At a House Committee on Education and Workforce hearing on November 11, Jaime Andress, Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Caddell Construction and Chair of AGC’s HR Committee, testified on behalf of AGC of America on Caddell’s experiences using E-Verify as a federal contractor in the construction industry. Mrs. Andress underscored that the biggest problem they and many other contractors have with E-Verify is that they don’t have enough people to run through the system. There are simply not enough qualified workers available for construction firms like theirs to hire and verify. She urged Congress to boost funding for construction education and training programs.
Additionally, she shared that while E-Verify has been a useful tool in helping us ensure the legal status of our domestic workforce, it is not perfect, and offered the following improvements:
- Improve the System’s Accuracy;
- Provide Further Compliance Assistance;
- Require Notification of Change in EAD Status; and
- Provide Consistency
For more information, contact Jim Young at jim.young@agc.org or Claiborne Guy at claiborne.guy@agc.org.