Costco uses E-Verify Nationwide to Check Employees

Jeff Schwilk, San Diego Immigration Policy Examiner

Posted: 05/20/2011 12:59 PM

Updated: May 24, 2011

Costco Wholesale , the nation’s largest warehouse retailer, has adopted the use of E-Verify to check all their new employees. The multi-billion dollar global chain has been using the free government online verification system nationwide since March 2010.

Costco posts the official E-Verify poster (left) inside all their stores near the Member Services counter to warn any illegal aliens thinking of applying for a job there that will be rejected. They also clearly announce their nationwide participation in E-Verify on the employment page on their website.

Costco has 10 stores in San Diego County, 118 total in California, and 424 stores nationwide. Costco is a major employer in the U.S. with over 110,000 employees.

Sam’s Club, the nation’s second largest big box store, does not use E-Verify in their hiring practices. Sam’s Club is owned by Walmart and has 33 stores in California.

After Arizona passed their mandatory E-Verify law several years ago, which requires all employers in that state to check their new employees through the Homeland Security database, Costco decided to be pro-active and adopt the system at all their stores and offices nationwide.

If and when Congress passes a bill to make E-Verify mandatory for all employers in the U.S., forward-looking companies like Costco will already be in compliance. At least one federal bill mandating E-Verify has been introduced this year, plus numerous states have bills and laws in various stages of approval.

According to Shawna Wilson at Costco's Corporate Headquarters near Seattle, the system has been running smoothly for 14 months with no problems or complaints. “Costco is proud to be a major corporate participant in the E-Verify program and help put American workers back to work”, she said.

Ms. Wilson said Costco is also considering signing up for the free government "IMAGE" Program – ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers – which actually performs a full audit of all employees to ensure none of them are working fraudulently and that the employer is in full compliance with U.S. employment laws. The IMAGE Program also gives businesses more management tools to utilize “best hiring practices” through training and direct assistance.

Each of us has the choice everyday to support law-abiding American retailers with our purchasing dollars. Companies either support American workers and the rule of law in their hiring practices, or they don’t. Shop wisely.

Georgia's Tough New Immigration Law Drives Undocumented Immigrants to Leave

On the heels of the Georgia legislature's passage of an immigration law that seeks to make life significantly tougher for undocumented immigrants, many who fear deportation are leaving -- or considering leaving -- the Peach State.

Those who are looking to go elsewhere include undocumented immigrants and their families who harvest the state's famous sweet onions.

The new law -- the toughest state measure on immigration in the nation -- penalizes people who harbor or transport undocumented immigrants in some situations and allows law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of suspects who can't show an approved form of identification. Using false documents to get a job -- a common practice among undocumented immigrants -- will be a felony once the law goes into effect in July...[Full Article]

ICE: 38 people arrested at construction site

An upscale apartment complex still under construction in northeast Odessa was the site of an immigration raid Tuesday morning that led to the arrest of 38 people.

The Tuscany at Faudree apartments, 4001 Faudree Road, was surrounded by Odessa police and Midland County sheriff's deputies, as well as at least one K-9 unit from the Andrews County sheriff's office.

The land lies just at the edge of Ector County, but still within Odessa city limits.

A helicopter circled the air above the apartment and nearby fields for more than half an hour, apparently looking for anyone who might have escaped the perimeter of what an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman from El Paso confirmed was a search warrant executed by their agents. Attempts to get a copy of the probable cause affidavit for the search warrant were unsuccessful Tuesday...[Full Article]

President's Announced Immigration Policy Unconstitutional

The New American

In 1964 President Adolfo López Mateos of Mexico and President Lyndon B. Johnson of the United States met on the border separating their two nations to celebrate the official end of the 100-year-long dispute regarding the precise location of the international boundary. This dispute, known as the Chamizal border conflict, began around 1852 when the river that separated the two countries — the Rio Grande (called the Rio Bravo in Mexico) — began shifting course so as to confuse the location of the border agreed upon in the Treaty of Guadalupe that ended the Mexican American War. As part of the settlement of the border dispute, the United States received 193 acres of Cordova Island from Mexico.

On May 10, 2011, President Barack Obama stood at the Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas, a park dedicated to commemorating the settlement of the Chamizal border dispute, and addressed a crowd gathered to hear a speech designed to declare the full scope of the Obama administration’s plan to “fix our broken immigration system.”...[Full Article]

Ohio rep. introduces resolution supporting arizona bill enforcing illegal immigration

Ohio Rep. Courtney Combs (R-Hamilton) introduced a House Concurrent Resolution formally endorsing the legislation being proposed in Arizona which would give a state power to enforce federal immigration laws. HCR -11 is not a bill, simply a proposal to acknowledge and agree with Arizona’s Senate bill 1070...[Full Article]

DREAM Act rewards illegal immigrants for law-breaking

It’s always heartwarming to have a self-proclaimed friend from 30 years ago write you a public letter that stoops to name-calling and misrepresentations. Maybe that says more about the “friend” than my views on illegal immigration (see Lionel Sosa’s blog recently posted in The Hill).

Mr. Sosa asserts that “amnesty is as American as apple pie.” He claims that if we grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, we will have no illegal workers. Of course, we could also let everyone in jail out and then have no criminals, too.

America is a nation that values and promotes freedom and the inherent rights of all people. However, America also is a nation that has established laws and rules to promote the common good of our society.

In other words, we are a nation that distinguishes right from wrong. Part of the role of government is to promote policies that reward those who follow the law, rather than reward lawbreakers...[Full Article]

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But when she plunged into a postpartum depression in 2003 after the birth of her daughter, the first of three children, a hospital social worker referred her and her husband to an East Harlem social service agency that has counseled them and helped them get care for their family and get the government assistance their children were eligible for as American citizens.

“I think I very am lucky,” Eulogia said in an interview this week, asking that her last name not be used because she still fears deportation. She said most illegal immigrant parents felt tremendously isolated and did not have “the confidence to ask for help.”

Indeed, a recently published study of the early development of children born to illegal immigrants in New York City suggests that most stories that begin like Eulogia’s do not end as well...[Full Article]

Korean suspects arrested in elaborate driver's license scam

Two suspects were arraigned in a California state court in Bakersfield on Friday following their arrest in Los Angeles Wednesday on criminal charges stemming from their role in an elaborate scheme involving illegal aliens from Asia who traveled to Kern County and used altered Canadian passports and legitimate Social Security numbers to obtain valid California driver's licenses and state identification cards...[Full Article]

Social Security numbers used in license scam

Social Security numbers plus altered passports used in plot to get California driver's licences for 200 illegal immigrants. Police arrest two, saying Social Security IDs came from Northern Marianas.

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LOS ANGELES

Two men were arrested in what authorities described Thursday as an elaborate scheme to help more than 200 illegal immigrants from Korea and China obtain California driver's licenses using doctored Canadian passports.

Dae Wahn Ahn, 49, of Diamond Bar, and Chong Hwan Kim, 47, of Norwalk, were arrested Wednesday and charged with manufacturing false documents, using false documents to conceal citizenship, perjury, forgery, conspiracy and false personation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

Authorities said the men charged illegal immigrants between $3,500 and $5,000 to help them obtain driver's licenses at multiple Department of Motor Vehicles offices in Kern County...[Full Article]