http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/spe ... 24053.html

June 3, 2006, 10:47AM


Immigrant advocates decry microchip idea
Company says implants aren't tracking devices but help with ID
By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

HARLINGEN - A tiny microchip implanted just under the skin offers the best tamper-proof identity system for immigrant guest workers, says the head of a Florida-based company that has already implanted millions of the identity chips in household pets and livestock.

But the idea of planting microchips in the arms of migrant workers, which a prominent Washington lawmaker brought up last week, has outraged immigrant advocates, privacy watchdogs, employer groups and immigrants themselves.

"For me, it would be a humiliation," said Jose Luis Vasquez, a 48-year-old undocumented worker in the Rio Grande Valley.

"That's like treating someone like an animal, not a person, or a delinquent they want to control."

"Oh my God," said Laura Reiff, co-chair and founder of Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based employers group working for immigration reform. "I can't imagine it being contemplated in the near future. It's wild."

Scott Silverman, chairman and CEO of Applied Digital, where the chips are made, doesn't think it's such an outlandish idea.

In fact, he said, key congressional leaders — who he declined to identify — have told him they're interested in the technology as a tamper-proof guest worker identification system.

President Bush has proposed a guest-worker program that would allow hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to work legally in the U.S.

Silverman said chips made by his VeriChip division, already implanted in some hospital patients, could be easily scanned by immigration officials and private employers to verify guest workers' identification and work status, and to store tax and medical records.

"We look at our technology as one of several the legislators can choose to be the technology platform for the guest worker program," he said.

Silverman said his company would sell the microchips only to buyers who agreed they'd be implanted voluntarily.

The chips are not tracking devices, do not contain GPS transmitters, and are more reliable than biometric credentials that use fingerprints or optical scans to confirm identity, Silverman said.

Silverman said the VeriChip tag, the size of a grain of rice, has been implanted in 30 million pets during the past 15 years and was approved for human use by the FDA in 2004.

Currently, the company has sold the microchips and hand-held scanners to nearly 100 hospitals, for use by Alzheimer's patients and others who cannot provide their medical history, Silverman said.


'A human rights violation'
But privacy advocates compared the chips to "electronic branding."

"It's a terrible idea," said Marc Rotenberg, director of Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit that promotes privacy protection.

And while Rotenberg acknowledged the complexity of the immigration debate, "placing microchip under anybody's skin is a human rights violation — it's like electronic branding. We do this with pets and cows, I don't think we should be doing it with people."

The chip has been used in Mexico. In July 2004, former Mexican Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha and 160 of his staff were implanted with VeriChip microchips, according to press accounts. They were used to control entry to secure areas within offices that housed a high-technology, anti-crime information center, officials in Mexico City said Friday.


Colombian consideration
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he heard of the idea of using the chips during a trip to Latin America.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had suggested implanting microchips in Colombian workers to ensure they return home after working in the United States, Specter wrote in an April 25 report.

Friday, staff in Specter's office said they didn't know if microchip technology was being discussed as a part of immigration reform.

Critics of U.S. immigration policy said the microchips and other measures illustrate how difficult it would be to implement a guest worker program.

"These kinds of measures, in a free society, are really challenging," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for Immigration Reform. "This proposal underscores the idea that technology has never been the impediment to border and immigration management — the problem has always been political, attitudinal and the force of economic greed."


Inability to monitor
Immigration advocates say the proposal to implant microchips would further dehumanize migrants.

"There's this growing trend of using high technology and surveillance, using biometrics as a way of tracking people," said Jennifer Allen, director of the Arizona-based Border Action Network.

The problem, Allen said, is that police agencies "don't have the ability, and internal accountability, to monitor these powerful tools that have the ability to erode people civil liberties and basic rights to privacy."

Nathan Selzer, a Harlingen activist who heads the Valley Movement for Human Rights, said the proposal "is an affront to a person's dignity."

"As long as it's OK to treat people as less than human, we'll continue to have abuse and exploitation, whether they have chips in their arms or not."

james.pinkerton@chron.com