Posted on 06/17/2005 2:58:21 PM PDT by Dubya
HOUSTON - U.S. Sen. John Cornyn proposed Friday requiring all employers to use an employee verification system begun in 1996 to control illegal immigration.
In a speech to the World Affairs Council, Cornyn also proposed that the Justice Department devote an assistant attorney general to immigration law enforcement.
"Our nation's immigration and border security system is badly broken," said Cornyn, R-Texas. "It leaves our borders unprotected, threatens our national security, and makes a mockery of the rule of law. We must solve this problem - and solve it now."
Cornyn and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., whose states cover 85 percent of the U.S.-Mexico border - expect to introduce legislation next month. They said in May that the $5 billion bill also would propose adding 10,000 agents along U.S. borders and a guest-worker program.
"Our current broken system provides badly needed sources of labor, but through illegal channels - posing a substantial and unacceptable risk to our national security," Cornyn said Friday. "Yet simply closing our borders would secure our nation only by weakening our economy. Any comprehensive solution must address both concerns."
The solution, he said, includes an employee verification system as well as beefed-up border security and effective deportation procedures.
Employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants faced penalties under a 1986 federal law. But counterfeit Social Security cards and other fake documentation circumvented the system, Cornyn said.
Ten years later, Congress set up a pilot program to allow employers to electronically submit Social Security numbers, names and birth dates of new employees to the Social Security Administration for verification. If the employee is foreign-born, such information also is submitted to immigration authorities.
A worker who could not be verified could try to correct any wrong data. If that can't be done, the employer is notified that the worker is unauthorized and must be fired or the employer will face sanctions.
The program was initially limited to employers in California, New York, Texas, New Jersey and Florida. It has since grown, but is still available to "just a small category of employers," Cornyn said.
"The experience of that pilot program tells us that electronic employer verification can work, but only if we give it a chance, and only if we give it the resources and the full backing of the federal government that any such system needs to be able to succeed."
Angela Kelley, deputy director for the National Immigration Forum, said Friday she and other immigration advocates are anxious to see the entire package.
She said an employment verification element is critical because employers can't tell if documents are faked. She said transferring the decision of whether a worker is authorized from employers to a reliable database "is very smart."
"I hope it will be as comprehensive as he says," Kelley said. "I'm kind of holding my breath waiting to see it."
Ixnay on the guestnay. We've got plenty of illegal guest workers here already that we have to sort through. Don't need any more for awhile, thanks.
Must...have...cheap...labor...
I wonder if an employee-SS number database could be used in the future to get thoes pesky dissidents and whistleblowers fired?
thoes = those (D-oh!)
I might be wrong but, Bush only funded 150 of these agents.
Is this in addition to the 10,000 agents that was part of the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, or are they just adding back in 10,000 agents because Bush's proposed 2006 budget asked for funding for only 210 new agents?
February 9, 2005 -- The law signed by President Bush less than two months ago to add thousands of border patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has crashed into the reality of Bush's austere federal budget proposal, officials said Tuesday.Just asking, of course. It's not like I believe a politician would ever lie or exagerate or anything like that. </sarc>Officially approved by Bush on Dec. 17 [2004] ... the National Intelligence Reform Act included the requirement to add 10,000 border patrol agents in the five years beginning with 2006. ... But Bush's proposed 2006 budget ... funds only 210 new border agents.
SNIP
See Post #7.
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