ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan

ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan

online.wsj.com

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 8-3-2010 by proximo]

So it appears they are giving up on using drivers licenses for the national ID and now will use supposed illegal immigration reform to sell US citizens on getting a card to identify them as being a permitted to work legally.

I have to say this is pretty clever, it might very well work if it is sold correctly.

online.wsj.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 8-3-2010 by proximo]

Yes, I posited this awhile back on how they could implement the RealID. I am not saying I was the first to say they were going to use this tactic, I did say that it was there best bet.

Instead of forcing people to get something, they use things to make people want them. Hence, illegal immigration.

Of course the whole way to solve that is to just throw people in jail that hire illegals. It is simple. Companies that hire illegals can tell the difference. It is not that hard.

Anyway, good thread.

This isn't about the illegals. It's about keeping tabs on workers. Quick way to collect IRS taxes, child support, arrest warrants, etc.

Think about one card that has not changed despite all the modern technology.

Yep, that flimsy social security card.

I wonder why they haven't tried to make those tamper proof.

What stood out to me and what makes this so silly is that the card seems to focus on/assume that employers are trying to hire legals but unintentionally hire illegals.

However, from my own experience, most employers know full well what they're doing when they hire illegals. So I don't see this helping the problem very much in terms of helping employers hire legal employees when they know full well they didn't hire legals in the first place.

reply to post by AshleyD

I agree, companies know full well when they hire illegals because they want to for the cheap wages they can get away with paying them.

Down here in Arizona, 8 out of 10 illegals work either in construction or agriculture. And they are all Mexicans. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to find them. You can call it racial profiling all you want, they're there and we all know it.

I remember a couple of months ago there was a big news story here in Northern Arizona concerning a contracter who won a bid to build a county government office building and the workers they hired to do the work were.........you guessed it, illegals.

So for sure, the government has a lot of work cut out for them if they can't even keep track of who builds their buildings for them.


But there are sure-fire ways to make sure this National I.D. card thing works. The Government needs to realize that different states have different immigration issues. I'm sure Florida's issues differs from Arizona's. They need to implement this on a case by case basis if they can. Set up different rules and guidelines for different states.

If they can actually pull this off, I think it will be a very good thing.



Peace

Originally posted by proximo

So it appears they are giving up on using drivers licenses for the national ID and now will use supposed illegal immigration reform to sell US citizens on getting a card to identify them as being a permitted to work legally.

I have to say this is pretty clever, it might very well work if it is sold correctly.

online.wsj.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 8-3-2010 by proximo]

You had to know that the fear mongers would scare you into it eventually, just like airport security.

People are just too stupid to see the forest for the trees!!

Another fine example of a political system run amok!

Rather than actually solving the problem, which would include tough choices, possible political suicide, and true leadership; we see our so called representatives come up with this.

Immigration is not a sticky issue, but has been made into one. Every sovereign nation, including ours with our deep history in taking migrating people needs to have a sound and solid immigration quota system.

When unemployment is high, you close off the borders and stop issuing work visas (unless they are for high-skilled, low supplied jobs.)

I'd hate to see this come to fruition.

If my employer makes me get a card with "biometric" info on it, I will refuse.

My employer does not need to have my fingerprints and social status in order to deem me a "legal citizen".

Then again, lawmakers have been writing laws that make no sense for years now. So we will see if this passes.

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

Source
I agree 1000% with this statement.

[edit on 9-3-2010 by havok]