This story was originally produced by The Keene Sentinel. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
More Granite State employers are enrolling in E-Verify, an online tool that uses federal records to check new employees' citizenship status, in recent years.
In theory, the tool makes it simpler for employers to work through the I-9 citizenship documentation process when bringing in new employees. But advocates say it uses a federal database that's full of errors, causing problems for people in the job market and driving some people with legal status to hesitate to apply.
Employers are not required to notify federal immigration enforcement authorities if someone fails E-Verify, but those authorities have access to E-Verify results and use them for investigations, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
For most of the 2010s, fewer than 150 companies doing business in New Hampshire enrolled in E-Verify annually. For the past two years, there have been double that many, including both large corporations and smaller local companies.
Use of the tool has been mandatory for most companies with federal contracts since 2009, but Republicans in the second Trump administration have pushed for an expansion of mandatory enrollment as part of the administration's focus on tightening immigration enforcement.
After revoking work authorization for about 500,000 people Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela last year, the Department of Homeland Security urged employers to check E-Verify regularly to find out if any of their employees' statuses had changed.
Legislation has been introduced at both the state and federal level to require E-Verify for all employers. That legislation has failed numerous times at the federal level. So far, those attempts haven't gotten anywhere in New Hampshire, either.
Some immigration and labor advocates say E-Verify causes problems for both employers and potential employees.
The American Immigration Council has warned that E-Verify mandates are redundant with existing federal law that prohibits employing people who don't have authorization to work in the U.S. and that the tool causes problems for people who do have that authorization.
"... E-Verify can generate errors that deny those with work authorization — including U.S. citizens and green card holders — jobs that they are qualified to fill," an April report said. "Authorized workers can be flagged as ineligible due to database errors or name discrepancies. Resolving these issues requires time, staff capacity, documentation, and navigation of bureaucratic processes."
Additionally, the council wrote that E-Verify has not proven effective at preventing workers without authorization from becoming employed in the U.S.
Some labor unions have criticized E-Verify, too.
The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the country, wrote in a 2025 news release that "To have a functioning immigration system, we need an employment eligibility verification mechanism that holds employers accountable and respects workers’ rights. E-Verify in its current form falls far short of that mark. The system has shown persistent error rates and affords insufficient privacy and due process protections, opening the door to discrimination and retaliation."
Private employers enrolled in E-Verify include Chesco, Covenant Living, Filtrine, the W.S. Badger Co., N.H. Ball Bearings, Hannaford parent company Ahold Delhaize, Keene Publishing Corp., Melanson, Belletetes, Monadnock Speedway and Casella Waste Systems, according to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Others, like Markem-Imaje, Keene State College and Cedarcrest, were once enrolled but have since stopped using it, the data shows.