Friday, August 25, 2006
By Rep. TOM TANCREDO
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
WASHINGTON -- Why do millions of illegal aliens travel a long way at great personal risk to come to the United States?
The answer is simple: because they know there will be a job waiting for them when they arrive. Most often that job isn't glamorous and doesn't pay well. But compared to where they come from, mowing lawns, cleaning dishes or bussing tables -- usually for even substandard wages -- is a better life.
To stop the massive flood of illegal immigrants, our government must find solutions that address the supply-and-demand at work. If we stifle the demand for illegal labor --if we cut off the jobs -- illegal immigrants won't come in the first place.
Enforcing the laws against hiring illegal immigrants isn't technically difficult. Much of the infrastructure for serious worksite enforcement is already in place.
Since 1996, the Department of Homeland Security and its predecessor organizations have operated the Basic Pilot Program, which allows employers to verify the legal status of prospective employees. Employers can simply go online, plug in the name and Social Security Number of an employee and within seconds find out whether the information matches federal records.
Discrimination suits
Some employers claim that they can't tell the difference between fake and real identifications, and when they suspect that an employee's I.D. is fake, they're threatened with discrimination suits by a legion of immigration lawyers.
If the Basic Pilot Program were mandated nationwide, conscientious employers would have another tool to follow the law and unscrupulous employers would have one fewer excuse to justify hiring illegal workers.
Still, a few daring businesses might hire illegal workers even if they were forced to participate in Basic Pilot. Without a significant increase in the federal government's worksite enforcement, they'd have reason to continue doing what they've been doing.
In effect, the government did not do any worksite enforcement until six months ago, when the Bush Administration engaged in a handful of raids. The government's notices of intent to fine businesses for hiring illegal workers dropped nationwide from 417 in 1999 to 3 in 2004. When the government doesn't enforce a law, it shouldn't be surprising that businesses refuse to follow it.
That doesn't mean that we have to hire an army of new enforcement agents. A modest increase in worksite enforcement resources focused on high-profile raids would persuade many illegal employers to get on the right side of the law.
An increase in penalties including jail time for illegal employers would help, too, but the publicity alone would probably have the requisite effect on the supply of illegal jobs.
Worksite enforcement would also effect the supply of illegal workers because fewer would make the long trip if, at the end of it, there were a distinct possibility that the immigrant would be shipped back to where he came from.
Financial strain
Taking a few simple steps to enforce the law would relieve a severe financial strain on our public schools, hospitals and welfare system. Taxpayers would get needed relief, and the marketplace could finally reward American workers who have suffered for so long from the wage depression caused by illegal immigration.
But what about the rest, the illegal immigrants who aren't coming for jobs? In the post-9/11 world, that is the more difficult problem.
As the World Trade Center's twin towers were smashed to the ground by terrorists -- a number of whom were in this country illegally -- America lost the luxury of being "mostly" secure.
Hard-working Mexicans are not the only ones streaming through our porous borders. Iranians, Syrians, North Koreans, Iraqis and other illegal immigrants from nations that foster terror also poured in, according to the latest five years of Border Patrol data. One can only imagine what those illegals were coming for, but it wasn't to "do the job no American will do."
Worksite enforcement is no panacea. America needs to get tough on our borders and on illegal employers to make our country secure. But if Congress and the president are serious about solving our immigration problems, if they really want to address the massive disobedience of our laws and the violation of our borders, worksite enforcement is an effective first step that can be taken today.
Rep. Tom Tancredo is a four-term Republican from Colorado and chairman of the 92-member Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services