Tim Sumner

amnesty, immigration, REAL ID

Immigration Amendments Undermine REAL ID and Workplace Enforcement

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Dr. James Jay Carafano, of the Heritage Foundation, writes:

Measures in the Senate’s immigration reform bill even acknowledge that the REAL ID requirements are vital to restoring the credibility of identity cards and the “breeder documents” (like birth certificates) that are used to obtain them.

Nonetheless, Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Jon Tester (D-MT) have proposed an amendment (No. 1236) that would: Remove REAL ID requirements from Title III, the workplace enforcement provisions of the Senate’s immigration bill; and [d]e-authorize a grant program created to help states become compliant with REAL ID.
…
The draft Senate bill includes the intrusive, expensive, impractical, and unnecessary requirement that employers verify the eligibility status of every American worker with the federal government. The draft bill, however, also includes some commonsense enforcement measures, such as encouraging the Social Security Administration (SSA) to share Social Security no-match data with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS could use this information to identify employers who routinely and intentionally hire undocumented workers, an easy way of improving workplace enforcement.

Nonetheless, Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA), Max Baucus (D-MT), and Barack Obama (D-IL) have proposed an amendment (No. 1441) that would: Require a sunset on information sharing between DHS and SSA; and [e]liminate requirements for employers to direct employees to go to SSA when the employer receives a no-match letter.

amnesty

Kill the Senate’s immigration bill — again

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This today, in the National Review Online:

Senators who claim to oppose the bill say that they want a new debate on it so that they can improve it. But the broad outlines of this bill are set in stone. It provides amnesty for the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants already here and invites an ongoing stream of “temporary” low-skilled workers. In exchange, proponents of tighter borders get the restrictions in current law, plus an empty promise that this time they will be enforced. The amendment process has been carefully choreographed so that these basic features of the deal will not be changed. Amnesty now, enforcement later: That is what the senators are going to be voting on, and it is not going to change. Anyone who objects to that formula needs to kill this bill and start over.

For senators who are professing to wait to see what the final bill looks like before taking a position, the wait is over. The final bill will represent the will of its drafters and defy the expressed will of their constituents…

The “constituents” being 80% of documented Americans (aka citizens).

We were not fooled again. A vote for cloture tomorrow is a vote for amnesty now and another broken border security promise later. And we will be taking names to remind that 80% in 2008, 2010, and 2012.