INS Will Expand O.C. Employment Verification Pilot

The top officer of the Immigration and Naturalization Service said Tuesday that the agency’s employment verification experiment in Santa Ana has shown early success, prompting the INS to expand the project to several other states.

INS Commissioner Doris Meissner said the project, in which companies use a computer tie-in to verify the immigration status of new employees, had so far enabled employers to check the status of more than 6,000 workers.

Meissner and other INS officials did not immediately have a tally of how many of those workers were found to be illegal residents. But Meissner said in most cases, employers’ inquiries to the INS computer database provided “quick, efficient and accurate” answers.

Meissner announced the computer-link project last fall in Santa Ana, which along with the city of Industry is the focus of the pilot program.

Meissner spoke to more than 300 people in Orange at a meeting of the Employers Group, a human resources support group for companies. Though she came to Southern California Tuesday to talk about the agency’s progress on enforcement, among other things, her visit was overshadowed by the videotaped beating Monday of two people suspected as illegal immigrants.

Meissner condemned the beating by Riverside County sheriff’s deputies and said INS agents were not directly involved in the incident.