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Government concedes failure in immigration enforcement at worksites
Homeland Security officials say Bush administration is seeking "much better partnership" between employers and government.
By Julia Malone
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration acknowledged Monday the wholesale failure of past efforts to enforce immigration laws in the workplace and warned that a major Senate-passed overhaul fails to provide the necessary tools to fix the problem.

"We think the Senate bill needs substantial work," the Homeland Security undersecretary for policy planning, Stewart Baker, said at a Senate hearing.

He said the legislation needs to require companies to electronically check new employees' Social Security numbers and the Social Security Administration to share worker records with law enforcement agencies when their numbers and names don't match. Such access has been limited because of privacy concerns.

Baker added that the administration is seeking a "much better partnership" between employers and the government.

Although President Bush strongly backs the Senate immigration measure that would legalize many foreign workers already here, Baker said the administration wants "to avoid the same mistake" made in 1986, when Congress and President Reagan granted amnesty for millions for illegal immigrants.

Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the immigration subcommittee, said he called the hearing because worksite enforcement was discussed only briefly during Senate floor debate. The Texas Republican called it "the linchpin" in turning off the jobs magnet that attracts the illegal population.

Cornyn said that the government has only 90 full-time immigration agents focusing on workplace violations nationwide and that it is "no wonder that many Americans are skeptical about how serious the federal government is about enforcing its own laws."

The number of worksite arrests dropped from 2,849 in 1999 to just 159 in 2004, he said.

"The American people feel like they were scammed" in the last immigration reform, Cornyn said. "If we're going to effectively solve this problem, we're going to have to regain their confidence."

Julie Myers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said her Homeland Security Department agency has reinvigorated its workplace efforts by prosecuting executives of the worst offending companies as well as increasing reviews at high-security sites such as airports.

She conceded, however, that enforcement in the workplace has been ineffective in recent years.

"Egregious violators of the law viewed the fines as just a 'cost of doing business,' " she said. Federal rules for checking worker IDs are "meaningless" because employers are not required to verify the document or to keep a copy of documents reviewed, she said.

As a result, employers hiring illegal workers are "sheltered" from prosecution, and manufacturing fake IDs is now a booming industry, Myers said. She added that the federal government recently set up 11 task forces to combat the problem.