Legal status of US workers’ an immigration issue
WASHINGTON — The Senate Democrat leading the push for immigration changes said Tuesday verifying the legal status of workers will require citizens and immigrants to prove they are legally eligible to hold jobs in the U.S.
Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the immigration subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he envisions a workforce verification system that relies on an electronic identifier, known as biometrics, such as fingerprints.
“In order to completely prevent future waves of illegal immigation, we must recognize that no matter what we do on the border an at our ports of entry, jobs are what draw ilegal immigrants to the United States,” Schumer said.
Congress is preparing to start debating immigration changes again, likely by fall. Previously, the idea of toughening how employers make sure they are hiring legal workers has met with resistance.
But Schumer said the debate has evolved.
“The biggest difference is people know it’s essential,” said Schumer, D-N.Y. “So much so, the left and the right are willing to make compromises . Previously this was done more grudgingly, more half-heartedly. Schumer said that enforcement must be accompanied by legalization and a temporary worker program.
Expasion and improvement of the E-Verify system has helped move the issue forard. About 136,000 employers use it and some states require it. Also, President Barack Obama has made employer enforcement central to his immigration overhaul agenda.
But the system has a large flaw. It can’t detect when people use stolen or borrowed identities. Immigration officials have added photos of legal permanent residents and are adding passport photos, but not all Americans have passports.
About 5 percent of the workforce is considered to be undocumented, either illegal immigrants or foreigners ineligible to work in the U.S., such as some students.
Most employers still use the paper-based sytem for new hires, known as the I-9 system, but it’s been easily exploited with fraudulent documents that are either not caught or in some cases ignored by employers.
The drawbacks are the reason Schumer is backing a biometric solution and why the Migration Policy Institute this week recommended Congress strengthen the E-Verify system, but also require the administration to test other ways to verify the legal status of workers.
Not everyone is on board with Schumer’s proposal.
The American Civil Liberties Union urged Senators to reject any worker verification plan, including one based on biometrics saying it invades Americans privacy and will lead to people being blacklisted from jobs. Employers want to be assured they will not be held liable if they wrongly fire someone who doesn’t check out and they don’t want to bear all the cost of a high-tech system, readers for any sort of scannable card containing biometrics for example.
Others believe strengthening the E-Verify system is the way to go.
“We got people on the left who don’t want a card. We got people on the right who don’t want a card,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “Count me a skeptic.”
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July 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Two paramount issues are very much prevalent on the minds of US taxpayers? Both command your attention, as they are umbilical connected? Health care and illegal immigration! In1986 hospital and ambulance services must convey care to anyone needing emergency treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. Trouble is most of these are unfunded federal mandates? Because taxpayers always carry the financial weight, the hospitals, as the government overlook the costs involved or they short-change local government? Over thirty years or even longer taxpayers have unwittingly supported millions of illegal aliens, who choose to come here, knowing full well they were breaching the law. The cost is taboo when relating to the free health care, schooling to K-12, and undisclosed low income housing and other financial rewards for breaking our laws, not to forget an overcrowded penal system.
Those who appose any form of a health care agenda in most cases will be defeated financially–big time. That includes lawmakers who have a monetary interest in undermining a universal medical system, as they are apt stockholders in hospitals, clinics, drug companies and even the prosperous health insurance industry. Is it no wonder their using dirty tactics, to bombard the airwaves with outrageous half-truths, about the European and Canadian health care system, that has worked with complete harmony for decades? Illegal immigration has the same ramifications, that if Washington passes a path to citizenship, against the opinion of a larger portion of the US population, it will mean higher taxes, and rising irreversible population growth. It will pilot to a chain migration of family members that will rupture welfare benefits to all poor Americans. Everybody must have noticed the dire-straits financially that California–a Sanctuary State–has been impacted by mass illegal immigration?
Then once the word reaches outside the borders of the US, even more millions will stream across our sovereign lands, looking for work and handouts. As with Health care the open border extremist and special interest lobby, already have their orders from the cheap labor industries, to quash any new laws that have a hard-hitting effect on immigration. Democrats and certain members of the GOP have a considerable interest, in abating any laws that, would fasten the border or would inflict penalties on businesses. E-Verify are the most secure extraction mechanism to remove illegal labor from job locations. Even with unemployment rising above 10.0 percent, legislators like Sen. Reid, Pelosi, and Napolitano are part of the conspiracy to unwind any laws, such as E-Verify, local police law 287(g), Save Act, Real ID and place them with puny substitutes.
Until they have proved that these new enforcement laws actually work such as Schumer’s new alternative to E-Verify, that all U.S. workers to verify their identity using fingerprints or digital photos Homeland Security should keep upgrading E-Verify and not–REPLACE IT? WE MUST CONSTANTLY RELAY OUR ANGER AND DISAPPOINTMENT TO OUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES AT 202-224-3121—BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. WE MUST SAY NO AMNESTY! SEAL OUR BORDERS AND NO MORE FREEBIES TO ILLEGAL ALIENS. THEY ARE THE CRIMINALS, NOT AMERICANS WHO SACRIFICE TAXES? GOOGLE–NUMBERSUSA for details our government and the media have a nefarious talent, for keeping facts under wraps?
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Rampant population growth threatens our economy and quality of life. Immigration, both legal and illegal, are fueling this growth. I’m not talking about environmental degradation or resource depletion. I’m talking about the effect upon rising unemployment and poverty in America.
I should introduce myself. I am the author of a book titled “Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America.” To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management, especially immigration policy. Our policies of encouraging high rates of immigration are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.
But, once an optimum population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.
The U.N. ranks the U.S. with eight third world countries - India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia and China - as accounting for fully half of the world’s population growth by 2050. It’s absolutely imperative that our population be stabilized, and that’s impossible without dramatically reining in immigration, both legal and illegal.
If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit my web site at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com where you can read the preface, join in my blog discussion and, of course, purchase the book if you like. (It’s also available at Amazon.com.)
Please forgive the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph. I just don’t know how else to inject this new perspective into the immigration debate without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”