Though reauthorization of E-Verify was briefly in doubt, it appears now that congressional authorizers have agreed on a way forward, and that the program needs a lot more study.

A bill on the House floor today would extend E-Verify as a “voluntary” program for 5 years and require much more study of the system and its problems. The consensus at the beginning of the year was that Congress would require every employer in the country to use it by the end of the year.

Since then, flaws in the E-Verify database and tracking system have come to light and it has become more clear that “internal enforcement” of immigration law means tracking and databasing all Americans. My paper on the subject is called “Franz Kafka’s Solution to Illegal Immigration.”

E-Verify is losing its luster. In the reauthorization bill, Congress has tasked the Government Accountability Office with conducting two studies to explore problems with the system and the policy. One will look into the large number of erroneous “tentative nonconfirmations,” their causes, and potential remedies. DHS sought to glide past these issues in its advocacy for E-Verify this year. The other will look at how E-Verify would effect small businesses (and also small non-profits and municipalities). Current users of E-Verify tend to be large employers that are motivated (by threat of enforcement or past enforcements) to comply scrupulously with the law. The already low quality of the E-Verify system’s results will drop when other employers not so motivated begin to use it.

If E-Verify goes forward another five years, technical and programmatic problems will become more clear. But we shouldn’t take our eye off the ball. A national E-Verify system would be used to give the federal government direct regulatory control over law-abiding Americans. Federal authorities would use it to control not just work, but housing, financial services, health care, and access to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms — and these are just the obvious things.