Sponsors (37)
The bill creates a uniform, government‑run electronic employment‑eligibility system with stronger enforcement and employer protections and funding guarantees, but increases automation, data collection, compliance costs, penalties, and privacy/enforcement risks that could delay hiring, harm vulnerable workers, and burden small businesses.
Employers, federal agencies, and taxpayers: establishes a single, national electronic employment‑eligibility verification framework and standardized procedures to reduce unauthorized employment and legal confusion across states.
Employers (especially small businesses): provides a good‑faith defense, shields from civil/criminal liability when using the system properly, allows use of reasonable identity‑authentication technology as evidence of good faith, and a limited exception for system nonresponses—reducing legal uncertainty and risk for businesses that comply.
Victims of identity fraud and parents of minors: lets people block or suspend an SSN's use in employment verifications and requires notification/locking for fraudulent use, helping prevent ongoing identity misuse and related harms.
Workers (including immigrants and low‑income workers): increased risk of hiring delays, wrongful terminations, or lost pay from erroneous tentative nonconfirmations and automated verification errors.
Workers and applicants: substantial privacy and data‑breach risks from expanded collection, retention, sharing, and possible delegation to non‑governmental entities and third parties.
Small businesses and some immigrants: sharply increased civil and criminal penalties (higher fines, criminal exposure, debarment risks), which raise the stakes for paperwork errors or repeated violations and could hurt small employers.
Based on analysis of 14 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 9, 2025 by Ken Calvert · Last progress January 9, 2025
Creates a new, mandatory federal electronic employment-eligibility verification system and detailed employer verification rules, shifts costs for Social Security verification work to the Department of Homeland Security, and adds new SSN blocking/suspension programs, pilot identity-authentication programs, audits, and expanded penalties. Employers must use the system within phased deadlines, keep verification records, and may receive civil or criminal penalties for specified violations; the bill also preempts most state and local hiring and verification rules while allowing limited state enforcement under federal standards.