Dept. of Homeland Security Promotes Racist E-Verify on NPR

Written by Jill Garvey

National Public Radio airs ads for E-Verify and draws sharp criticism.

The ad spots were purchased by the Department of Homeland Security and promote their E-Verify program, a controversial employee verification system. The ads run at the end of a segment and say, “‘Support for NPR comes from NPR stations, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), offering E-Verify, confirming the legal working status of new hires. At DHS dot gov slash E-Verify.”

E-Verify allows employers to check work eligibility against a massive database, and according to the National Immigration Law Center the “SSA estimates that 17.8 million (or 4.1 percent) of its records contain discrepancies related to name, date of birth, or citizenship status, with 12.7 million of those records pertaining to U.S. citizens.”

E-Verify is the perfect study of racism thriving in American institutions. Employers often fire or fail to hire workers that they cannot confirm through E-Verify. These discrepancies overwhelmingly affect Latinos and African American citizens.

The confusion by listeners and even those within NPR over why they would choose to accept money from DHS is understandable. After all, NPR has been consistently critical of DHS and its more sinister sibling agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On Dec. 1, EPIC, ACLU, Free Press, and the National Immigration Law Center sent a letter to NPR calling for the discontinuation of the ads, pointing to the “shortcomings of E-Verify, including its high cost, high levels of inaccuracies in the databases on which the program is based, employer misuse resulting in discrimination and unlawful termination, and the lack of privacy protections.”

Facing layoffs and programming cuts, it’s not surprising NPR would hedge on halting the ads, though in true public radio style, they’ve done it diplomatically.

On Dec. 4th, Alicia Shepard, NPR’s Ombudsman, took to the airwaves to address listeners’ concerns and defend the acceptance of funding credits. She rightly pointed out the reasons for controversy around E-Verify, but then kept the focus on the “firewall” that protects journalistic integrity from advertising dollars.

This indicates that NPR still doesn’t get why this is a problem. I don’t think listeners are as concerned about the integrity of journalists, as they are about the integrity of National Public Radio itself. I can sympathize with NPR’s economic woes, but we’re all feeling the same pinch. Bottom line, E-Verify is racist and NPR should stop promoting it.