Is this the answer to immigration reform?
 

Could a national identity card help resolve the heated immigration-reform divide?


Two Senators, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, certainly seem to think so. They recently presented an immigration-bill blueprint to President Barack Obama that includes a proposal to issue a biometric ID card - one that would contain physical data such as fingerprints or retinal scans - to all working Americans. The "enhanced Social Security card" is being touted as a way to curb illegal immigration by giving employers the power to quickly and accurately determine who is eligible to work. "If you say [illegal immigrants] can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it," Schumer told the Wall Street Journal. Proponents also hope legal hiring will be easier for employers if there's a single go-to document instead of the 26 that new employees can currently use to show they're authorized to work.


But with a congressional skirmish over comprehensive immigration reform on the horizon, skeptics from the left and the right have raised numerous concerns about the biometric ID - some of which pop up every time a form of national identification is proposed, and some that hinge on the shape this plan ultimately takes.

The sheer scale of the project is a potential problem, in terms of time, money and technology. The premise of using a biometric employment card (which would most likely contain fingerprint data) to stop illegal immigrants from working requires that all 150 million–plus American workers, not just immigrants, have one. Michael Cherry, president of identification-technology company Cherry Biometrics, says the accuracy of such large-scale biometric measuring hasn't been proved. "What study have we done?" he says. "We just have a few assumptions."


Schumer estimates that employers would have to pay up to $800 for card-reading machines, and many point out that compliance could prove burdensome for many small-to-medium-size businesses. In a similar program run by the Department of Homeland Security, in which 1.4 million transportation workers have been issued biometric credentials, applicants each pay $132.50 to help cover the costs of the initiative, which so far run in the hundreds of millions. "This is sort of like the worst combination of the DMV and the TSA," says Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the ACLU, an organization that has traditionally opposed all forms of national ID. "It's going to be enormously costly no matter what."


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yea, no.

LOL.

Don't think so ZOG, give it up!! :p

:rolleyes:

Most of these employers don't care if these immigrants are illegal or not. They want to hire them so they can pay them the lowest amount they can get away with.

Not a fan of national comprehensive IDs. I have my social security card, license and birth certificate for any government IDing needs. Combining them all into one, plus God knows what other information (medical history, criminal history, employment history, basically anything the government can track or obtain) seems like a bad idea. Not necessarily because of the government itself, but because its basically serving (potential) identity thieves on a silver platter.

:confused:

Ummmm this feels very mark of the beast-y. Lol that was honestly my first thought.

that was my first thought as well. if it's signed into law, would you get it?

No. As Preston said earlier, my proof of US birth should be enough. I am a legal citizen, so this doesn't effect me. The illegals who walk into my office and DEMAND that I provide them benefits . .well... :rolleyes:

Where do you work? The problem with US birth certificates and SSN cards are the fact they are easily altered/faked.

I'd like to see the Gov make E-Verify mandatory for all employers before they embarked on a new bio-metric ID system, but at the same time I think it's only a matter of time before we have a NAtional uniformed ID card.

Oh UH UNH. I rebuke it. :p

I have always presumed that most illegal immigrants who are working illegally also are being paid under the table, without fake credentials and that their employers don't ask questions because they save money by paying them under the table too (not paying Social Security taxes, workers comp, benefits, payroll services costs, etc). I don't see a national ID card changing that.

It has to due with the classic tale of " I don't know he was illegal, he showed me a Social Security Card/ID...." Some employers know that they were presented fake documents when hiring, but look the other way and just cry ignorant if they ever get caught.

Reform
 

AGDee,

Once again, I agree 100% with your thinking. In my opinion, what they should do is allow them to work but tax them. The governance and implementation of such a policy for that could be a whole other discussion. Many of us in GC are hard working individuals that pay a lot of money to the tax man. Since the sub-prime meltdown on forward mortgages there has been a lot of political intervention and Quantitative Easing measures such as those bonus checks, $8,000 first time home buyer incentives and putting a little more money in our paychecks only to owe more than normal back to the IRS during tax season. All those "incentives" only end up hurting the working people like you and me. By opening up a taxation policy on illegal immigrants it would help out everyone.

They've taken many steps to make our money more difficult to fake, why not do these same measures with social security cards instead of adding more information to them? It would be a whole lot cheaper.

They have and still are, the problem with currency and paper documents is that once these new security features are released people are already at work creating fake ones similar to them. It's never ending.