Thread: ID cards add to immigration battle

ID cards add to immigration battle

June 11, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Rumors swirled one day last year that federal immigration authorities were prowling around a Florida blueberry farm in Polk County after sweeping a nearby manufacturer the previous month.

Only 15 of 150 workers showed up that day. The episode revealed the prevalence of illegal immigrants in America's fields.

Jerry Mixon, of Mixon Family Farms, was surprised -- not that illegal immigrants are in agriculture but that the 10 percent turnout suggested such a large volume of fake documents must be presented to employers.

"We need to come up with some way that employers can be assured the paperwork they're getting is true," he said last week after telling the anecdote to a House subcommittee.

While an immigration overhaul sits stalled in the Senate, rampant identity fraud and theft that provide many illegal immigrants the means to work will go on.

The bill, which failed to muster enough support last week to move to a final vote, would attempt to secure key identity documents and mandate an electronic system to check every job applicant -- immigrant or not.

The focus has been on the fate of 12 million illegal immigrants, but the debate raises fundamental questions of identity and burdens of proof for Americans as well.

The immigration bill would force states to comply the Real ID Act of 2005, which dictates security measures for state-issued driver's licenses and ID cards that can be read by computers, by requiring many job applicants to show such a card at the time of hire.

At least a dozen states are fighting the Real ID Act, which is supposed to be implemented next May, on privacy and cost grounds, while other states are pressing for delays.

The immigration bill also requires the Social Security Administration to increase the security of its cards -- the venerable, often tattered and easily forged paper documents that have not changed much in 70 years even as their uses have multiplied.

That will happen regardless of the bill's fate because the Social Security Administration already plans a redesign. Identity and immigration experts, however, said those new cards alone will not be enough to ensure identity verification by employers.

The revamped Social Security cards, to be issued to new applicants beginning this fall as the result of a study required by a 2004 terrorism law, will use printing inks and techniques similar to those in U.S. currency.

The redesign has not been announced, but a spokesman for the agency confirmed it.

The changes would satisfy the immigration bill but fall short of measures some lawmakers and experts say are necessary to secure a document that people show to get a job or obtain other identification. Those critics want the cards to include encrypted biometric identifiers such as pictures, fingerprints and retinal scans.

The card to be unveiled this year still will be made of paper.

Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, a Republican who helped negotiate the immigration bill, said after it was pulled from the floor Thursday night that he was disappointed in the Senate for many reasons, including this:

"I'm disappointed for those who have employees that may be illegal and are looking for a tamperproof ID system that will help them to know that their work force is a legal work force."

The evolution of the Social Security card and misgivings about other proposals to tighten identification reflect the conflict between concerns about illegal immigration and the aversion of many Americans to a national ID card.

The issue is so sensitive that the immigration bill states flatly it shall not be construed "to authorize, directly or indirectly" the issuance or establishment of a national ID card -- a sure sign that plenty of people would construe it exactly that way.

Critics of Real ID say it indeed creates a national ID card, infringing on privacy.

"That does bother me," said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the nonprofit American Immigration Law Foundation, "but whether it's the Social Security card or some other form of ID, the current momentum in the immigration debate, whether we realize it or not, is moving toward a type of identification that, for all intents and purposes, is going to look and feel like a national ID card."

Supporters said they hope to revive the immigration bill in coming weeks.

Immigrants would receive documents with biometric identifiers under the Senate bill. But the measure stops short of requiring biometric IDs for citizens, instead asking Social Security officials to study the question for future Social Security cards.

Real ID sets security standards for state licenses but does not require biometrics, aside from a picture.

Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, has introduced legislation that would require pictures and encrypted biometrics such as fingerprints on Social Security cards. He said the immigration bill and Social Security's redesign do not go far enough.

Permission to work

The immigration bill would narrow the types of documents that can be used to prove identity and work eligibility from a large number that employers complain they cannot police or question without risking discrimination claims.

A job applicant could provide a U.S. passport or other eligible immigration documents with biometrics that demonstrate both identity and employment eligibility. Otherwise, a worker would have to show an identity document such as a driver's license, which by 2013 would have to be Real ID compliant, and a document showing work eligibility, such as a Social Security card.

Under the bill, employers would be required to use an electronic employment eligibility verification system to check all 60 million new hires each year -- the first time Americans would have to seek federal permission to hold a job.

That system poses huge logistical hurdles for 5.9 million employers, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, and would be costly.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20 ... /706110581

Critics of Real ID say it indeed creates a national ID card, infringing on privacy.

"That does bother me," said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the nonprofit American Immigration Law Foundation, "but whether it's the Social Security card or some other form of ID, the current momentum in the immigration debate, whether we realize it or not, is moving toward a type of identification that, for all intents and purposes, is going to look and feel like a national ID card."

Look and Feel. TRY IS A NATIONAL ID CARD.

By throwing it out there as trying to track illegal aliens being unlawfully employed we american citizens are also going to be caught in the same net

I don't understand why they can't have a card like a credit card that can be scanned in order to get a job, this is a bunch of crap they just want to be able to track everyone including citizens. These illegal are a pain in the ass they have caused us one problem after another, they are making our life miserable. DEPORT THEM!!!NOW!!

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WE NEED EVERYBODY CALLING, FAXING AND E-MAILING, AND POSTING SO WE KNOW WHAT YOUR HEARING. LET THEM KNOW U.S.CITIZENS HAVE COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS AND ARE SEEING THE LIGHT!!!!!!

Link to instrucions and posts
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=67975

Link to Kates new Fax!!
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=67814