presence and status in the country.This requirement was supposed to suppressillegal immigration by reducing the magnet ofrelatively high-paying work that brought suchimmigrants into the country.

But internal enforcement did not work.With employment in the United States stillvery attractive and legal opportunities forimmigration restricted, people continued tocome to the United States illegally.

Policymakers conveniently chalked up thefailure of internal enforcement to weakness inimplementation rather than to theory ordesign. They quickly set to strengthening inter-nal enforcement rather than scrapping it. Thecreation of an electronic employment eligibili-ty system called “Basic Pilot” in 1996 was onesuch measure. As Miller and Moore had point-ed out, making it work would require a nation-al ID card and massive databases of informa-tion about all American workers. Nevertheless,Basic Pilot went ahead, and it may soon movefurther forward.

Along with its Orwellian features, today weknow that administering a system of electron-ic EEV would conjure Franz Kafka as well. Asizable percentage of workers—foreign- andnative-born alike—would be denied the abilityto work legally by a faceless federal databasesystem. Deemed ineligible by the database, mil-lions of American workers each year wouldhave to present themselves at the Departmentof Homeland Security and the Social SecurityAdministration, clutching their identity papersand pleading for the right to work.

Such a system would make working in theUnited States more difficult, of course, but itwould not eliminate the United States’ attrac-tion to immigrants. Some potential illegalimmigrants would change their plans, but

2

Legislationrequiring

national workerregistration and a

national ID system could

advance with anyimmigration-

related legislationmoving through

Congress.


others would respond quite differently. Someworkers and employers would collude to avoidthis immigration enforcement system. Work“under the table” would increase and, alongwith it, other forms of illegality.

The value of committing identity fraudwould rise, and more illegal immigrants wouldcommit this crime or deepen the minor fraudsthey are now involved in. Criminals and crimi-nal rings would use the Social Security number(SSN) data from stolen laptops and hackeddatabases much more often in identity fraudas a robust black market for Americans’ per-sonal information emerged.

The use of these data to fabricate mockidentities would compound the problem forvictims in a diabolical way. Seeking to provetheir right to simple employment, Americanworkers would have to appeal to bureaucratswho assume they are identity thieves.

Miller and Moore were correct: creating anaccurate federal EEV system would require anational ID system. Such a system would haveextraordinary costs. About $20 billion wouldbe the tally for implementing a national IDsystem, some of that cost hidden in taxes,some of it paid directly by each national-ID-carrying worker. Operating the verificationprogram would cost at least $300 million to$400 million per year.

The cost in lost privacy to all Americanswould be high. Both employers and the gov-ernment would have to collect and store per-sonal information about American workersthat is not necessary for employment—onlyfor administration of employment laws andregulations. Kept in digital form for longperiods, this personal information could bereadily converted to untold new purposes.

Even if this system were workable and cost-effective, we should not want it. “Missioncreep” all but guarantees that the federal gov-ernment would use a worker registration andsurveillance system to capture greater regula-tory control over Americans’ lives. Ultimately,all kinds of transactions that are now person-al and private, or matters of state or local law,would become subjects of federal governmentauthority.

Partisan control of Congress and the presi-dency has reversed since Miller and Mooreattacked the Republican plan to register allAmerican workers in 1995, but national-ID-based worker surveillance seems alive and wellunder a Democratic Congress. More clear thanever are the sound reasons why electronicemployment eligibility verification (EEV) and“internal enforcement” should be rejected.

Dysfunctional ImmigrationLaw Begets EEV

The nation’s immigration policy is at acrossroads. According to Labor Departmentprojections, the U.S. economy, which isalready near full employment,4 will continueto create 400,000 or more low-skilled jobsannually in the service sector—tasks like foodpreparation, cleaning, construction, landscap-ing, and retail sales. Yet from 1996 to 2004, thenumber of adult Americans without a highschool education—the demographic that typi-cally fills those jobs—fell by 4.6 million.5

These demographic facts create very pow-erful economic forces. Demand in the UnitedStates for both low- and high-skilled workersis high, and workers in many nearby countriesbadly need the work offered in the UnitedStates. The economic gradient is steep.

Just as water follows the laws of gravity,workers continually move to the UnitedStates. Unlike water, however, which simplebarriers can stop, people on both sides of theborder dedicate their ingenuity to gettingwhat they want and need. The self-interest ofemployers and workers is a powerful (andalmost always beneficial) force that is hard toquell or conquer. Thus, migration into theUnited States has persisted over the last sev-eral decades.

Today, however, the political consensusholds that the country has too many immi-grants and that something must be doneabout it.6 A part of that consensus is that inter-nal enforcement of immigration law shouldbe strengthened, including by electronic em-ployment eligibility verification. EEV requires

3

Both employersand the govern-ment would haveto collect andstore personalinformationabout Americanworkers that isnot necessary foremployment.


employers to run background checks with thegovernment on new or existing employees tosee whether they are eligible to work under theimmigration laws.

A full-fledged EEV system has many prac-tical and technical problems, to say nothingof the question of whether it is appropriatefor a free country. But the human forces thata policy would channel or counteract are themost important influences on how the sup-porting technical system must be designed.Those forces determine where the challengesthe system will come from and what thehuman and monetary costs will be if it is towork for its intended purpose. Immigrationlaw—today deeply at odds with Americans’interests—is the source of the problem andthe starting point for analysis.

America’s Original Open Borders CloseAt the time of the founding and during the

early part of U.S. history, the country’s immi-gration policy was one of open borders. Nat-uralization rules fluctuated, and the lawauthorized the president to expel dangerousforeign nationals, but immigrants were wel-come.

Indeed, in 1864, because of a labor short-age caused by the Civil War, Congress passedlegislation to encourage immigration. Itallowed enforcement in U.S. courts of theagreements immigrants had made in theirhome countries to repay their travel costsfrom wages earned in America. The law alsoestablished a federal government office inNew York City to help immigrants reach theirinterior U.S. destinations.7

In 1875 Congress passed the first law toexclude people, aimed at convicts and prosti-tutes. The practice of exclusion was promptlyadapted to racial and ethnic prejudice by 1882’sChinese Exclusion Acts, and, in the 1920s, anational-origin quota system greatly restrictedimmigration from countries outside northernand western Europe. National-origin quotaspersisted until 1965 when the Immigration andNationality Act Amendments initiated a seven-category system for family reunification andemployment-based categories.

By the 1980s, the United States was seeinga strong flow of immigrants from Mexico andCentral America. This paralleled earlier flowsfrom Germany, Ireland, Italy, and elsewhere,but these immigrants could enter throughuncontrolled parts of a land border withoutdocumentation. In 1986 Congress determinedthat illegal immigration rates were too high,but in passing the Immigration Reform andControl Act,8 Congress failed to recognizeeither the power of the economic forces under-lying such immigration or its benefits.

While legalizing the illegal aliens in thecountry, Congress declined to expand legalchannels for immigration. Instead, it changedthe long-standing natural rule that working inthe United States depended simply on willing-ness and ability. Americans’ right to earn anhonest living by trading their labor would nowhave to wait for proof of compliance with fed-eral immigration laws.

“Internal Enforcement” and “BasicPilot”

IRCA made unlawful the knowing hire ofworkers who are not eligible to work in theUnited States under the immigration laws.9

By requiring employers to check employees’documentation, the law conscripted employ-ers into immigration law enforcement. Allemployers today are required to verifyemployees’ work eligibility by collecting com-pleted I-9 forms and by checking employees’documentation.10

The logic behind this idea was simple:making it illegal to hire an illegal immigrantcould reduce the strength of this country’seconomic “magnet.” But the policy of “inter-nal enforcement” built on this simple logicfailed. Just as a magnet’s attraction passesthrough paper, the attraction of the UnitedStates to immigrants surpasses this paper-work.

The I-9 process and employer sanctionsundoubtedly had some effect on illegal immi-gration and working, but not very much.Between 1986 and 1996, illegal immigrationrates appear to have remained steady.11 Docu-ment fraud undermined the I-9 system, and

4

Americans’ rightto earn an honestliving by trading

their labor wouldnow have to

wait for proof of compliance

with federalimmigration

laws.


the law prompted some employers to discrim-inate wrongly against citizens and legal immi-grants because of their Hispanic surnames,poor English-language skills, or appearance.

Ten years later, with illegal immigrationcontinuing apace, the Illegal ImmigrationReform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of199612 sought to “improve on” the failing pol-icy of internal enforcement. It required theImmigration and Naturalization Service tocommence three pilot programs to test elec-tronic verification of employees’ work eligibili-ty. These were the Citizen Attestation Verifi-cation Pilot Program, the Machine-ReadableDocument Pilot Program, and the Basic PilotProgram. These three programs were intendedto test whether verification procedures couldmake the existing Form I-9 process better by (1)reducing document fraud and false claims ofU.S. citizenship, (2) discouraging discrimina-tion against employees, (3) avoiding violationsof civil liberties and privacy, and (4) minimiz-ing the burden on employers to verify employ-ees’ work eligibility.13

The Citizen Attestation Verification PilotProgram allowed workers to attest to their citi-zenship status. The status of new hires attest-ing to being work-authorized noncitizens waselectronically checked against information inINS databases. Unsurprisingly, ineligible work-ers simply attested to being citizens. Employersdid not ferret out this kind of fraud. Many diddiscriminate against work-authorized nonciti-zens, however, likely because of the paperworkand liability risks such workers presented. TheDepartment of Homeland Security terminatedthe Citizen Attestation Verification PilotProgram in 2003.

