Speech #970073340

Mr. Speaker. Attorney General William French Smith succinctly described the severity of one of our Nations gravest problems when he announced the administrations new immigration policy. "We have lost control of our borders." he said. "We have pursued unrealistic policies. We have failed to enforce our laws effectively." Ironically though. the fatal flaw of past immigration policiesthe absence of an effective worker identification system for distinguishing illegal aliens from employees who are working here legallyis left unchanged by the administrations plan. Without such a system. no sanctions against employers who hire those illegal aliens can possibly work. and without effective employer sanctions. the job magnet that pulled more than a million illegal aliens to our shores last year will continue to overpower our best efforts to make those borders real. To be sure. the administrations plan calls for penalties against employers of illegal aliens. but in order to protect themselves from sanctions. employers would merely be required to check for any two of the following forms of identification before satisfying themselves of the legal status of prospective workers: a drivers license. a social security card. a birth certificate or a draft card. Mr. Speaker. a package containing each of these forms of identification. along with several years of rent receipts. can be bought in any town on either side of the Mexican border for something in the neighborhood of $50. The administration plans to build a house of forgeable identity cards that is certain to collapse of its own weight. Simply put. employer sanctions are a vital element of an effective program to check the flow of illegal immigration. and employer sanctions are a paper tiger unless we establish a forgeryresistant identification system to make them meaningful. Several options are possible. We could set up a system of computerstored worker identification numbers.