Pierce County Council vote to nix worker-verification program vetoed by the executive

A partisan Pierce County Council vote removing E-Verify as a requirement for contractors was vetoed by the county executive, spurring criticism from those who say the program discriminates against legal immigrants, people of color and others.

E-Verify, a free, online program which verifies an employee’s ability to work legally in the United States, was established as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 and is operated under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The program is essentially mandated by federal law for federal contracts but voluntary for contracts that use state or local dollars. On the strength of four Democrat votes Tuesday, the County Council passed an amended ordinance that explicitly exempted non-federal contractors from needing to enroll in the program.

The decision was sparked by concerns from organizations serving immigrants and racial minorities that the program was prone to errors that wrongly flagged legal residents as ineligible to work and needlessly ensnared them in the immigration system. The program was administratively burdensome as well as redundant, they said, because employers already must complete a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Form I-9, which is used to verify identity and employment authorization.

Proponents of eliminating use of the program said they were concerned that user and government database errors led to people being declared ineligible to work due to typos or name changes, which they said disproportionately impacted legal immigrants, naturalized citizens, married women and people with multiple surnames, including Hispanic individuals.

E-Verify says it relies on information from Form I-9 to cross-reference with records from the Social Security Administration and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The program informs an employer if the records match or not, but it does not give them citizenship or immigration status information about the prospective employee, according to its website.

“The harms of the E-Verify system fall disproportionately on immigrant and refugee communities and the adoption of the proposed ordinance will seek to mitigate those harms,” Northwest Immigrant Rights Project executive director Jorge L. Baron wrote in support of the bill prior to Tuesday’s vote.

On Thursday, County Executive Bruce Dammeier nixed the ordinance’s passage, writing in his veto letter that the county and its contractors had used E-Verify since 2010, and it had “proven to be a convenient and effective way to ensure the county and its contractors meet their obligations to hire only authorized workers.”

Dammerier also noted his concern that the bill would create a special exemption for contractors paid with taxpayer money.

“Adopting this ordinance would send a message to the public that Pierce County condones contracting with organizations who use questionable labor practices,” he wrote, “since it is much easier to employ unauthorized workers in the absence of electronic verification.”

Bill supporters: Veto hurts business, communities

The move deeply frustrated and disappointed the bill’s supporters, including Democratic Councilmember Ryan Mello, who said county lawmakers would discuss potentially overriding the veto. On Twitter, Mello wrote that businesses, prospective workers and organizations will be harmed.

“We can’t *say* we are for breaking down barriers and systems to be less equitable and not able to serve everyone and then when presented with a tangible opportunity, not take action — only to perpetuate racists and oppressive structures that do not lift up EVERYONE,” he wrote.

In a phone interview Friday, Mello said that E-Verify’s removal presented a chance to streamline business, a talking point often heard within the county. He noted the practical implications of the bill’s veto: “There are people who want to work that won’t work.”

Allie Johnson, executive director of Perinatal Support Washington, said the organization will not be applying for grants with the county so as to not have to interact with E-Verify. The group, which provides mental health services to new families, first brought concerns to the Council’s attention this summer after being awarded a $628,000 grant — roughly the organization’s total budget for last year.

“We had to say no to it because it does not align with our values, and it is anti-immigrant,” she said.

That means Perinatal Support Washington will not be able to support Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ and Latino families in the county, which it planned to do with the grant, although it will continue working here in a scaled-back capacity.

“I can only imagine there are so many organizations like ours that will just quietly not apply for these bids in the future,” she said.

Bill supporters said they were particularly concerned how E-Verify affected peer-support programs, which rely on hiring within immigrant and racial minority communities, and recipients in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), who arrived in the United States as immigrants as young children.

“To be absolutely clear, we are not asking the Council to make it easier to avoid the law or skirt verification,” Adan Espino Jr., representing Tacoma-based Mi Centro, told the Council on Tuesday. “We are asking the Council to support Pierce County residents following the rules and laws and empower their abilities to help themselves and their community.”

Program appears to be working, some say

In March, the U.S. Justice Department settled claims against a Washington-based home care provider after finding the company selectively used E-Verify to check legal work statuses of non-U.S. citizen employees and did not use it to confirm work eligibility for U.S citizens. The program requires employers to verify such authorization for all new employees, regardless of citizenship.

The program has over 967,000 enrolled employers, with 1,500 new companies using it each week, and “is one of the federal government’s highest-rated services for user satisfaction,” according to its website.

In the county, public works contracts more than $100,000 or any other contract above $25,000 requires that the contractor enroll in E-Verify, a county staff report showed.

Councilmember Amy Cruver, one of three Republicans who voted against the proposed changes Tuesday, said in an interview Friday that she had not heard of any problems with E-Verify until they were recently brought up.

“It didn’t seem proper to pass that when I didn’t have validation for it to be dismissed,” she said, adding that she is not necessarily interested in digging further into the issue. “There hasn’t been enough pushback (over) the years to put that at the top of my list.”

Dammeier, who likewise said he had not previously been aware of issues, said he would stand with anyone seeking to make E-Verify work better.

“If there are problems with E-Verify, then we should work to help correct E-Verify,” he said. “And I’ll do that.”

The city of Yakima got rid of E-Verify as a requirement in 2019, according to the Yakima Herald-Republic. And the city of Centralia did the same a year earlier, The Chronicle reported. Both governments cited the tool’s burden on businesses.