DHS initiated the Machine-Readable Doc-ument Pilot Program in Iowa because thatstate issued driver’s licenses and ID cards car-rying the information required for the I-9 inmachine-readable form. Nevertheless, the pro-gram had technical difficulties in reading thedriver’s licenses and IDs, and it was under-mined by the state’s transition away fromusing SSNs on driver’s licenses, which wasdone in the interest of protecting Iowans’ pri-vacy and data security. DHS terminated the

Machine-Readable Document Pilot Programin 2003 as well.

Basic Pilot—first renamed the “employmenteligibility verification” program, or EEV, andthen renamed again, “E-Verify”—is the remain-ing effort to verify work eligibility electronically.As of May 2007, about 9,000 of the 17,000employers registered for the system were activeusers.14 Currently, about 52,000 of the coun-try’s 5.9 million employers have registered forit—about .88 percent.15 Congress extended theBasic Pilot program in January 200216 andagain in December 2003.17 It is currently set toexpire in late 2008.

How Electronic Employment VerificationWorks

After collecting I-9 forms, participatingemployers enter the information supplied byworkers into a government website. The sys-tem compares these data with informationheld by the Social Security Administrationand with DHS databases. If the name and SSNpairs match to citizen data at the SSA, a work-er is approved. The system compares informa-tion from noncitizens with DHS data to deter-mine whether the employee is eligible to work.

E-Verify electronically notifies employerswhether their employees’ work authorizationis confirmed. Submissions that the automat-ed check cannot confirm are referred to U.S.Citizenship and Immigration Service staff inthe Department of Homeland Security, whotake further steps to verify eligibility or whofind the worker ineligible.

When E-Verify cannot confirm a worker’seligibility, it issues the employer a “tentativenonconfirmation.” The employer must noti-fy the affected worker of the finding, and theworker has the right to contest his or her ten-tative nonconfirmation within eight workingdays by contacting the SSA or DHS.

When a worker does not contest his or hertentative nonconfirmation within the allottedtime, the E-Verify program issues a final non-confirmation for the worker. The employer is re-quired to either immediately terminate theworker or notify DHS that it continues to em-ploy the worker—confessing to a law violation.

5

When a workerdoes not contesthis or her tentative noncon-firmation withinthe allotted time,the employer isrequired to eitherimmediately terminate theworker or notifyDHS that it continues toemploy the worker—confessing to a law violation.


The Administration Pushes EEVThe administration recently began to ex-

pand the federal government’s use of E-Verifyand instituted measures to increase privateemployers’ verification of workers’ immigrationstatus. On August 10, 2007, Homeland Securitysecretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce sec-retary Carlos Gutierrez announced a number ofsteps to tighten and expand employment eligi-bility verification.18 Among other things, theyproclaimed the commencement of a rulemak-ing to require all federal contractors and vendorsto use E-Verify. Full compliance would expandparticipation in the program by some 200,000companies, a more than 20-fold increase toabout 3.5 percent of all U.S. employers. Numer-ous bills have been introduced in Congress topromote EEV in various ways,19 and the admin-istration will attempt to convince states to dothe same thing.20

Secretaries Chertoff and Gutierrez alsoannounced DHS’s issuance of a “no-match”regulation increasing employers’ liability iftheir workers’ names and SSNs do not corre-spond to SSA records.21 Plans to “update” thecivil fines for hiring illegal immigrants wouldraise penalties by 25 percent and expand crim-inal investigations of the country’s employers.

Secretaries Chertoff and Gutierrez furtherdeclared that the administration would seekto expand the data sources E-Verify can check,including visa and passport information. Theywill seek access to state motor vehicle depart-ment records and photographs to “lay thegroundwork for further expansion” of theelectronic employment eligibility verificationsystem.22

Finally, they announced that the adminis-tration would publish a regulation to reducethe number of documents that employerscould accept for I-9 forms or E-Verify. The reg-ulation could reduce the number all the waydown to a single, nationally uniform ID.

The major immigration reform bill debat-ed in Congress last summer would haverequired new hires to have a REAL ID Act–compliant card for employment eligibilitypurposes within three years.23 REAL ID is thetroubled 2005 national ID law that many

states have declined to implement. Debate onthe immigration bill collapsed when theSenate appeared willing to strip REAL IDfrom the bill24 and an amendment calling for$300 million in spending on REAL ID failed.25

Seeking to revive this moribund national IDlaw, however, the administration may try to doby regulation what Congress would not do inlegislation.

Along with promoting EEV and workerregistration by any means, the administrationhas worked to wear down resistance in variousways. Administration officials have lobbiedstate officials to go along with the national IDlaw.26 And in late September 2007, the U.S.government sued the state of Illinois, seekingto nullify an impediment that state had placedin the way of the administration’s EEV plans.27

In an entry on the DHS’s new “LeadershipJournal” blog, Secretary Chertoff announcedthe lawsuit, asking: “Could it be that theIllinois state legislature wants to prevent busi-nesses from using the best available tools todetermine whether new employees are illegalaliens? I certainly hope not, but that’s precise-ly what a new state law is poised to do.”28

In fact, the Illinois Right to Privacy in theWorkplace Act bars Illinois employers fromenrolling in E-Verify or any similar systemuntil the SSA and DHS can make final deter-minations on 99 percent of their tentativenonconfirmation notices within three days.In other words, if the system will preventIllinois workers from working, the state wantsnothing to do with it.

Difficulty of administration is one of sev-eral formidable problems with trying tobuild an EEV system for federal immigrationlaw enforcement. Creating a nationwide sys-tem for checking identity and eligibility ismuch more easily said than done.

Franz Kafka’s Solution toIllegal Immigration

A nationwide EEV system would send asubstantial number of workers—native-bornand legal immigrant alike—into labyrinthine

6

Creating a nation-wide system for

checking identityand eligibility is

much more easilysaid than done.


bureaucratic processes, preventing them fromworking until the federal government deemedtheir papers to be in order. It would be morelike something out of a Franz Kafka novelthan a sound U.S. federal policy. EEV woulddelay or deny the employment of Americanworkers in numerous ways.

Screening Workers Screens Out WorkersThink of electronic employment verifica-

tion as a screen through which all workerswould have to pass before they could earn aliving. The problem is to get eligible workersthrough the screen quickly and to keep ineli-gible workers from passing through. It ishard to do both at the same time. The feder-al government currently has only fragmentsof the infrastructure for accomplishing thisgoal, and the processes for doing so are rifewith flaws.

For example, simple errors in transcriptionand data entry by employees and employerswill create a baseline wrongful tentative non-confirmation rate. According to a recent sur-vey of employers participating in Basic Pilot,52 percent had received at least one tentativenonconfirmation for a new employee causedby data entry mistakes.29

Then we must consider the error rate infederal government databases. In December2006, the SSA’s Office of the InspectorGeneral estimated that the agency’s “Numi-dent” file—the data against which Basic Pilotchecks worker information—has an error rateof 4.1 percent. Every error resulted in BasicPilot’s providing incorrect results.30 At thatrate, 1 in every 25 new hires would receive atentative nonconfirmation. At 55 million newhires each year,31 this rate produces about11,000 tentative nonconfirmations per work-day in the United States—a little more than 25people per congressional district, each day ofthe working week, all year long.

Knocking Rungs off the LadderNo illusions should be harbored about the

impediments to working that this systemwould create if expanded to a national scale.Even the “simple” process of clearing up basic

data errors would carry with it formidableproblems.

Consider this hypothetical scenario thatillustrates the trouble an ordinary workermight have with the EEV program: PeggySmith is a single mother of two, born andraised in the Midwest town where a new BigStore recently opened. On Tuesday afternoon,retail chain the Big Store calls Peggy to tell herit has accepted her application to work as asales clerk trainee.

The new job is a coup for Peggy because shehas struggled diligently to get her high schoolequivalency degree while making ends meetsince her husband was killed in a car crash. Shewill start work the following Monday with atwo-week (paid!) training course that is givenat the store once a quarter.

On Thursday afternoon, she comes in tothe human resources office, her two middle-school-age children in tow, with the documen-tation necessary for her Form I-9. Humanresources enters the data into the EEV systemjust before the close of business Thursday,finding that Peggy is a tentative nonconfirma-tion. Human resources calls her to tell herabout the problem Friday morning, but shecannot make it back to the store to collect thewritten instructions on how to appeal hernonconfirmation before the weekend.

