Melanie Tubbs, KEPRTV, December 19, 2011

No social, no passport, no job. A controversial program to check your citizenship status is making hundreds of thousands of matches in Washington and people may be deported because of it. {snip}

Jane Ganebin is in charge of making sure names and social security numbers add up for the city of Richland. Many government agencies use e-Verify or programs like it to assure they are hiring people legally allowed to work in the U.S.

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e-Verify is more than just your regular background check, it goes all the way back to your birth. And if you get flagged by the system, you’re not only out of a job, but you could be out of the country. It depends on the hiring agency using the system as to what the result could be. Richland would immediately call Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a person could be deported. This is what has made e-Verify a controversial system.

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In fact, last year alone, more than 220,000 people were reported with mismatched names and social security numbers in Washington state. In 2011, a little fewer than 200,000 have been caught. But just since October, there have been almost 45,000. These people aren’t always deported, but leave more jobs open for hire.

It might be hard to visualize now, but with over 600,000 businesses and agencies using e-verify, some are worried that the future could hold repercussions like a lack of potential employees.

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