Speech #980210402

The reality. however. is that many countries consider employer sanction essential and seek at this very time to strengthen the enforcement. Recent information about some of the countries surveyed by GAO will be of considerable interest to all Members. In Canada. for instance. a study endorsed by the Minister of Employment and Immigration found. "There is little doubt that the area of employment provides one of the most fertile areas for enforcement in relation to illegal migrants." The study observed that "increased investigation should lead to more frequent and more successful prosecution particularly if there is dedication to the specific objective of prosecuting employers who knowingly hire illegals." In the. Federal Republic of Germany. labor officials have observed improvements in the enforcement of employer sanction legislation. New legislation effective January 1. 1982. apparently has been helpful. The countrys largest employer organization. in its 1983 annual report. praises government efforts to reduce employment of illegal aliens. In France. another country covered by the GAO report. employer sanctions have been strengthened and enforcement activity has increased markedly. labor unions in France support rigorous enforcement of employer sanctions. The general feeling in France is that legalization and employer sanctions are interrelated. as they are in our bill. and you cannot have one without the other. In Switzerland. the vast majority of employers obey the legal requirement to confirm that foreign workers have employment authorization. Greece strengthened its employer sanctions legislation in 1983. The immigration service in Greece. known as the Greek Alien Police. has increased its efforts to prosecute employers of illegal aliens. In Hong Kong. as I mentioned in my exchange with the gentleman from California . employer sanctions have proven highly successful. The experience of a number of countries fails to support the hypothetical presented on the floor at times that employer sanctions are unworkable and in fact do not work. Far from abandoning sanctions. various countries are achieving increasing success in discouraging employment of undocumented aliens. Now. one of the reasons I tried to stress this is to show this is a worldwide response to a situation of illegal aliens in other countries of the world. It has nothing to do with race. And those who present themselves on this floor in support of this particular approach are not doing it for any racial bias whatsoever. The Immigration and Naturalization Service has pointed out in testimony before our subcommittee. both formal and informal. that it is their best estimate that 30 percent of those people who are here in this country illegally and working are here not because they crossed the border illegally from Mexico. or from Canada. for that matter. they are here and working here illegally because they came in. in the first instance legally. with proper permits. with proper papers and violated the terms of their permits. Students that have come here for the purposes of study. who then have stayed. not returned to their country of origin and are working. taking jobs from American citizens and permanent resident aliens. people who come here on visitors visas. Thirty percent of those then are not presumably Hispanics from Mexico. Central America. or South America. or anywhere else.