On Monday, arriving early for training,Peggy is presented with instructions for appeal-ing her nonconfirmation. The instructions tellher to visit a Social Security Administrationoffice that is 30 minutes away. The SSA office isopen Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to5:00 p.m. Her usual shift and the training ses-sions are from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and shemust pick up her kids from their after-schoolactivities most days of the week.

The EEV program’s requirements do notpermit employers to delay training or anactual start date based upon a tentative non-confirmation.32 Even if Big Store could delayher start date, Peggy does not want to forgo aquarter’s work by missing the training thateach new clerk trainee gets. Hoping that theproblem will go away, Peggy attends the BigStore training sessions each day. Because she

7

A nationwideEEV systemwould send asubstantial number of workers—native-born andlegal immigrantalike—intolabyrinthinebureaucraticprocesses, preventing themfrom workinguntil the federalgovernmentdeemed theirpapers to be in order.


has not appeared at a government office tocontest her nonconfirmation within eightdays, the EEV system issues a final noncon-firmation to the Big Store, and Peggy is fired.

Welcome to the JungleEven if Peggy were somehow confident

enough with her employment situation toget time away from training, and even if thisrecent recipient of her GED were familiarenough with the procedure for contesting atentative nonconfirmation (while jugglingchildcare), the unwelcoming and inefficientprocesses she would encounter at the federalgovernment’s offices should not be lightlydismissed. Disputes of tentative nonconfir-mations would not happen in lushly carpet-ed offices with marble columns, hot coffee,and friendly, attentive staff. The experienceof American workers when they sought per-mission to work would be much more liketheir trips to the nation’s departments ofmotor vehicles, post offices, and dentists—long lines, unfriendly service, and painfulprocedures.

Some evidence indicates what Americanworkers would experience when they went toclear up their tentative nonconfirmations. Atthe beginning of 2007, a new travel restrictionwas imposed on all persons traveling by airbetween the United States and Western Hemi-sphere countries. Americans visiting thesenearby neighbors are now required to presenta passport to reenter the United States, for-merly not required if other proof of a right toreenter was available. This requirement was anopening step in the implementation of a pro-gram called the Western Hemisphere TravelInitiative, which—for little security benefit—will eventually require all Americans visitinglocal neighboring countries to carry a pass-port.33

The new rule drove a crush of Americansto passport offices seeking travel documentsand caused delays in processing of up to amonth and a half, even though the StateDepartment had augmented its staff.34

Travelers across the country had their plansthrown into doubt, and they angrily besieged

State Department offices. The bill for theincreased demand for passports has beenestimated at $1 billion for just three years.35

The passport issuance process is a looseparallel to the probable system for contestingtentative nonconfirmations. Although thenumber of tentative nonconfirmations maynot be as high, the EEV system would beexpected to handle about a million transac-tions each week, with more than 2 million ofthose getting further review as tentative non-confirmations each year.

It gets worse. For a significant number ofAmerican workers, challenging tentative non-confirmations would not be just a matter ofpresenting their documents and cleaning upthe data in government systems. Counterat-tacks on the system would complicate things.Many law-abiding American citizens wouldenter SSA and DHS offices as criminal sus-pects and potential candidates for deportation.

Counterattacks andComplications

Immigrants and employers dedicate theiringenuity to getting what they want andneed. Although a national EEV system wouldreduce the growth in illegal immigration bysome measure, it would also prompt illegalimmigrants and some employers to under-take a variety of countermeasures.

For example, more people would work“under the table.” Workers and employerswould collude—even more often than they donow36—to avoid the already substantial regula-tory hassles and costs of working on thebooks. With the increased liability for employ-ers who did comply with the Form I-9 process(the updated penalties noted earlier), follow-ing the letter of the law would be riskier, andviolating the law by going undergroundwould be relatively more attractive.

Avoidance of EEV would be one result ofstrengthened internal enforcement. But avariety of counterattacks on the EEV systemwould be part of the response as well. Theywould create extraordinary new costs and

8

The experience of American

workers whenthey sought

permission towork would be

like their trips tothe nation’s

departments ofmotor vehicles,

post offices, anddentists—long

lines, unfriendlyservice, and

painful procedures.


complexities that would burden U.S. workerswhile weakening EEV’s deterrence to illegalemployment and immigration.

Counterattack, Response, and Counter-Counterattack

One counterattack on the EEV system thatillegal immigrants would adopt is a mere shiftin strategy. Today, many submit false docu-mentation of plausible names and SSNs forthe Form I-9 process. This technique wouldnot pass EEV, of course: the name and SSNmust match in the SSA’s records.

In response, illegal immigrants wouldadjust their frauds so that they use name andSSN pairs that match. It is slightly more dif-ficult to do but easily worthwhile to procure“legal” work.

To respond to this attack, the EEV systemwould monitor the use of name and SSNpairs. When a name and SSN were used toooften in succession, or in different parts ofthe country, the system would “flag” thename and SSN pair. Its users would be sus-pected of fraud, and they would be tentative-ly nonconfirmed.

However, this response would have costs.One, of course, is that it requires a federal data-base that records every new hire in the coun-try—yet another of many incremental increasesin the tracking of law-abiding Americans.None of them are terribly objectionable bythemselves, but the totality is quite concerning.

A more immediate cost is that law-abidingcitizens would regularly stand accused ofidentity fraud. The SSA and DHS would notknow which user of a name-SSN pair was thegenuine person and which was using a falseidentity. EEV would tentatively nonconfirmall users of that name-SSN pair. The “true”individuals attached to fraudulently usedidentities would learn of identity fraud intheir names when they were refused work byEEV and plunged into a bureaucratic morass.

Today, identity fraud creates financial dif-ficulties for innocent victims when they findthat their financial reputations have beensullied. EEV would also make them unem-ployable.

Illegal immigrants would counterattackin response to the tracking of name-SSNpairs by using original name-SSN pairs witheach new hire. EEV would cause illegal aliensto seek out name-SSN pairs that have notbeen used recently in employment. It wouldcreate a bigger criminal market for Americancitizens’ personal information.

Since 2005, the Privacy Rights Clearing-house has been collecting information aboutdata breaches that could expose individuals toidentity theft.37 Not all of the breaches itincludes in its study concern both name andSSN—some have financial account numbers,driver’s license numbers, and other key identi-fiers—but by late 2007, more than 200 millionrecords had been breached.

Currently, data breaches rarely result inidentity fraud. A June 2007 GovernmentAccountability Office report found evidenceof identity fraud resulting from relatively fewbreaches.38 Today, victims’ family membersand friends, household employees, and finan-cial services personnel with access to sensitivepersonal information are often the perpetra-tors of identity fraud. By creating new demandfor name and SSN pairs, EEV would increasethe value of breached identity data and therate of identity fraud. The casual criminalswho now produce fake IDs for illegal immi-grants would organize information networksto meet the demand for “fresh” names andSSNs.

These networks might steal legitimatecompanies’ logins and human resourcesdata, enrolling shell companies in EEV toping the database for usable sets of identi-fiers. Using the photo-screening tool (dis-cussed below), they might collect thousandsof photos from which each illegal immigrantcould select the citizen he or she most resem-bles to impersonate with forged documents.

Yet another attack on the EEV systemwould be to corrupt the federal employeeswho handle tentative nonconfirmations. Asso often happens in departments of motorvehicles (DMVs) across the country,39 crimi-nals would find federal workers willing to usetheir access—or fellow workers’ logins—to

9

Today, identityfraud createsfinancial difficulties forinnocent victimswhen they findthat their finan-cial reputationshave been sullied.EEV would alsomake themunemployable.


“confirm” people operating under false iden-tities. Doing so may well exclude from workthe people whose identities are being used.

Consider also how employers would pro-tect themselves. With illegal immigrantstoday coming predominantly from Spanish-speaking countries south of the U.S. border,identity fraud and corruption attacks on theEEV system would focus largely on Hispanicsurnames and given names. Recognizing thatHispanic employees—even native-born citi-zens—are more often caught up in identityfraud and tentative nonconfirmation hassles,employers would select against Hispanics intheir hiring decisions. New hires from otherethnic groups would be less likely to bringemployers such trouble—to say nothing ofthe updated penalties previously discussed.The wrongful discrimination that the BasicPilot program was supposed to suppresswould increase under EEV because of coun-terattacks on the system.

Shockingly, the current E-Verify programhas no process for appealing final nonconfir-mations. The DHS Web page with informa-tion “for employees” provides no advice toworkers who believe they have been wronglyrefused the right to work by DHS.40 A nation-wide EEV system would wrongly give thou-sands of eligible American workers final non-confirmations each year, with no apparentappeal process, blatantly depriving them ofdue process and, of course, their livelihoods.

