By ANNEMARIE FRANCZYK
Business First

Buffalo has been selected as an expansion site for a federal program that offers employers the ability to check out the eligibility of new hires electronically.

A temporary office with about 30 employees is expected to open soon at 186 Exchange St. in Buffalo while the federal General Services Administration looks for permanent space.

Immediate jobs needed for the Buffalo office, as posted on the government Web site www.usajobs.gov, include supervisory and assistant positions with salaries ranging from $30,000 to $109,000. The local office is expected to eventually employ about 135.

The office will provide secondary verification support for the government's E-Verify program, a free Internet-based system that in seconds confirms the legal working status of potential employees. The system matches the job candidate's Form I-9, the paper-based employee eligibility verification form, against Social Security and immigration databases. The office also will include the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program.

The office in Buffalo will be the first for the growing program outside of Washington, D.C.

More than 43,000 employers are enrolled in E-Verify and 1,000 new employers are signing on each week, said William Wright, a spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the program. E-Verify is a joint initiative of the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

The system has been in existence since 1997 under the name Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program. It has been renamed E-Verify to highlight various enhancements, including a photo screening tool that helps employers to detect forged or faked immigration documents.

According to Homeland Security, the system "virtually eliminates Social Security mismatch letters, improves the accuracy of wage and tax reporting, protects jobs for authorized U.S. workers, and helps U.S. employers maintain a legal workforce."

The state of Illinois, however, views E-Verify as an intrusion and passed a law that would prohibit employers in the state from enrolling in the program.