http://www.citizensvoice.com/site/news. ... 5154&rfi=6

12/17/2006
Weaknesses exposed
BY WADE MALCOLM
STAFF WRITER


The steady drumbeat of national publicity in southern Luzerne County has delivered the message clear enough — Hazleton doesn’t want illegal immigrants living and working in the city.

It is an idea so controversial and polarizing few stop to question how the small city with a $7.5 million budget would accomplish those goals, if the courts ever allow enforcement of two ordinances that punish landlords who rent to and employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The city planned to rely on two computer programs using the same database for confirming immigration status. The city code enforcement office would use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program in issuing rental permits only to legal U.S. residents and citizens. And business would be encouraged to enroll in the Basic Pilot Program to avoid hiring illegal workers.

But raids on several meat packing plants in the Midwest exposed inherent weaknesses in the program. The owner of the plants, Swift, used the Basic Pilot Program, but hundreds of workers nabbed in the sting were hired under stolen identities, something the database can’t detect.

And the federal government is still deciding whether it can legally allow Hazleton to access personal information to permit or deny housing to its residents.

Although state and local governments have used SAVE in the past to withhold benefits from illegal immigrants, no one has ever used it deny housing, said Shawn Saucier, spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the program.

“We have to see whether that is permissible under the law to access that information under the SAVE program when it comes to granting or withholding benefits like housing,” he said.

But for the plaintiffs suing the city over the ordinance, the flaws in the system support what they have always asserted: Hazleton is ill-equipped to enforce laws targeting illegal immigrants in an even-handed way.

“I can’t see where the problem would be,” Mayor Lou Barletta said, disagreeing with the idea that city might not be allowed to use SAVE. “But we’re going to take our lead from (the federal government) and that is not something we’re worried about. What concerns me is that illegal aliens are finding new ways to cheat the system by steal identities.”

The databases, Barletta added, are worth using because they are the best tools available and will weed out some illegal immigrants.

Essentially, the Basic Pilot Program is an electronic version of the I-9 form all employers must require new hires to complete.

The free computer program uses a Social Security Administration database to check a person’s legal right to work in the United States.

The user enters the social security number and name into the program, and usually within seconds, the program confirms a match.

WorkForce Resources in West Hazleton, which also has an ordinance, enrolled in the program this fall, said Regional Manager Marianne Horwath. The agency provides temporary or temporary-to-permanent workers for positions ranging from unskilled labor to middle management. Hiring is its business, meaning it has to be even more careful than most because of the new ordinances.

Horwath’s largest clients, she said, are in the manufacturing sector, the primary industry drawing many immigrants to the Hazleton area. Horwath said WorkForce is yet to catch anyone trying to work illegally since enrolling in the Basic Pilot Program, but it continues to check every single worker hired.

Barletta held a seminar with local businesses to explain the Basic Pilot Program and how employers can protect themselves from punishment. The Hazleton ordinance said it would never penalize a business enrolled in the program, calling it a “safe harbor.”

“Well, I don’t think I’d say it offers them a safe harbor,” said Richard Stana, who led a study of the Basic Pilot Program for the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional agency. “If you’re going to say it’s a safe harbor, that implies that employers are not complicit in a scheme to defeat the Basic Pilot Program.”

During his study, several employers told Stana they were afraid to use the program, fearing a competitive disadvantage for obtaining cheap labor.

An employer, Stana said, could allow a worker to use an assumed identity. Or it could hire several different people under the same name and social security number.

With so few Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials assigned to follow up on such cases, most employers wouldn’t be punished for such practices. As of a year ago, Stana said, ICE only had about 100 people assigned to that task in the whole country.

“With so few people,” he said. “How far do you think they’re going to get?”

wmalcolm@citizensvoice.com