Not all the ills that EEV would causeAmerican citizens are easy to predict. Alongwith those discussed here, others wouldappear in any full-scale implementation. Theconsequences of scaling up a small programlike Basic Pilot/E-Verify should not be under-estimated. It has many flaws at its current size,but taking the program national would be achange in kind, not in degree. It would createnew and different problems.

The employers in Basic Pilot/E-Verify noware relatively well equipped and motivatedcompared to the variety of employers that anexpanded EEV system would encounter. Mostsmall businesses have no personnel dedicatedto compliance. Many businesspeople are rarely

connected or not connected to the Internet,because of remoteness, cost, or lack of busi-ness necessity. The compliance and accuracyrates experienced in an expanded programwould be lower than what exists now, and dis-crimination rates would be higher.

Known or unknown today, the infirmitiesin EEV and the counterattacks on a full-scalesystem would weaken it as a tool for reducingillegal immigration. They would promotewrongful discrimination. Moreover, theywould plunge a significant number of native-born American citizens into Kafkaesque feder-al bureaucratic procedures, denying themwork and money to feed their families until afederal government database says they areallowed to do so.

EEV, National ID, andWorker Surveillance

People angered by illegal immigration areundoubtedly frustrated that internal enforce-ment works so poorly and that our systemsprovide so little security against people enter-ing the country illegally. This is simply becausebig, uniform identity systems do not workwell. As Phillip J. Windley, the former chiefinformation officer of Utah, observes in hisbook Digital Identity:

Visions that a centralized approachwill promote security, cost savings, ormanagement simplicity are a mirage.Centralized digital identity systems donot scale. Identity relationships areinherently web-like in structure, whilecentralized technologies like directo-ries are hierarchical.41

In other words, identity works well in one-on-one transactions, in groups, and in volun-tary organizations. People and businesses nat-urally collect the identifiers and other infor-mation they need for meetings, contracts,dates, employment, friendship, and so on. Butpeople do not have a single identity that can becaptured and applied to all their relation-

10

Shockingly, the current

E-Verify programhas no process

for appealingfinal nonconfir-

mations.


ships.42 As Windley points out, relationshipsdefine the many different identities peoplehave.43 Identities do not define relationships—at least not in a modern, free country.

Bringing Americans into a uniform govern-ment identity system—for controlling illegalimmigration or any other purpose—wouldmake people’s relationship with governmentone of the foremost in their lives. It would bean attempt to force a relationship on them thatmany do not want. But a successful EEV sys-tem—indeed, successful internal enforcementof federal immigration law—requires this kindof overweening, unworkable, and unacceptableidentity system.

Several bills introduced in recent Congresseshave proposed establishing federal EEV systemsbut have denied creating a national ID card, say-ing things like, “Nothing in this Act shall beconstrued to authorize, directly or indirectly,the issuance or use of national identificationcards or the establishment of a national identi-fication card.” Establishing a national EEV sys-tem without a national ID card is nearly impos-sible, and the national-ID denials in these billshave been false.44 All proposals and plans toimprove the Form I-9 process—whether or notby going electronic—show that internal enforce-ment of federal immigration law requires anational ID.

I-9s and IdentityIn personal interactions, people use iden-

tification constantly. When they have metbefore, people are very adept at recognizingeach other again using their sight, hearing,and other senses. This facility enables peopleto pick up where they left off when they seeeach other a second, third, and fourth time.The success and familiarity people have within-person identification may give policymak-ers excessive confidence in identification’spower in other contexts.

Currently, U.S. employers must collectand examine identity and eligibility informa-tion from all employees at the time of hire.They can do so through a single document,such as a passport or certificate of U.S. citi-zenship, or through two separate documents,

one each for identity and eligibility, such as adriver’s license and Social Security card. Theemployer must attest, under penalty of per-jury, that it has examined the documents andfound they appear to be genuine and that theemployee appears eligible to work in theUnited States.

The conversion of every small businessper-son and human resources director into animmigration agent surely hides the cost of theenforcement regime, but it does not necessari-ly work well to combat illegal employment.For example, employers often fail to accurate-ly identify their workers, hiring unauthorizedworkers despite faithfully carrying out theirduties under the law.

The opening of the employment relation-ship is not like ongoing personal relationships.Particularly in low-skill jobs, the new employeeproffers his or her identity for the first time asthe relationship begins. The employer has littlereason, and takes little time, to examine theapplicant’s identity bona fides.

At this early point in the relationship,however, the law requires the employer toexamine and report on the new employee’sidentity information. It is not a natural, per-sonal interaction of the kind that works sowell in families. Employers identify their newemployees using ID cards.

Identification by CardThe process of identifying someone by card

is important and valuable, allowing people tobe treated as “known,” to a degree, from thefirst encounter. But the identification-by-cardprocess is also fraught with weaknesses thatcan undermine the process when it does notbenefit both parties. Figure 1 illustrates thethree steps by which a card transfers identityinformation from the ID subject (the card-holder) to the ID verifier (or relying party).

First, the subject applies to a card issuer(such as a DMV) for a card, typically supply-ing nearly all the personal information thecard will contain. Next, the card issuer createsa card, supplying information to any laterverifier. Finally, the verifier compares thecard to the person presenting it. Having veri-

11

A successful EEVsystem—indeed,successful internal enforce-ment of federalimmigrationlaw—requires anoverweening,unworkable, andunacceptableidentity system.


fied that the card is about the subject, the ver-ifier accepts the information on the card.

Each of these three steps is a point ofweakness and an opportunity for false infor-mation to creep in. In the first step, the sub-ject may supply the card issuer with falseinformation (including false documents), orthe subject may corrupt employees withinthe card issuer, causing them to issue a gen-uine, but inaccurate, card. A fraudulently orcorruptly acquired genuine card will almostcertainly deceive any later employer.

At issue in the second step is the security ofthe card against forgery or tampering. Althoughmany government-issued ID documents arequite resistant to forgery and tampering, thebroadened use of these documents (includingfor immigration control) has increased the valueof forging and altering them. Employers, whowould be acting against their interests to discov-er such things, cannot be expected to discoverforgery or tampering of any decent quality.

A photo-screening tool pilot programrecently initiated by DHS is intended to detectcertain forgeries.45 When a noncitizen new hirepresents a DHS-issued permanent residentcard or employment authorization document,employers in this program are required to com-

pare the photograph on the card to a copy ofthe photograph appearing on the employer’scomputer screen via the EEV system. If thephotographs do not match, the employee isissued a tentative nonconfirmation.

This crosscheck does not solve the hardproblem—people entering the ID systemthrough fraud or corruption—but it does pro-vide security against one type of forgery attackon the EEV system. DHS desires to collect pass-port photos from the State Department anddriver’s license photos from DMVs around thecountry to expand this program from DHS-issued documents to all Americans’ passportsand driver’s licenses. This expansion, of course,involves creating a national photo-ID database.

The photo verification tool may causeemployers to spend a little more time consid-ering the appearance of the new hire, but justas likely, employers will believe that comparingthe images on the card and computer is allthey need to do. That procedure does nothingto establish whether the person presenting thecard is the person it was issued to. What mat-ters is that the picture on the card is a pictureof the person presenting it.

This is the third step in the identification-by-card process, comparing the identifiers on

12

The process ofidentifying

someone by cardis important andvaluable. But the

identification-by-card process is

also fraught withweaknesses.

Figure 1Identification by Card

Source: Jim Harper, Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood (Washington: Cato Institute,2006).


a card to the subject. Here, as in the secondstep, employers will not be terribly eager to dis-cover deception, such as someone presentingthe card of a person similar in appearance. Anumber of factors explain why the verifiercheck is weak in the employment context.People are better at recognizing faces of theirown race and familiar races than faces thatlook different. Strong social pressures exist—from the fear of rudeness to the appearance ofracism—not to second-guess the picture onthe card a person has presented. The third stepin the identification-by-card process is anoth-er weakness.

The Ideal Fix? Cradle-to-Grave BiometricTracking

Each of the steps can be shored up, ofcourse, and some of them would be strength-ened in small ways by elements of EEV. Butthe things necessary to make a system likethis really impervious to forgery and fraudwould convert it from an identity system intoa cradle-to-grave biometric tracking system.Almost no way exists to do national EEV thatis not a step down that road.

Let us take the identification-by-cardprocess and assess what is necessary to makeit hold up against the frauds, forgeries, andother weaknesses that undermine EEV:

Verification of identifiers, the verifiercheck that ties the card to the bearer, can bestrengthened and improved. Rather thanrelying on the fallible human perceptionused in verifying photo-ID cards, an “im-proved” EEV system would use modern bio-metric measuring of each American, such asby fingerprint readers or iris scanners. Wereevery American biometrically registered, thebiometric information embedded in theircards—retrieved from the card, retrieved fromthe human, and compared by machine—could provide much stronger assurance toverifiers that cards are about the people pre-senting them.

