From: Brad Dolan 
Subject: ZIT_pus (fwd)
Message-ID: 
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 21:06:57 -0400 (EDT)


---------- Forwarded message ----------

   The Washington Post, October 3, 1995, p. A17.


   Employment Database Proposal Raises Cries of 'Big Brother'

   By Wiiliam Branigin


   Are future employers going to have to call "1-800 BIG
   BROTHER" to get government approval to hire a job
   applicant? Or are such fears alarmist reactions to a simple
   scheme intended to weed out illegal immigrants from people
   seeking employment in Amenca?

   The question lies at the heart of a debate over one of the
   most controversiai provisions of proposed immigration
   reform legislation now taking shape in Congress.

   In a recent vote that pitted conservative Republicans and
   liberal Democrats against fellow party members, the House
   Judiciary Committee narrowly rejected an amendment that
   would have eliminated a requirement that employers check
   with a government database to verify an applicant's
   eligibility to work in the United States.

   Strong objections to the requirement came from an odd
   assortment of Republicans and Democrats, business and
   labor, conservatives and liberals, special interests and
   libertarians. The narrowness of the vote and the crossing
   of party lines appeared to foreshadow a tough and
   potentially divisive floor fight when the bill comes before
   the full House.

   Similar measures are in a Senate bill sponsored by Sen.
   Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) and in a 1994 report of the
   bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform chaired by
   former Democratic congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas.

   The House bill, introduced by Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.),
   calls for the attorney general to establish a mechanism by
   which an employe would call a toll-free number or use a
   computer to submit a job candidate's name and Social
   Security number for verification against a database to be
   run by the Social Security Administration. An Immigration
   and Naturalization Service database also would be used to
   check some appiicants' alien registration numbers.

   The agencies would have three days to respond to
   verification requests, and a prospective employee would
   have 10 days to straighten out any error if the computers
   failed to match his or her name and number.

   The program would start with pilot projects in five states
   with high populations of illegal aliens and take effect
   nationwide in October 1999.

   Smith said his bill wouid help reduce document fraud by
   illegal aliens and "lift the burden of law enforcement on
   business." It would simplify the process of checking worker
   eligibility, he said, and absolve employers of liability if
   a new hire approved by the mechanism turned out to be an
   illegal alien.

   "There is simply no other way to protect American citizens
   ... and reduce the magnet of jobs," Smith told the
   committee. More than 40 percent of the estimated 4 million
   undocumented immigrants in the United States entered the
   country legally and overstayed their visas, Smith said.
   These aliens cannot be stopped at the nation's borders and
   must be deterred at the workplace, he said.

   But critics say that in its zeal to combat illegal
   immigration, Congress is steering the nation toward an
   "Orwellian nightmare," an era of all-knowing federal
   oversight whereby officials will be able to verify
   citizenship by using high-tech national identification
   cards.

   "This is an unprecedented assertion of federal power,"
   argued Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), who introduced the amendment
   to eliminate the verification system. He described the
   toll-free calls to get government approval for new hires as
   "dialing 1-800-BIG BROTHER."

   "It will be costly to operate, it won't ork, and it will
   send exactly the wrong message as to whether the government
   is to be the master or the servant of the people," Chabot
   said. UWe should get the federal government out of the face
   of innocent citizens."

   Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) charged that the bill would
   usher in an era of "all-intrusive government" and impose "a
   massive unfunded mandate on honest businesses and their
   employees."

   Grover G. Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, said,
   "The right of an American to work should not be contingent
   upon approval from some brand-new inside-the-Beltway
   bureaucracy."

   A number of critics questioned the wisdom of establishing
   a system that would affect all Americans in order to
   identify the 1.5 percent of the population who live and
   work in the United States illegally. With about 65 million
   people changing jobs or entering the labor market each year
   in this country, skeptics also expressed doubt that the
   Social Security Administration could handle a potential
   volume of calls exceeding 30,000 an hour.

   Supporters of the plan denied it would involve creating any
   new bureaucracy, computer database or national
   identification card. The system would serve to check only
   whether a job-seeker's name matched a Social Security or
   alien registration number in existing databases, they said.

   However, Rep. Bill McCollurn (R-Fla.) said he intends to
   offer an amendment on the House floor to create a "more
   secure" Social Security card with a photo, a hologram and
   "perhaps a biometric identifier." Otherwise, he said, an
   employer would have no way of knowing whether the
   prospective employee was presenting someone else's Social
   Security number. Biometric identifiers include fingerprints
   and retina scans.

   "Without hardening that card ... it's going to be very easy
   to continue to have fraud in the system," McCollum said. He
   insisted, however, that he was "not talking about creating
   a national identificatin card."

   Although many countries have national identification cards
   -- and the Social Security card in many ways serves that
   purpose now -- the idea of instituting such an ID card hits
   a raw nerve among many Americans who value individual
   rights. So far, no member of Congress has openly called for
   a national ID card, at least by that name.

   Opponents of the verification plan point to how the Social
   Security card has evolved beyond its original purpose.
   Created in 1935 to track contributions to a fund, Social
   Security numbers now are used as identifiers on job
   applications, tax returns, driver's licenses, credit forms
   and a multitude of other documents.

   Now, critics say, microchip technology can make ID cards
   especially intrusive. According to an analysis by the Cato
   Institute, one newly patented ID card can hold a photo and
   1,600 pages of text. Another identification system
   developed by a major defense contractor consists of a
   microchip the size of a grain of rice that can be implanted
   under the skin with a syringe and read with a scanner.

   [Pie-chart]

   Foreign-Born in the U.S.

   By state of residence, 1994

      California 34.3%
      Florida 9.2%
      New York 8.4%
      Texas 8.0%
      All other states 40.1%

   [End]

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