Enforcement on the border, and beyond

By Brian Bilbray
May 13, 2007

If we can take away any lesson from last November's congressional elections, it's that the American people are much more sophisticated about the illegal immigration issue than the politicians in Washington have given them credit for. Last year, when the House of Representatives adopted a border security-only approach that failed to address the colossal failures in interior and employer enforcement, the American people recognized it for what it was – window dressing. Now Congress once again has an opportunity to get serious about illegal immigration, but this opportunity will be squandered unless a policy emerges that underscores the need for employer verification and interior enforcement.

No one can deny the need for increased enforcement, both on and beyond the border. The lack of immigration enforcement has contributed to the dramatic increase in illegal immigration activity that we have experienced in the past decade. Where Congress went wrong last year was the sole emphasis it placed on the border. The problem may be coming from the border, but the solution isn't. Once foreign nationals are past our borders, there is little or no effort spent trying to catch them and bring them to justice. That is why interior enforcement must be a key part of any meaningful illegal immigration reform policy.

Enforcement is the first step but not the only step we must take if we are going to successfully stem the tide of illegal immigration. There is a reason why millions of people worldwide are willing to risk their lives to come to the United States – jobs. Fundamentally, the reason why the United States is such an attractive destination for immigrants is because of the jobs that we have to offer. I have said numerous times that the key to addressing illegal immigration is removing incentives such as employment opportunities. Combine this open attitude to employ illegal immigrants with an illegal immigration enforcement policy that has never been truly enforced and it is easy to see why we have more than 12 million illegal immigrants who are currently living in our country filling the jobs that Americans supposedly won't do.

With the support of big business, the market has been flooded by a pool of low-cost laborers, all the while the federal government has stood idly by allowing them to get away with it. The result has been this influx of illegal labor pouring into our country competing with America's low-skill workers and passing the financial burden off to middle-class Americans who are responsible to pay for the health care, education and social costs of this new class of illegal workers. The need for a simple and precise employer verification system has never been more evident.

The federal government has the responsibility to provide employers with the tools they need to verify employment eligibility. It would be very difficult to begin this increased employer enforcement effort without a working employment verification system in place. Document fraud has become a widespread problem as employers are ill-equipped to detect and authenticate workers' identification documents. A universal, non-discriminatory and tamper-resistant Social Security card would be a practical solution to this growing problem. Currently, there are more than 30 types of identification documents employers can use to verify employment eligibility. By limiting the burden of documentation to just one uniform card, employers would finally have the tools they need to comply with the law. We need to separate those who are egregiously violating the law and those who do not have the means to enforce and comply with the law.

After years of talking about the need to address the lack of enforcement and the need for an employer verification system, we are finally beginning to see some consensus arise between Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate. Whether or not we get a so-called comprehensive immigration bill through the Congress and to the president, there should be no excuse for failing to take action on enforcement and employers. There we have the unanimity needed to at least begin to address illegal immigration in America.

The divide in this debate has coalesced around the question of what to do with the 12 million illegal immigrants currently living in the country. Much of the focus has been centered on creating a program involving guest workers, temporary workers or some kind of pathway to citizenship. Proponents of these amnesty provisions are using enforcement and employer verification as cover to implement their agenda.

President Bush and Senate leaders are promising to secure the border first before signing off on a self-proclaimed temporary worker program that would result in permanent legal status for millions of illegal immigrants. They have even gone as far as agreeing on a trigger mechanism that would require certification of border security and employer verification prior to the implementation of the worker program. Never mind the responsibility would be left to the Department of Homeland Security, an agency that has lost track of more than 600,000 foreign fugitives, failed to implement the REAL ID program and has turned the US-VISIT program into the stay-in-

the-United-States-indefinitely project. Congress should be tasked with authorizing these benchmarks rather than the DHS.

Congress has an opportunity to make the right choice, not the political one. The only thing that could escalate and exacerbate the current problem is to repeat the failed policies of the past by granting legal status and citizenship opportunities to illegal immigrants. When amnesty was granted to millions of illegal immigrants in 1986, it was done with the promise of securing the border and enforcing the law. Twenty-one years later, that promise has been broken and the problem has multiplied. The interior enforcement provisions of the '86 amnesty were never implemented.

The point is we've been here before. Illegal immigrants have entered our country at rates so high that it is impossible to track them all down and deport them. Employer sanctions to prohibit the illegal hiring of illegal immigrants have not been implemented. Our border is not secure. Policies have been proposed to grant a broad amnesty to the illegal immigrant population with the promise of border and interior enforcement to come first. This bill of goods has already been sold once to the American people; surely we're not going to be gullible enough to go down the same road again.

There is a small window of opportunity available to us to finally take the steps needed to begin addressing illegal immigration. The solution must include a concerted effort to eliminate illegal employment opportunities within the United States, secure the border and the interior. We must learn from past mistakes, not repeat them. The consequences of repeating these mistakes would result in our grandchildren having to contend with the challenges we are trying to address now. The rest of the world is watching and waiting. We can either pass a law that puts millions of illegal immigrants on a path to rewards and even citizenship, or we can keep our standing as a nation of laws and fairness.



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Bilbray, a Republican, is chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus and represents the 50th Congressional District of California.


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