The security of cards against forgery andtampering (the concern raised in the secondID-by-card step) can be improved vastly witha variety of techniques, especially by using

encryption. Printing or embedding informa-tion in a card using cryptographic techniquescan establish with a high degree of certaintythat the information was placed there by aparticular agency and that it has not beenaltered since it was placed there. This tech-nique can, however, conceal from the ID sub-jects themselves what is on the cards theymust carry and display. The photo-screeningtool pilot program is a very crude, noncryp-tographic version of this kind of security,showing that the photo on a card has notbeen replaced or altered.

The veracity of the information that makesit onto a card may be the most challenging ele-ment to improve. After all, the information onidentity cards is a collection of biographicaldata—name, date of birth, address, height,weight, and such—that is not easily verifiable.Names change or hyphenate, for example, aspeople marry, divorce, and remarry.

The way to ensure that accurate data arefound on a card is to abandon the currentpractice of allowing applicants for identitycards to submit information about them-selves. Rather, identity information andrecords of important life events could be cat-aloged from birth (or a person’s first entryinto the country) using powerful machine-readable biometrics, all the way up to DNA, as“index card” identifiers. The photo-screeningtool is a step in this direction: it begins tomake the dossier as important as the card.

Applicants for cards could submit someof the information, but the core identityinformation on each card would have to betied to a central biometric identity reposito-ry—probably run by the government. Reliablebiographical information would have to becollected and stored by this repository. Thissystem would deny potential fraudsters theability to submit false information to IDissuers, and it would suppress their frauds.

This excursion into an “ideal” employmenteligibility system shows where internal enforce-ment of immigration law almost invariablyleads: to a national, cradle-to-grave, biometrictracking system—a national ID and surveil-lance system. IRCA could be administered

13

The things necessary tomake a systemlike this impervious toforgery and fraudwould convert itfrom an identitysystem into a cradle-to-gravebiometric tracking system.


without these things, but the chances of thatbeing done are very, very slim.

A Narrow, Nonidentifying AlternativeA credential such as eligibility for employ-

ment under IRCA can be proved without cre-ating a nationwide biometric tracking scheme.In fact, templates already exist. But it is unlike-ly to see adoption.

The Transportation Security Administra-tion’s Registered Traveler program currentlyaccepts privately issued documents like theClear card46 from Verified Identity Pass, Inc., toprove a person’s membership in RT. The Clearsystem is designed so that it does not createrecords of travelers’ use of the system, even as itprovides biometric proof of their membershipin RT using iris and fingerprint scanning.

A similar system could verify employmenteligibility without surveillance and tracking.The government agency or other credentialprovider would have to examine applicants’proof of citizenship (and noncitizens’ proofof eligibility) and, without making copies of thesedocuments or of the person’s biometrics, issue abiometric card or token that indicates to ver-ifiers only work eligibility and any time limitson that eligibility. When a person was hired,a biometric tie to records securely stored onthe card or token would indicate his or hereligibility for employment.

As simple as such a system would be,strong government resistance makes it veryunlikely that it will see the light of day. TheTSA currently requires that Clear card userspresent government-issued ID at airports, forexample, even though the Clear system pre-sents biometric proof of RT membershipbased on a government-issued ID that theClear user previously presented. (VerifiedIdentity Pass CEO Steven Brill has charitablycharacterized the TSA’s defenses of this dou-ble-ID rule as “plainly absurd.”)47

Governments have strong interests in track-ing people, for both legitimate and not-so-legit-imate reasons. Many government programsaccord rights and benefits based on biographi-cal information that must be recorded, main-tained, and periodically checked. For the vast

majority of people, however, employment eligi-bility under IRCA is not such a program. Mostworkers in the United States who are citizenswill be eligible to work under IRCA for theirentire lives. Maintaining data about them aftera biometric work-eligibility card has issuedwould not serve any administrative purpose.

Nevertheless, the government would notaccept a tracking-free system for two reasons.First, a system like EEV “requires” identifica-tion and tracking to shift the risk of error inthe card-issuance process from the govern-ment to the citizen. A wrongly issued work-eligibility card that does not also publiclyidentify the bearer could not be cancelled orrecalled if it were issued because of mistake,fraud, or corruption. All cards would have tobe replaced if the government had failed toadminister its system well.

Second, tracking preserves governmentpower. A work-eligibility and tracking systemsuch as EEV makes the individual’s employ-ment eligibility subject to revision at a latertime, if the government wants to change therules or adapt the system to new purposes,for example. A nonidentifying work-autho-rization card or token denies government thepower to change its policies without theexpense and effort of reissuing all cards ortokens.

Governments are averse to accepting therisk of error, and they rarely exhibit the disci-pline needed to avoid tracking of people whointeract with their programs.48 Unless the fed-eral government can accept the risk of errorand is willing to commit to lasting employ-ment eligibility rules, it will require any inter-nal enforcement program to use databasesand tracking rather than just issuing cardsthat prove eligibility to work and nothingmore. It will push Americans toward a nation-al ID and worker surveillance system.

Some people claim that they would prefera national ID and this kind of surveillance toattack the scourge of illegal immigration. Butthe costs of such a system—in American citi-zens’ dollars, in privacy, and in lost Americanvalues—would be substantial, even as it failedto curtail illegal immigration.

14

Governmentshave strong interests in

tracking people,for both

legitimate andnot-so-legitimate

reasons.


An EEV Tax, PrivacyUndone, and Mission Creep

UnleashedWere the national ID system necessary for

effective EEV put in place, employers could dosomewhat reliable verification of employmenteligibility, but the system would impose manycosts on the country and society. The dollarcosts of a nationwide EEV system would behigh. EEV would have far greater privacy con-sequences than the current system—conse-quences that would fall on American citizens,not on illegal immigrants. And, once in place,an EEV system would be used for everythingfrom health care to gun control. ExpandedEEV would invert our federal system andexplode limited government. Final employ-ment decisions would no longer be made byemployers and workers, but by a federal gov-ernment bureaucracy—indeed, by a federaldatabase system.

Costs in Taxpayer DollarsIn December 2005, the Congressional

Budget Office estimated the costs of the elec-tronic employment verification system in HR4437, an immigration reform bill in the 109thCongress.49 Those costs were substantial.

Under the Basic Pilot expansion in thatbill, CBO found that 50 million to 55 millionnew hires would have to be verified each year.A total of 145 million currently employedworkers would have to have been screenedusing the expanded system by 2012. CBO’sestimate was conservative; it excluded agri-cultural workers.

Given the massiveness of the undertaking,CBO estimated $100 million in short-runcosts for upgrading software, hardware, data-bases, and other technology. To handle queriesabout tentative nonconfirmations, DHS andthe SSA would have had to spend approxi-mately another $100 million per year on newpersonnel. The federal government, states,localities, and private businesses would allhave to spend more for screening their work-ers. Accordingly, CBO found that the man-

dates in the bill would exceed the thresholdsset by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of1995.

The national ID system required to doEEV at all well would be even more expensive.The REAL ID Act—our moribund nationalID law—is a first step toward the comprehen-sive national ID system that would be neededto do EEV successfully. In proposed regula-tions for the REAL ID law, DHS estimated$17 billion in costs to implement REAL ID.50

About $11 billion of those implementa-tions costs would fall directly on state gov-ernments. Because states already have func-tioning DMVs, this increment is the low endof the spectrum. Were the SSA or some otherfederal entity to create an identity infrastruc-ture from scratch, the costs would be tens ofbillions more.

The public would bear the other $6 billionof REAL ID implementation costs in navigat-ing the new bureaucracy and red tape neededjust to get a driver’s license. Individuals wouldhave to dig up birth certificates or get copiesfrom public records offices (some of whichmay not exist any more, such as in NewOrleans). Native-born American citizens whomay never have traveled overseas would needto search for proof of “legal presence” in thecountry. Americans would stand in very longlines at DMV offices. A DHS analysis detailedthe 10-year time-costs of REAL ID to citizens,estimating 161.9 million hours preparingapplications, 26.5 million hours obtainingbirth certificates, 15.8 million hours obtainingSocial Security cards, and 64.7 million hourson DMV visits.51

The smallest movement in the direction ofa national ID has revealed the kinds of prob-lems that would arise from attempting to herdAmericans into the identity system needed forEEV and internal enforcement. Alabama is astate that tried to get ahead of the REAL IDAct’s mandates in 2006. Attempting simply tomatch up the names in SSA databases withmotor vehicle bureau records, Alabama sentletters to individuals whose records were mis-matched, asking them to correct the “erro-neous” information on their driver’s licenses.

15

The national IDsystem necessaryfor effective EEVwould imposemany costs on the country andsociety.


Thousands of panicked Alabama residentsjammed Department of Public Safety officesthinking they would lose their licenses.52 Suchproblems would multiply dramatically shouldthe national identity infrastructure needed forEEV ever be created.

American Citizens’ Privacy The American-citizen taxpayer would incur

not only pocketbook costs and increasedbureaucracy but lost privacy as well. An elec-tronic system is not just a faster paper system.It has dramatically different effects on privacyand the security of personal data.

