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Would you rather have a population of 675,000 illegal immigrants in Florida, as estimated by the Pew Hispanic Center, or 364,000?
Would you prefer 12.2 percent official unemployment in Florida, or 9.3 percent?
Should we spend $300 million a year or more on health care, schools and incarceration for illegal immigrants? Or $150 million?
The lower numbers represent the likely worst-case scenario for what the federal E-Verify database system could do in Florida if all employers used it -- and that's assuming you buy critics' references to its "54 percent inaccuracy rate." That damning figure comes from a consultant's audit, released last January, based on one month of data from 2008.
But the exact same audit shows that the colorblind E-Verify system cut illegal hiring in half, where used. And where jobs have dried up, entire populations of illegal immigrants have plummeted, even with no new police activity, the Pew data show.
Among those arguing against mandatory use of E-Verify in Florida: Republicans from farming areas, liberal writers, business lobbyists suspicious of its costs and libertarians who fear a national ID-card system. All support the status quo, by default.
That's unacceptable. And shortsighted.
System failure?
The most damning problem reported with E-Verify? For the 6.2 percent of "unauthorized" workers screened by the E-Verify system in 2008, the database deemed slightly more than half of them "confirmed" after they presented fake green cards or stolen Social Security numbers to employers.
That's way too many. But note that it's about 3.3 percent of all workers screened in the U.S., as the audit by Maryland-based Westat reported.
Yet simultaneously, about 2.9 percent of all workers were sent packing by companies that used E-Verify, leaving thousands of jobs open for others in restaurants, manufacturing, trucking and property maintenance.
Almost all people who should have been confirmed by E-Verify and hired, were, the audit found.
And in the year since the audit became public, the Department of Homeland Security has begun issuing new hard-to-counterfeit "green cards" and has added algorithms to E-Verify to spot fraud.
It also has added hundreds of thousands of photographs from redesigned U.S. visas and is uploading millions of passport photos and images from state driver-license databases.
So, if a new hire shows up with Jane Doe's ID numbers, she'd better look just like Jane Doe.
"Employers using E-Verify were generally satisfied with the program and indicated that it was not burdensome," the same critical audit report says.
E-Verify also reduced discrimination against foreign-born legal workers, the audit found.
Quiet clampdown
Homeland Security has not published a new "inaccuracy rate" to replace the number from 2008.
Also unclear what sort of legislation might emerge from recent immigration hearings in Tallahassee, Gov. Rick Scott ordered agencies under his control to use E-Verify and to require it of contractors and subcontractors.
Arizona requires employers to use the system for new hires as a condition of keeping their business licenses. State or federal agents can stop by with laptops, request a company's E-Verify confirmation printouts and do spot checks. Any company busted twice for failing to verify its employees loses its license for good.
Sounds scary, but costs little.
The alternative in Florida: Talk tough, target Latino-looking people and spend billions on raids and deportation.
Contact Reed at 321-242-3631 or mreed@floridatoday.com.