Thread: Plan Rep. San Johnson: SS should verify workers

Plano Rep. Sam Johnson: Social Security should verify workers

04:51 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The agency responsible for anti-terrorism and national security shouldn't be keeping track of American workers, a Texas congressman told a House panel Tuesday.

Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Plano, urged members of a House Judiciary subcommittee to make the Social Security Administration, rather than the Homeland Security Department, in charge of checking whether employers are hiring illegal immigrants. He also promoted using an existing state new-hire system rather than the E-Verify system Homeland Security prefers.

"An agency responsible for tracking terrorists and securing our borders should not be keeping tabs on when and where U.S. citizens work," Johnson said. "Yet the Department of Homeland Security is building databases and maintaining data on the work history of American citizens and American employers."

Johnson's comments come just a few days after President Bush signed an executive order requiring anyone who does business with the federal government to use an electronic system to verify that their employees are not illegal immigrants.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff designated E-Verify, a Web-based system, as the one the contractors should use.

Under a bill Johnson and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., have introduced, the Social Security Administration would verify legal status of U.S. citizen employees and DHS would be responsible for investigating legal residents and other non-citizens working in the U.S.

Johnson said the Social Security Administration should lead the work "because it is their fundamental job to track earnings and because the vast majority of those who work in this country are American citizens and should not be tracked by DHS."

Johnson is the ranking Republican on the the House Ways and Means Committee's Social Security subcommittee.

Johnson said rather than spending money to expand E-Verify, employers could transmit the information through existing state new-hire systems to the Social Security Administration. Ninety percent of employers already use those systems, compared to 1 percent enrolled in E-Verify.

His bill also provides avenues to dispute decisions on work eligibility.

"As a pilot program, E-Verify has been very worthwhile in highlighting the challenges to creating a one-size-fits-all system for the many hiring situations in the U.S. economy," said Sue Meisinger, president and CEO of the Society of Human Resource Management. The coalition represents hundreds of thousands of employers.

Johnson said his bill would be accompanied by funding to help Social Security Administration clean up its databases and handle the new workload.

Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., argued the government shouldn't switch systems midstream. He urged sticking with E-Verify.

"It's a proven system that's been in place quite some time .... Why spend millions and millions of dollars to recreate something that's been working?" Shuler said. Shuler has filed a bill requiring all employers to use the E-Verify system, phasing in its use over four years.

About 17.8 million Social Security Administration files have errors, 12.7 million of which involve U.S. citizens, said Timothy Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Social Security Administration's inspector general has found that the agency's database has a 4 percent error rate.

A report commissioned by Homeland Security Department found 0.1 percent of native-born citizens and 10 percent of naturalized citizens have incorrect information in their DHS files that could flag them as illegal immigrant workers, Sparapani said.

The ACLU opposes any verification system, saying all proposals are inadequate to protect American workers' privacy and their right to work.


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... bdbe9.html

The ACLU also categorizes any worker living in America or who even just wants to come to America as an American worker.

According to Mark Krikorian, whose opinion I respect, we shouldn't be fooled by Rep. Johnson's plan (or should I say scheme) to get rid of E-Verify -- although I know Johnson has overall excellent grades from Numbers (but not for the recent 'foreign workers' category).
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National Review Online
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Verification Follies [Mark Krikorian]

As is often the case with immigration, Republicans and Democrats mixed and matched at a House hearing yesterday on E-Verify, the system that enables businesses to determine whether new hires are illegal aliens. Maybe the dumbest comment came from Rep. Sam Johnson (R., Texas): "An agency responsible for tracking terrorists and securing our borders should not be keeping tabs on when and where Americans work." He might as well have said of the Department of Homeland Security that "An agency responsible for hurricane relief should not be keeping tabs on when and where Americans work," or "An agency responsible for keeping out prohibited agricultural products should not be keeping tabs on when and where Americans work." Since the point of the verification system is to prevent illegal aliens from getting jobs, and since immigration control is, for better or worse, part of DHS, then yes, it is the agency that should be responsible for E-Verify.

And Johnson's real agenda is to push for his bill, H.R. 5515, which would start from scratch to build a whole new verification system — to replace the one that's up and running after more than a decade of test-drives, and which is already verifying more than 10 percent of all new hires in the country. The goal of his bill, cooked up by the Society of Human Resource Professionals, is to postpone any widespread verification system — and thus preserve employers' access to illegal workers — long enough for President McObama to get an amnesty through Congress, at which point the illegals will all keep their jobs.

06/11 10:21 AM

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/? ... kwMDNlNTI=