When an employer collects a form like theI-9 and puts it in a file, the information onthe I-9 remains practically obscure. It is notvery easy to access, copy, or use. This protectsprivacy, and it protects against the digitaldata breaches that so regularly come to light.

When an organization enters I-9 informa-tion into a Web form and sends it to the SSAand DHS, that information is very easy forthose entities to access, copy, share, and use.It is likely combined with “meta-data”—infor-mation about when the data were collected,from whom, and so on.

The EEV process would give these agenciesaccess to a wealth of new data about everyAmerican’s working situation. Because it usesthe SSN, EEV data would easily be correlatedwith tax records at the Internal Revenue Service,education loan records in the Department ofEducation, health records at the Department ofHealth and Human Services, and so on. Ameri-cans living with EEV should not expect that theycould get work if they were in arrears on anydebt to the U.S. government, for example.

Unless a clear, strong, and verifiable datadestruction policy were in place, any EEV sys-tem, however benign in its inception, would bea surveillance system that tracked all Americanworkers. The system would add to the datastores throughout the federal government thatcontinually amass information about the lives,livelihoods, activities, and interests of every-one—especially law-abiding citizens.

Beyond EEV’s direct costs, the identity sys-tem required to do EEV successfully entails

further privacy costs and threats. The privacyand data security consequences arising fromthe necessary national ID, for example, areimmense, increasingly well understood, andprobably insurmountable.

The REAL ID Act requires states to main-tain databases of foundational identity docu-ments, creating an incredibly attractive targetfor criminal organizations, hackers, and otherwrongdoers. They would have more motiva-tion than ever to collect identity informationshould a nationwide EEV system controlaccess to employment.

The breach of a state’s entire database—orthe whole country’s—containing copies of birthcertificates and various other documents andinformation could topple the identity systemwe use in the United States today. This is therisk posed by the recent colossal data breach inBritain, in which essential data about 25 mil-lion U.K. citizens were copied to discs, placed inthe post, and lost.53 The best data security isachieved by avoiding the creation of large data-bases of sensitive and valuable information inthe first place. EEV would put Americans’ sen-sitive personal information at risk.

The security of back-end systems is far fromthe only problem. Creation of a nationally uni-form identity system as required for EEVwould bring a major change in how Americansociety would use identity. It is not just anoth-er in a series of small steps. The national IDrequired by EEV would promote tracking of,and data collection about, all citizens.

Economists know well that standards cre-ate efficiencies and economies of scale. Whenall the railroad tracks in the United States wereconverted to the same gauge, for example, railbecame a more efficient method of trans-portation. The same train car could travel ontracks anywhere in the country, so more goodsand people traveled by rail. Uniform ID cardswould have the same influence on the uses ofID cards.

Most driver’s licenses today have machine-readable components like magnetic stripes andbar codes. Their types, locations, and designs—and the information they carry—differ fromstate to state. For this reason, they are not used

16

Unless a clear,strong, and

verifiable datadestruction policywere in place, any

EEV system, however benignin its inception,

would be a surveillance

system that tracksall American

workers.


very often. But if all identification cards andlicenses were the same, as under REAL ID, or ifa national EEV card were used, economies ofscale would exist in producing card readers,software, and databases to capture and use thisinformation. Americans would inevitably beasked more and more often to produce an IDcard and to share the data from that card whenthey engaged in various governmental andcommercial transactions.

Others would capitalize in turn on theinformation harvested using national IDcards and collected in state databases. Massedpersonal information—publicly and privatelyheld—would be an irresistible attraction toDHS and many other governmental entities,which would dip into deep wells of data aboutAmerican citizens for an endless variety of pur-poses.

Many people believe they have nothing tohide and feel willing to have their employ-ment tracked if it will stop illegal immigra-tion. Unfortunately, it will not. Moreover,most people who make the nothing-to-hideclaim balk when they are actually confrontedwith stark choices about privacy.

People have things to hide. Maintaining aprivate life is normal and natural. Indeed,many people object on principle to compila-tions of information about themselves, nomatter who is doing it and no matter what thepurpose. This is consistent with life in a freecountry, where law-abiding citizens can pro-tect their privacy for any reason or no reason.

Any electronic employment verificationsystem will be a target for hackers, a databreach waiting to happen, a threat to the iden-tity system we rely on today, and a surveillancesystem for both corporate and governmentuse. Even if many of these flaws in a nationalEEV system could be mitigated, it is not a sys-tem that Americans should want. A successfulEEV system would see mission creep from itsfirst day.

Mission CreepIf an EEV system reliably identified people

and determined their legal status under feder-al law, federal authorities would waste no time

in adapting it to new uses. In the immigrationarea alone, proposals have been made to regu-late housing in the same way as employment.In Hazelton, Pennsylvania, for example, thedemagogic mayor sought and passed a law in2006 making it illegal for landlords to “har-bor” illegal aliens.54 In another 10 years, thefailure of EEV to weaken the economic mag-net of the United States might convince feder-al lawmakers that they must take this samestep.

The right to necessities other than housingcould be conditioned on legal status. Giventhe failure of employment restriction to deterillegal immigration, financial services could bedenied to all those who cannot prove their law-ful presence through an adapted EEV system.Federal legislation proposed in the 110thCongress would regulate the documentationthat non-U.S. persons may use to open finan-cial accounts in the name of terrorism andimmigration control.55 Legislation has alsobeen proposed to encourage public collegesand universities to verify the immigration sta-tus of students.56

Enforcement of immigration law is justone of many uses EEV would be put to onceestablished. Many things could be broughtwithin the purview of federal authorities if anational system for tracking and controllingindividuals were in place.

Health care is an area that would be ripe forelectronic tracking. Whether to enforce immi-gration law, implement a health insurancemandate, create a national health recordsdatabase, or carry out any other health policyvogue, the national tracking system createdfor EEV could be adapted to federal govern-ment priorities in the health arena. A DHSofficial recently suggested that a national IDbe required for purchasing cold medicine.57

An EEV system could take that policy a stepfurther and deny medicines and other pur-chases to Americans without proper docu-mentation.

The federal government might apply anational EEV system to gun control. Whenan EEV system exists, having purchasers ofguns prove they are citizens or legally entitled

17

Many thingscould be brought withinthe purview offederal authori-ties if a nationalsystem for tracking and controlling individuals werein place.


U.S. residents would not be asking too much.Counting individuals’ gun purchases wouldbe easy with this database system, and itcould record the number of guns and quan-tity of ammunition bought by any one per-son. Indeed, statistical analysis could showwhere an excess of weaponry was sold in anyone area. Authorities might use the system tosearch for purchasers of too many guns,believing they are feeding the black market orperhaps caching weapons in a homegrownterrorism plot. Never mind that the sameanalysis would turn up law-abiding gun col-lectors and avid sportsmen.

Speaking of terrorism, the biometric cardrequired for EEV would be readily adapted tothe identity-based security programs thathave grown up at airports since the Septem-ber 11, 2001, attacks. Experienced travelers,having had time in line to think about it,know well that showing ID is very weak secu-rity against committed threats—people will-ing to kill themselves bombing an airliner arewilling to identify themselves beforehand.But identification checks at airports makeuninformed people feel safer, and having peo-ple show a nationally uniform biometric cardwould augment that exercise in security the-ater. It might also allow expansion of identitychecking to malls, subway stations, officebuildings, and other publicly accessible infra-structure.58

A national EEV system would be an avenuealong which regulatory power over Americancitizens would flow to the federal government.It would draw vastly more information aboutAmericans’ lives into federal government data-bases, and it would expose their sensitive datato more security threats. The information-agecrime of identity fraud would blossom underEEV because the value of breaking the uni-form government identity system it requireswould grow higher. Building the EEV systemwould cost billions and billions of taxpayerdollars, while saddling American workers andemployers with regulatory burdens and crimi-nal liability.

As an administrative tool, an EEV systemwould have to be nearly perfect to avoid hav-

ing enormous negative effects on Americanworkers and employers. EEV would wronglyscreen out lawful American workers. Probablecounterattacks on the EEV system mean thatit will plunge law-abiding American citizensinto Kafkaesque bureaucracy, preventingthem from working until they can negotiatetheir way through unwelcoming federal gov-ernment offices. Unfathomably, today E-Verify has no appeals process. Any nationalEEV program would be an intrusive, expensiveincursion on the American workplace and therights of American workers.

Conclusion

Bad policies are like cancer. They metasta-size and occupy other parts of the body politic.Our country’s immigration law has held anunnatural cap on new American workers’ com-ing to the United States for decades now, andattempts to make a success of that bad policyhave produced circumlocutions like “internalenforcement” and “electronic employment eli-gibility verification.” These are additional can-cerous nodes that threaten American workerswith Kafkaesque bureaucracy, denied employ-ment, a national ID system, and broad surveil-lance.

