The Center for Democracy and Technology and the ACLU have expressed serious concerns about the lack of privacy and civil liberties protections within the REAL ID program. The reaction to the unfunded mandates and lack of privacy standards in the REAL ID Act is a good example of what happens when the Federal Government imposes a unilaterally devised and illconsidered mandate rather than working to meet goals through cooperation. bipartisanship. and partnership. For any new immigration measures to be effective. they must be well designed. Forcing employers. employees. and the States to use this troublesome national ID card will slow down the hiring process. stifle commerce. and not serve as an effective strategy. In addition. the States have already told us that they will not all have their new license programs up and running by the 2013 deadline called for in this bill. On top of that. I have gone through this bill several times. and I have found money for border fences. money for surveillance technologies. money for border patrol agents. and money for detention facilities. but I cannot find any hard money that actually goes into REAL ID implementation. So doing away with this poorly drafted grant program will not take $1 away from the $4.4 billion in enforcement money contained in this bill. As a result. I do not believe that we should jeopardize the future success of the immigration reforms sought in this bill by tying REAL ID too closely to it. Instead of mandating REAL ID licenses for employment verification. I think we should support the BaucusTesterCollinsLeahy amendment to strip REAL ID from this bill and put together a workable employment verification system that does not needlessly burden every legal job seeker in this country with the onerous and problematic requirements of REAL ID.
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border patrol border fence immigration