This system is rampant with data errors. In 2012, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services estimated that 1 in 400 cases wrongly determined an individual was not authorized. With 717,000 workers in West Virginia, that means nearly 1,800 eligible workers could be wrongly flagged.
Errors are often caused by name changes, transliteration problems from non-Roman alphabets, or simple typos. E-Verify errors have a discriminatory impact on foreign-born workers. The Government Accountability Office has found the initial non-confirmation rate for employees who were eventually authorized to work was about 20 times higher for foreign-born applicants.
If the state wants to block a job applicant from working, the burden should be on it to establish ineligibility. “Innocent until proven guilty” is a core principle in our society. E-Verify turns this principle on its head and requires workers to prove they are eligible to work.
SB 48 would require the state’s construction industry to use this unreliable system for work verification. Contact your legislators and tell them to oppose this bill because E-Verify is invasive, inaccurate, and wrong for West Virginia.
Find your state senator here: https://www.wvlegislature.gov/Senate1/roster.cfm
Find your state delegate here: https://www.wvlegislature.gov/House/roster.cfm
Reforming our broken bail system has been a major priority of the ACLU. The legislature has considered reforms over the past few years, and appears poised to pass legislation in 2020. House Bill 2419 appears to be this legislation, but is likely to undergo significant modification as it advances.
Senate Bill 42 (Permitting faith-based electives in classroom drug prevention programs) is a two sentence change to the existing code. The first sentence allows faith-based electives in drug prevention programs from kindergarten through 12th grade. The second sentence requires the State Board to
House Bill 2383 (Creating a pilot program for expansion of school-based mental health and school-based diversion) is a bill aimed at reducing the flow of youth from our schools into our juvenile justice system.
This bill would have prevented the West Virginia National Guard from being deployed in any foreign conflict without a Congressional declaration of war.
The bill allows the State Treasurer to name select financial institutions to hold and disperse funds for the Medical Cannabis Act. The bill sets basic banking parameters for the funds.
The bill would have removed the limits on the number of growers, producers, and distributers, and allowed a single entity to serve in more than one of those roles.