The “problem” most illegal immigrantspresent is their eagerness to enter our labormarkets, provide goods and services forAmericans’ consumption, and grow the U.S.economic pie. Millions of otherwise honest,hard-working, and law-abiding people havecome to the United States without documen-tation. Many want very badly to follow thesame path our forefathers did, and they wouldbe a credit to this country if we made it legalfor them to come. In a deep irony, Congressmay soon expand EEV, increasing governmentspending and bureaucracy so that our malad-justed immigration law can continue to stifleU.S. economic growth.

Proponents of internal enforcement andelectronic employment verification surelystand on a sound principle—the rule-of-lawideal that people should enter the country

18

A national EEVsystem would bean avenue along

which regulatorypower over

American citizenswould flow to

the federal government.


legally. But current immigration law is agreater threat to the rule of law than any ofthe people crossing the border to come hereand work. Our immigration policies have fos-tered the illegality so common in the employ-ment area.

Heavier internal enforcement would notreduce the illegality—it would promote it.Faced with the alternative of living in povertyand failing to remit wealth to their families,illegal immigrants would deepen the modestidentity frauds they are involved in today.Their actions would draw American citizens,unfortunately, into a federal bureaucraticidentity vortex.

For minimal gains in illegal immigrationcontrol, national EEV would sacrifice more-important founding principles: the libertyand personal freedom of American citizens;constitutionally mandated limits on federalpower; low taxes, minimal regulation, andcompetition; and privacy.

Instead of moving to electronic eligibilityverification, the policy of internal enforce-ment should be eliminated, root and branch.The need for it can be dissipated, and legalityfostered anew, by aligning immigration poli-cy with the economic interests of the Ameri-can people. Legal immigration levels shouldbe increased.

Up to this point in our nation’s history,employers and workers have decided whoshould work for whom. Even under the IRCAregime as it stands now, employers selectwhom they will hire, perhaps accepting somepotential liability if they hire someone who is“ineligible.”

Letting workers and employers get togeth-er on their own terms makes eminent sense,just like people deciding for themselves whatfood they should eat and how to school theirchildren. With nationwide electronic employ-ment verification, however, the United Stateswould move to a regime where the last wordon employment decisions would not be withthe worker and employer but with bureau-crats in the federal government. This resultwould extend federal government power intoan area where it has no business being.

Notes1. John J. Miller and Stephen Moore, “A NationalID System: Big Brother’s Solution to Illegal Immi-gration,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 237,September 7, 1995, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa237.html.

2. Ibid.

3. Public Law 99-603, codified at U.S. Code 8 §1324a et seq.

4. “Fed’s Poole Says U.S. Economy Near Full Em-ployment, Trade Not Destroying Jobs,” Forbes.com, September 6, 2007, http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/09/06/afx4089152.html.

5. Daniel T. Griswold, “Immigration Reform MustInclude a Temporary Worker Program,” OrangeCounty Register, March 7, 2007, http://www.freetrade.org/node/600.

6. The consensus is mistaken. See Daniel Griswold,“A Boon Rather Than a Burden,” Politic.org,August 27, 2007, http://www.freetrade.org/node/741.

7. Act to Encourage Immigration, 38th Cong., 1stsess. (July 4, 1864), U.S. Statutes at Large 13 (1864):385–87.

8. Public Law 99-603, codified at U.S. Code 8 §1324a et seq.

9. Ibid., § 101(a)(1), codified at U.S. Code 8 §1324a(a)(1).

10. Ibid., §101(a)(1)(B), 101(b), codified at U.S.Code 8 § 1324a(a)(1)(B), 1324a(b).

11. Because it is clandestine, illegal immigration isdifficult to measure, but the Center for Immigra-tion Studies estimated in 1997 that about 420,000illegal aliens joined the long-term population eachyear during the previous 10-year period (offset bydeaths, emigration, and adjustment to legal statusthat resulted in an increase of 275,000 annually).Steven A. Camarota, “5 Million Illegal Immigrants:An Analysis of New INS Numbers,” Center for Im-migration Studies, Immigration Review 28 (Spring1997), http://www.cis.org/articles/1997/IR28/5million.html.

12. Public Law 104-208, U.S. Statutes at Large 110(1996): p. 309.

13. See generally, Richard M. Stana, director,Homeland Security and Justice Issues, U.S.Government Accountability Office, Testimony

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before the Subcommittee on Social Security,Committee on Ways and Means, House of Rep-resentatives, Employment Verification: Challenges Existin Implementing a Mandatory Electronic VerificationSystem, GAO-07-924T, 110th Cong., 1st sess., June7, 2007, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07924t.pdf.

14. Ibid.

15. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, De-partment of Homeland Security, “Press Release: E-Verify Program Surpasses 52,000 Employers,”February 12, 2008, http://www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/everify12022008.pdf.

16. Basic Pilot Extension Act of 2001, Public Law107-128, U.S. Statutes at Large 115 (2002): p. 2407.

17. Basic Pilot Program Extension and ExpansionAct of 2003, Public Law 108-156, U.S. Statutes atLarge 117 (2003): p. 1944.

18. See White House, “Fact Sheet: ImprovingBorder Security and Immigration within ExistingLaw,” August 10, 2007, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070810.html.

19. See HR 2508, 110th Cong., 1st sess. (requiring allfederal contractors to use Basic Pilot); BorderControl and Contractor Accountability Act of 2007,HR 3496, 110th Cong., 1st sess. (requiring all DHScontractors to use Basic Pilot); EmploymentEligibility Verification and Anti-Identity Theft Act,HR 138, 110th Cong., 1st sess. (requiring employersto join Basic Pilot after receiving SSA “no-match” let-ter); Airport Security Enhancement Act of 2007, HR4177, 110th Cong., 1st sess. (requiring Basic Pilot/EEV for airport employees); Department of Home-land Security Appropriations Act, 2008, HR 2638,110th Cong., 1st sess. (requiring EEV for DHS andfor state programs receiving DHS grants); Agricul-ture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Admin-istration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act,2008, HR 3161, 110th Cong., 1st sess. (requiringBasic Pilot for recipients of agriculture subsidies);Border Enforcement, Employment Verification, andIllegal Immigration Control Act, HR 4065, 110thCong., 1st sess. (requiring EEV for governmentworkers and “critical” employers within 2 years);Transportation, Housing and Urban Development,and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008, HR3074, 110th Cong., 1st sess. (requiring Basic Pilot forDepartment of Housing and Urban Developmentcontractors); Departments of Labor, Health andHuman Services, and Education, and RelatedAgencies Appropriations Act, 2008, HR 3043, 110thCong., 1st sess. (requiring Basic Pilot for Depart-ment of Labor, Department of Health and HumanServices, and Department of Education contrac-tors); Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related

Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008, HR 3093, 110thCong., 1st sess. (requiring Basic Pilot for Depart-ment of Justice, Department of Commerce, andother agency contractors).

20. A law requiring the use of E-Verify took effect inArizona January 1, 2008. Fair and Legal Employ-ment Act, HB 2779, 48th Ariz. Legislature, 1st Reg.Session.

21. Department of Homeland Security, “Safe-Harbor Procedures for Employers Who Receive aNo-Match Letter,” Federal Register 72 (August 15,2007): 45,611.

22. See White House, “Fact Sheet: ImprovingBorder Security and Immigration within ExistingLaw,” August 10, 2007, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070810.html.

23. Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity andImmigration Reform Act of 2007, May 18, 2007,bill draft at Title III, http://kennedy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Senator%20Kennedy’s%20Immigration%20Bill.pdf.

24. See Nate Anderson, “Did REAL ID Help De-rail the Immigration Bill?” Ars Technica, June 29,2007, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070629-did-real-id-help-derail-immigration-bill.html.

25. Anne Broache, “Senate Rejects Extra $300Million for REAL ID,” CNetNews.com, July 27,2007, http://www.news.com/Senate-rejects-extra-300-million-for-Real-ID/2100-7348_3-6199220.html.

26. See Anne Broache, “Is Real ID Plan on ItsDeathbed?” CNet News Blog, November 2, 2007,http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9809992-7.html.

27. Illinois Public Law 095-0138, § 12(a), codifiedat 820 Illinois Compiled Statutes 55/12.

28. Michael Chertoff, “A Tool We Need,” LeadershipJournal blog, September 24, 2007, http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership/2007/09/tool-we-need.html.

29. Westat, “Interim Findings of the Web-BasedBasic Pilot Evaluation,” Report submitted to U.S.Department of Homeland Security, Washington,DC, December 2006, p. III-15, http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/WestatInterimReport.pdf.

30. Office of the Inspector General, Social SecurityAdministration, “Accuracy of the Social SecurityAdministration’s Numident File,” Congressional

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Response Report A-08-06-26100, December 2006,http://www.socialsecurity.gov/oig/ADOBEPDF/audittxt/A-08-06-26100.htm.

31. See Congressional Budget Office, Cost Estimate:H.R. 4437, Border Protection, Antiterrorism, andIllegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, December13, 2005, pp. 3–4 (citing Bureau of Labor Statisticsfigures), http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6954/hr4437.pdf.

