Speech #970226742

S. 2222 puts this prohibition into the law and requires employers to verify the Identify and eligibility of all potential employees. S. 2222 requires the President to develop a secure worker verification system that cannot be easily counterfeited. The system is necessary to make the prohibitions against employing illegal aliens enforceable. It will protect employers from inadvertently hiring an illegal alien. At the same time. it will provide a method for identifying an employer who intentionally violates the law. The verification system will also protect American workers from discriminatory hiring practices by placing the same documentary requirements on everyone. Prohibitions against hiring illegal aliens. together with an effective worker verification system. will go to the source of our illegal immigration problem and for the fir.t time give us a method for controlling it. I opposed two amendments which. in my Judgment. would have rendered ineffective the key reform measure of this bill: employer penalties for those who knowingly hire undocumented aliens. All independent. comprehensive studies of the problem of illegal immigration. including those by the previous two administrations. the present administration and the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. have concluded that adequate enforcement of our immigration laws cannot be achieved by direct enforcement alone. S. 2222 takes the very necessary step of prohibiting the knowing employment of undocumented aliens and imposes penalties for violation of the law. I am convinced that this provision is key to the solution of stemming illegal immigration. For this reason. I could not support an amendment to sunset employer sanctions after 3 years nor can I support an amendment to remove the verification system requirement from the bill. a measure which would gut the enforcement of the law.