Speech #920282714

I intend to vote against this bill. I believe that employers should not be turned into sheriffs. I am in accord with the efforts made by those departments charged with responsibility for preventing illegal immigration into the country. deporting illegal aliens. and preventing those immigrants not allowed to work under the law. from doing so. However. if this bill were enacted. the effect would be the following:. An employer. to show good faith efforts on his part to comply with the law would demand of every perspective employee who looked "foreign." whatever that means. or who spoke with a foreign accent. a sighed statement that he or she were an American citizen or an alien permitted to work in the United States. So. someone educated. perhaps even with a cultured English accent. would not be asked the question but someone who emigrated to this country years ago. but perhaps never lost his East European or Mediterranean accent. would be required to sign the forms. I do not think this would be just. Worse still would be situations where employers not wanting to be bothered with such forms would refuse to hire foreign born. I am thinking of my 78yearold father who is working in a department store in midtown Manhattan at this moment. He came here when he was 14 years old.