Thread: Federal solutions to immigration issues a must, debate panel

Federal solutions to immigration issues a must, debate panelist agree
Participants debate effectiveness of E-Verify, other fixes

By Marjorie Cortez, Deseret News
Published: Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011 11:11 p.m. MST

SALT LAKE CITY — Opinions vary as to effectiveness of the federal E-Verify system, the federal governments' databases to check the employment eligibility of new hires.

But participants in an immigration debate Tuesday night at the Salt Lake City Library agreed that fixing the nation's broken immigration system will require federal reforms far beyond worker verification.

Salt Lake attorney Roger Tsai, who specializes in immigration law, said federal reforms must "deal with the folks who are here and deal with the folks who want to come here in a fair and equitable way."

Moreover, Americans must pay more attention to what is happening south of the U.S. border. "If they have jobs there, there's no reason to come here," Tsai said.

Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, who recently announced he will run for Congress in Utah's 4th District, agreed that the nation's immigration problems require federal solutions.

"There is an absolute lack of courageous leaders in Washington, D.C., to solve this issue," Sandstrom said.

"All we can do as a state is put Band-Aids together."

In the absence of federal immigration reform, many undocumented workers are subject to exploitation in terms of wages and work conditions, panelists said.

The low wages paid undocumented workers depress wages throughout the construction industry, said William Goble, business manager of the construction trades union Painters and Tapers Local 77.

Those who pay lower wages "cheat" workers and "legitimate contractors who try to play by the rules," Goble said.

The lower wages have also resulted in fewer documented workers or American citizens entering the construction trades. Veterans of the industry are widely discouraging their children from entering the profession, said Dennis Chavez, a construction company owner.

"The challenge is you can have your Microsofts, but who is building their building? Who is building it safely?"

In many respects, participants said, employers have become de facto immigration enforcers through the various verification processes they are required to conduct when hiring employees.

While the law requires them to ensure that the documents they accept at hire are "reasonably genuine," Tsai said it can be difficult to parse legitimate documents from fakes.

For that matter, the United States has issued 40-50 different valid versions of Social Security cards, Tsai said.

Sandstrom said the illegal immigration debate frequently centers on undocumented workers. Most people living in the United States, he said, have some sort of documentation.

"They do have documents. They happen to be falsified or stolen and bought on a street corner," he said.

E-Verify, Sandstrom said, is 90 percent effective, according the Department of Homeland Security. The system compares an employee's I-9 information against DHS and Social Security Administration databases. It is provided free to employers. The state of Utah requires employer of more than 15 people to use the system, but state law has no enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance.

On occasion, E-Verify wrongly denies lawful applicants the opportunity to work, said Juan Ruiz, president of the local Latin America Chamber of Commerce, noting that the system is far from perfect.

"What happens to those people who are unable to get their jobs back and have lost that opportunity?"

Email: marjorie@desnews.com

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7002 ... cid=rss-30

Sandstrom center of storm on immigration panel

By david montero
The Salt Lake Tribune
First published Dec 06 2011 10:22PM
Updated Dec 7, 2011 12:13AM

There were five people on the immigration panel at the Salt Lake City Main Library on Tuesday night, but for much of its duration, the spotlight was on Rep. Stephen Sandstrom.

The Orem Republican, who recently announced his bid for the 4th Congressional District seat, drew the lion’s share of questions from an audience of almost 100 who took him to task for creating "a culture of fear" in the state for his sponsoring of Utah’s enforcement-only immigration law.

Sandstrom said it was not his intent with HB497 to target any one group for "harassment," even though HB497 is being challenged in federal court by the U.S. Department of Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center for encouraging racial profiling. It will be heard in federal court Feb. 17.

"We’re dealing with human beings ... and we should show respect for all people," Sandstrom told the crowd.

The panel, sponsored by the Enriching Utah Coalition, was supposed to be about E-Verify programs and whether employers are responsible for the issue of illegal immigration. But it spiraled into several other areas, including border enforcement, Sandstrom’s bill and complaints about inaction by the federal government on the issue.

Roger Tsai, a Salt Lake City-based immigration attorney, said Sandstrom’s attempts to pass laws at the state level is simply a way "to make the environment uncomfortable for the undocumented community."

Sandstrom has said he plans to carry an E-Verify bill that is modeled after the Arizona E-Verify law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. That bill would level sanctions against employers who hired undocumented workers through suspension or revocation of business licenses.

At the federal level, E-Verify is an electronic system that employers register for, which matches a prospective employee’s Social Security number and date of birth to validate their legal right to work in the country.

But Juan Ruiz, president of the Latin American Chamber of Commerce, said E-Verify is currently an unreliable way of checking status because of an error rate that has been measured by some studies as close to 4 percent.

In Utah, businesses with 15 or more employees are required to sign up with E-Verify — but there are no enforcement mechanisms in place.

The panel was also split on what to do with undocumented immigrants already here — with most agreeing with securing the border and streamlining the process for coming to the United States.

"We need to do something about that," Tsai said. "We need to give them a life."

dmontero@sltrib.com

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53064 ... l.html.csp

deal with the folks who are here and deal with the folks who want to come here in a fair and equitable way."

There IS a fair and equitable way... the illegals gotta go so the people who would APPRECIATE being an American citizen can come in! Shamnesty is in NO way "fair and equitable"