Congressman
Elton Gallegly
Serving the 24th District of California

http://www.house.gov/gallegly/press2006.htm

 

As printed in the Ventura County Star

July 9, 2006

 Contact: Tom Pfeifer
(202) 225-5811

As congressional committees prepare for hearings on the Senate immigration bill, it’s important to keep in mind what this debate is about. It’s about enforcing our laws. Until the United States returns to its foundation as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws, discussion about any other aspects of immigration reform is mute.

There are three aspects of the immigration debate I hope to discuss on these pages in the coming weeks. One, discussed in this column, is a simple, inexpensive, nonintrusive way to check the employment eligibility of every worker in the United States. In the coming weeks, I hope to explore the proper use of identification cards and the inherent dangers of accepting foreign identification within the United States and, third, the magnets state and local governments can eliminate that draw illegal immigrants to California.

But first, worksite enforcement. We know millions of illegal immigrants working in the United States are easily identifiable. We know this because the Social Security Administration sends out so-called “no-match” letters to both employees and employers when it cannot process W-2 forms because the worker’s Social Security number doesn’t match his or her name.

We know this because in 2005, SSA mailed 9.6 million no-match letters to employees. But there is no effective program in place to turn that information into an enforcement action. Employers are only mailed letters when they have a high volume of bad matches.

In 2002 — the year following 9/11 — SSA mailed 951,000 no-match letters to employers. The effort was so successful in exposing illegal immigrants that business and advocacy groups organized to stop it. So much for national security. Business and advocacy efforts resulted in a 90 percent reduction in the number of letters sent out. In 2005, SSA sent out fewer than 130,000 letters to employers.

Not surprisingly, when the SSA inspector general released an audit in October 2004 listing the 100 employers who had filed the largest number of bad W-2 forms in the five years from 1997 to 2001, one-quarter of the employers were in California. Three California companies earned a spot in the top 10. It’s not surprising because an estimated 40 percent of illegal immigrants reside in California.

While the SSA was identifying, then ignoring, illegal immigrants, other federal agencies were doing the same. The federal General Accounting Office revealed that between fiscal year 1999 and fiscal year 2004, the number of notices of intent to fine employers for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants or improperly filling out I-9 forms dropped from 417 to three. During nearly the same period, the number of illegal immigrants arrested during worksite enforcement exercises fell 84 percent.

Many employers have complained that the I-9 form does little to stop illegal hiring because employers have to accept virtually any type of identification. Challenging the documents — however flimsy — submitted by workers, would open them to discrimination lawsuits.

But there is a simple and proven method that takes the onus off the employer.

In 1995, I chaired the Congressional Task Force on Immigration Reform. One of the 80 specific recommendations to come from that task force, which became law the following year, was a pilot employee identification program, dubbed the Basic Pilot Program. It started out as, and remains today, a volunteer program. In fact, in fiscal year 2004 only about 2,300 of the approximately 5.6 million employers nationwide actively used the pilot program.

Still, as the GAO reported in a report released last year, “the most promising option for verifying work authorization was a computerized registry based on employers’ electronic verification of an employee’s Social Security number with records on work authorization.” The Basic Pilot Program fit that bill, the GAO concluded.

“If newly hired employees present counterfeit documents, the pilot program would not confirm the employees’ work eligibility because their employees’ Form I-9 information, such as the false name or Social Security number, would not match SSA and (Department of Homeland Security) database information when queried through the Basic Pilot Program,” the GAO stated.

For employers, the process is simple: a computer keystroke to send the information to the SSA and DHS. That’s why the Basic Pilot Program was included in the House immigration bill as a mandatory program.

For those who believe the process would be an unfair burden on employers, the National Federation of Independent Businesses begs to differ. A survey of its membership released in April showed that 76 percent said the system would be a “minimum burden” or “not a burden.”

Taking jobs from Americans is the No. 1 magnet bringing illegal immigrants to the United States. The magnet can be depolarized very easily. The program is established and proven. All it takes is the will of Congress to pass a sensible immigration reform bill and for the administration to enforce our laws.

— Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Simi Valley, represents parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

[Related link: Justice & Public Safety]