NEW YORK – Construction companies that do federal work must use a payroll/human resources system that coordinates with E-Verify, a program that quickly streamlines verification of new employees’ work permits, visas, and citizenship.
There is no option, and the risks of not doing this are serious. Contractors performing work on federal or federally funded projects of more than $150,000 and subcontractors doing more than $3,500 must use E-Verify. That has been true for a while and E-Verify has proven effective.
There is a proposal in the House of representatives to make E-Verify required for all federal contracts and subcontracts, regardless of amount. But practically speaking, E-Verify is a problem for the construction industry. Even with the efforts to discourage undocumented workers from coming to, or remaining in the United States, it still appears that between 15% and 23% of the construction work force is undocumented.
By some estimates, there are as many as 1.6 million undocumented construction workers. Contractors need labor. In California and Texas, there are estimates that undocumented construction workers represent 30% of the work force.
In short, for government contracts, E-Verify is reality. For private work in some states, the only issue is the I9 and contractors have good faith practices that include accepting the documents and not using E-Verify. For government contracts, E-Verify is not going away. For private work, contractors have work arounds that include not looking too closely at the SSN that a worker provides.
Carol A. Sigmond is a partner in the Infrastructure Group at Nossaman, New York.