Colorado disabled one immigration status check for unemployment benefits; 900 illegal aliens flagged anyway

From this:

State politicians are calling for an audit of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment after a published report implied the Department might have intentionally tried to circumvent state law in dealing with illegal immigrants.

Colorado Department of Labor and Employment Executive Director Don Mares insisted his office did nothing improper when it decided in January of last year to suspend a particular software program designed to flag illegal immigrants trying to obtain unemployment benefits...

At issue is a bill passed by the state legislature in 2006. HB-1023 was designed to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining certain forms of government aid. It required state agencies to try to verify status of applicants before handing over something like an unemployment check.

Mares says they had other systems in place, but contemporaneous emails have workers in his office worrying whether they were violating the law by disabling the checks. He also claims that due to their other methods they flagged 900 illegal aliens seeking benefits in the first nine months of 2009, and no one knows how many weren't flagged. That data point also contradicts claims by some advocates that illegal aliens not only don't receive public benefits, but don't even try to receive them (not that you needed additional proof to know that those advocates have problems with the truth).