32. U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, “I Aman Employer . . . How Do I . . . Use E-Verify?”September 2007, p. 2, http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/E4_english.pdf.

33. See Department of State, Western HemisphereTravel Initiative Web page, http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2223.html.

34. Matthew Lee, “Passport Requests Flood StateDepartment,” Associated Press, March 16, 2007,http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070316/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_us_passports;_ylt=AuGCNy3Tw0Z6491HO86wucjMWM0F.

35. “Increased Demand in Passports Predicted,”Associated Press, August 17, 2007, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/17/travel/main3179514.shtml.

36. In mid-2006, former Treasury Department offi-cial Bruce Bartlett said that the underground econ-omy is about 10 percent of gross domestic product,or $1.3 trillion. Bruce Bartlett, “The Illegal Immi-grant Taxpayer,” Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2006,http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114800257492157398.html?mod=todays_us_opinion.

37. See Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, “A Chronol-ogy of Data Breaches,” http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm.

38. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Per-sonal Information: Data Breaches Are Frequent, butEvidence of Resulting Identity Theft Is Limited;However, the Full Extent Is Unknown, GAO 07-737,Washington, DC, June 2007, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07737.pdf.

39. See Center for Democracy and Technology,“Unlicensed Fraud: How Bribery and Lax Securityat State Motor Vehicle Offices Nationwide Leadto Identity Theft and Illegal Driver’s Licenses,”January 2004, http://www.cdt.org/privacy/20040200dmv.pdf.

40. Department of Homeland Security, U.S.Citizenship and Immigration Services, “For Em-ployees,” http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a

/?vgnextoid=d6f988e60a405110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=d6f988e60a405110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD.

41. Phillip J. Windley, Digital Identity (Sebastopol,CA: O’Reilly, 2005), p. 119.

42. Jim Harper, Identity Crisis: How Identification IsOverused and Misunderstood (Washington: CatoInstitute, 2006), p. 15. (“Your ‘identities’ . . . arecollections of information that other people andinstitutions have about you, collections that theyuse to distinguish you from other people in theirminds or records.”)

43. Windley, Digital Identity, pp. 12–13.

44. See, for example, Illegal Immigration Enforce-ment and Social Security Protection Act of 2007,HR 98, 110th Cong., 1st sess.; EmploymentEligibility Verification and Anti-Identity Theft Act,HR 138, 110th Cong., 1st sess.; Border Security andImmigration Reform Act of 2007, HR 2413, 110thCong., 1st sess.; Secure Borders FIRST (ForIntegrity, Reform, Safety, and Anti-Terrorism) Actof 2007, HR 2954, 110th Cong., 1st sess.; STRIVEAct of 2007, HR 1645, 110th Cong., 1st sess.; andComprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007,S 1348, 110th Cong., 1st sess.

45. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S.Citizenship and Immigration Services, “NewsRelease: USCIS Launches Photo Screening Toolfor E-Verify Program,” September 25, 2007, http://www.uscis.gov/files/pressrelease/EVerifyRelease25Sep07.pdf.

46. See http://www.flyclear.com.

47. Steven Brill, chairman and chief executive officer,Clear/Verified Identity Pass, Inc., testimony beforethe House Committee on Homeland Security,Subcommittee on Transportation Security andInfrastructure Protection, Hearing on “ManagingRisk and Increasing Efficiency: An Examination ofthe Implementation of the Registered Traveler Pro-gram,” July 31, 2007, http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20070731145944-83679.pdf.

48. The city of San Francisco’s medical marijuanaprogram is a rare example of a governmentadministrative system that is designed not to besuitable for surveillance. See Harper, Identity Crisis,pp. 225–30.

49. Congressional Budget Office, “Cost Estimate:HR 4437,” http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6954/hr4437.pdf.

50. Department of Homeland Security, “MinimumStandards for Driver’s Licenses and Identification

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Cards Acceptable by Federal Agencies for OfficialPurposes; Proposed Rule,” Federal Register 72, no. 46(March 9, 2007): 10,819, http://a257.g.akamai tech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/07-1009.htm.

51. Department of Homeland Security, “RegulatoryEvaluation, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, REALID,” Code of Federal Regulations, title 6, part 37, RIN:1601-AA37, Docket Number DHS-2006-0030 (Feb-ruary 28, 2007), p. 3.

52. “Alabama Puts Brakes on License Notification,”Decatur Daily News, October7, 2005, http://legacy.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/051007/license.shtml.

53. Philip Webster, “25 Million Exposed to Risk ofID Fraud,” Times (London), November 21, 2007,http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2910705.ece.

54. Hazelton, Pennsylvania, Ordinance 2006-18:Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance § 5.

55. S 2393, 110th Cong., 1st sess. (November 16,2007).

56. HR 4459, 110th Cong, 1st sess. (December 12,2007).

57. Anne Broache, “DHS: Real ID Could HelpShut Down Meth Labs,” CNet NewsBlog, January16, 2008, http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9851813-7.html.

58. Alas, this expansion would not protect thecountry from terrorism. Assuming terrorists aimto sap the economy and vitality of the UnitedStates, they could do very well by serially attackingnon-ID-controlled targets, even with backpackbombings. If the United States were induced tofurther “secure” infrastructure through ID checks,inconveniencing each of the 240 million licenseddrivers in the United States to show ID by just oneminute per week would cost society over $4 billionper year in lost time alone (assumed value: $20/hour)—a net present cost of $57 billion (assuming7 percent interest).

22


OTHER STUDIES IN THE POLICY ANALYSIS SERIES

611. Parting with Illusions: Developing a Realistic Approach to Relations with Russia by Nikolas Gvosdev (February 29, 2008)

610. Learning the Right Lessons from Iraq by Benjamin H. Friedman, Harvey M. Sapolsky, and Christopher Preble (February 13, 2008)

609. What to Do about Climate Change by Indur M. Goklany (February 5, 2008)

608. Cracks in the Foundation: NATO’s New Troubles by Stanley Kober (January 15, 2008)

607. The Connection between Wage Growth and Social Security’s FinancialCondition by Jagadeesh Gokhale (December 10, 2007)

606. The Planning Tax: The Case against Regional Growth-Management Planning by Randal O’Toole (December 6, 2007)

605. The Public Education Tax Credit by Adam B. Schaeffer (December 5, 2007)

604. A Gift of Life Deserves Compensation: How to Increase Living KidneyDonation with Realistic Incentives by Arthur J. Matas (November 7, 2007)

603. What Can the United States Learn from the Nordic Model? by Daniel J. Mitchell (November 5, 2007)

602. Do You Know the Way to L.A.? San Jose Shows How to Turn an UrbanArea into Los Angeles in Three Stressful Decades by Randal O’Toole (October 17, 2007)

601. The Freedom to Spend Your Own Money on Medical Care: A Common Casualty of Universal Coverage by Kent Masterson Brown (October 15, 2007)

600. Taiwan’s Defense Budget: How Taipei’s Free Riding Risks War by Justin Logan and Ted Galen Carpenter (September 13, 2007)

599. End It, Don’t Mend It: What to Do with No Child Left Behind by Neal McCluskey and Andrew J. Coulson (September 5, 2007)

598. Don’t Increase Federal Gasoline Taxes—Abolish Them by Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren (August 7, 2007)


597. Medicaid’s Soaring Cost: Time to Step on the Brakes by Jagadeesh Gokhale (July 19, 2007)

596. Debunking Portland: The City That Doesn’t Work by Randal O’Toole (July 9, 2007)

595. The Massachusetts Health Plan: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by David A. Hyman (June 28, 2007)

594. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policiesby Bryan Caplan (May 29, 2007)

593. Federal Aid to the States: Historical Cause of Government Growth and Bureaucracy by Chris Edwards (May 22, 2007)

592. The Corporate Welfare State: How the Federal Government Subsidizes U.S. Businesses by Stephen Slivinski (May 14, 2007)

591. The Perfect Firestorm: Bringing Forest Service Wildfire Costs under Control by Randal O’Toole (April 30, 2007)

590. In Pursuit of Happiness Research: Is It Reliable? What Does It Imply for Policy? by Will Wilkinson (April 11, 2007)

589. Energy Alarmism: The Myths That Make Americans Worry about Oil by Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press (April 5, 2007)

588. Escaping the Trap: Why the United States Must Leave Iraq by Ted Galen Carpenter (February 14, 2007)

587. Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict by Neal McCluskey (January 23, 2007)

586. Has U.S. Income Inequality Really Increased? by Alan Reynolds (January 8, 2007)

585. The Cato Education Market Index by Andrew J. Coulson with advisers James Gwartney, Neal McCluskey, John Merrifield, David Salisbury, and Richard Vedder (December 14, 2006)

584. Effective Counterterrorism and the Limited Role of Predictive Data Mining by Jeff Jonas and Jim Harper (December 11, 2006)

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