February 27, 2009 1:38PM # The Washington Times and Debunked Statistics By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE Yesterday, the *Washington Times* [editorialized](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/26/you-always-hurt-the-ones-you-love/) in favor of E‑Verify, the inchoate government background check system for all American workers, saying, “\[T\]he system is 99.5 percent accurate, according to DHS, and it permits employers to verify work eligibility in minimal time (10 minutes or less) and at minimal cost ($419 per year for a federal contractor of 10 employees).” Don’t be so sure. The DHS mantra of 99.5 percent accuracy was debunked long ago. The government doesn’t actually know the status of the 5.3% of workers that the system bounces out, an issue the *Christian Science Monitor* [explored last summer](http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0707/p02s01-usgn.html). I examined the numbers in detail [here](https://www.cato.org/2008/05/21/e-verify-debunking-exposes-debunking-errors/), also last summer. The 0.5% error rate that DHS acknowledges is the *known* error rate. Others bounced out of the system DHS assumes to be illegal aliens. This is almost certainly wrong, and the program is denying legal workers the ability to earn a living, as the *Christian Science Monitor* reported. But in an op-ed published in the *Washington Times* last fall, lobbyist Janice Kephart [argued](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/21/e-verify-ambush/) the DHS line, as carelessly as one can be with statistics: “\[T\]he numbers rejected by E‑Verify as not authorized to work closely parallels the estimated percentage of illegal aliens in the work force, about 5 percent.” Right, the numbers are close so the program is working. Nevermind that the livelihoods of American citizens and legal workers are in the balance. Earlier this month, the *Times* printed Rep. Lamar Smith’s [plea for E‑Verify](https://www.cato.org/2009/02/09/lamar-smith-vs-the-wsj/), which touted these (well, similar) discredited statistics. It’s time for the *Washington Times* to stop shilling for the Department of Homeland Security and the anti-immigrant lobby by printing and reprinting discredited statistics about E‑Verify. [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).