http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/opinion/36164.php

Our Opinion: Sans good IDs, worker raids unfair to bosses
Employers are caught in a vise: They can't demand extra ID lest they discriminate, but they can't hire legally sans ID.
Tucson Citizen
Published: 12.20.2006
Employers beware: Arizona, federal and even Maricopa County governments have begun cracking down on hiring illegal immigrants.
While it is long overdue, it comes without the preliminary work necessary to at least give employers a fighting chance.
Consider the Catch-22 encountered by Swift Co., which made headlines last week when its meatpacking plants were raided and 1,300 workers detained. It got in trouble for accepting authentic-looking documentation from workers to justify their hiring.
In 2002, Swift was fined $200,000 for discrimination after it required Hispanic applicants to furnish extra proof of legal status.
That wasn't right on Swift's part, but the lesson is clear: Employers who try to abide by the law get caught coming and going because of conflicting laws on hiring and discrimination.
What's needed is a federally managed ID system upon which both governmental enforcement agencies and businesses can rely to make sure only legally qualified workers are hired.
Until then, small steps that are being taken in Arizona will protect employers at the same time the law is being enforced.
One such step came this week when Gov. Janet Napolitano and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio struck an agreement to work with Alonzo Peņa, new chief of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona.
Yet full enforcement of workplace hiring cannot be undertaken fairly - in Arizona or elsewhere - until employers can access a tamper-proof ID system.
Given the sophisticated technology available today, it's inconceivable that the federal government still has not produced such a tool.
Should the new Congress pursue a guest worker program, which fortunately appears likely, the identification system will be essential.
With identified workers, employers could hire legally and employees could work legally, rather than dying in the desert and taking other risks to try reaching jobs here illegally.
A tamper-proof ID system and a database that tracks foreign workers from job to job would benefit our employers as well as the work force.
But until foolproof employee identification is made widely available and approved for employers' use, actions such as the Swift raids are more akin to shooting fish in a barrel than to authentic law enforcement.
The government should at least be reasonable.