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BUSH ASKS FOR MILLIONS TO CHECK APPLICANTS' STATUS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush plans to ask Congress for more than $130 million for a system employers would be required to use to verify job applicants are legally eligible to work in the United States, The Associated Press has learned.

Bush also wants 365 staff positions to operate the nationwide Employment Eligibility Verification system, a government source said Friday on the condition of anonymity because the president's budget had not been officially released.

Bush is scheduled to send his 2007 budget proposal to Congress on Monday.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke declined comment Friday. The immigration agency that would oversee the system is in the Homeland Security department.

Should Congress provide the money for the system, it would be a major victory for immigration restrictionists who blame the rise in illegal immigration in part on the failure of the government to carry out 1986 laws prohibiting hiring of illegal immigrants.

"It's one of the promises of '86 that the pro-enforcement people feel they were betrayed on. It was never funded, never enforced. Only three employers were fined last year for hiring illegals. That's probably the result of their being no verification," said Steve Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which backs tougher immigration laws.

The House in December passed a bill that included a sweeping provision requiring all employers in the country, more than 7 million, to submit Social Security numbers and other information to a national database to verify potential employees are legally in the country and eligible to work.

The House proposal has drawn opposition from businesses and immigration groups, among others.

Guillermo Meneses, spokesman for the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said the House's enforcement-only approach is unfair to small businesses, many of which are Hispanic and minority owned.

"We certainly will comply with whatever verification process. Our businesses are law-abiding businesses like everybody else. What we don't want is for our businesses to take on additional burdens that will in some way prevent our businesses from their continued path to growth and expansion," Meneses said.

Bush is pushing Congress to create a guest worker program that would provide immigrants visas to work in this country.

The Senate is expected to take up an immigration bill on March 27 and is expected to be more favorable to the guest worker proposal. Camarota said an immigration bill with the verification system and other enforcement and guest worker program has a better chance of passing than legislation with only one or the other.

A voluntary verification system already exists, but is not widely used and some business groups have complained that it has glitches.

The system Bush plans to propose will be used to verify documents for compliance with the REAL ID Act, passed by Congress last year and effective in 2008.

On the Net: Citizenship and Immigration Service

©Tyler Morning Telegraph 2006