E-Verify is the government’s program that is meant to catch illegal immigrants in the workforce. The problem is that it only detects 54% of illegals. The program is not working as designed or planned as it lets half the immigrants screened pass as legal workers. Tens of thousands of US companies use the ineffective E-Verify in the United States as a means of complying with US law.

The Internet-based program checks information provided by new hires against Social Security Administration and Homeland Security databases to confirm they are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the country.

An evaluation of E-Verify carried out for DHS by research group Westat found the program couldn’t confirm whether information workers were presenting was their own, and, as a result, “many unauthorized workers obtain employment by committing identity fraud that cannot be detected by E-Verify,” Westat told the department. Westat put the “inaccuracy rate for unauthorized workers” at about 54%.

All federal contractors are required to enroll in E-Verify within 30 days of being awarded a government contract. At least 10 states use the system to check the work-eligibility of state workers. Some states, like Arizona and Mississippi, require all employers to use E-Verify, regardless of whether they are state contractors.

While catching 54% of illegals is a huge improvement over the old system, it’s still a dismal result. If you have a 54% graduation rate in high school, it may be an improvement over your 27% graduation rate, but it’s still not good enough. If you lose in a baseball game 2-1 as opposed to losing 2-0, you’ve still lost the game.