Speech #980043360

S. 529 removes this incentive by prohibiting such employment and requiring employers to verify the identity and eligibility of all potential employees. S. 529 requires the President to develop a secure worker verification system that cannot be easily counterfeited. This system is necessary to make the prohibitions against employment of illegal aliens enforceable. It will protect employers from inadvertantly 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 first time give us a method for controlling it. I opposed efforts 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 illegal immigration problem. 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. 529 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 the illegal immigration problem. The second major component of S. 529 will give permanent resident status to aliens who arrived here before January 1. 1977. and temporary resident status to those who arrived after that date. but before January 1. 1980. Temporary residents will be able to adjust to permanent resident status 3 years from the date of enactment of this bill if they satisfy a requirement of minimum English language competence or are enrolled in a program to acquire such competence.