Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

9/9/98 News Report -- The Christian Science Monitor

Targeting Workers' Phony IDs
Scott Baldauf

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Twelve years after one of the most sweeping immigration
laws in history, efforts to stem the flow of illegals into the United
States are foundering on bogus documents and scofflaw businesses.

When Congress first prohibited US employers from hiring illegal immigrants
in 1986, it was intended to cut down on the dramatic rise in illegal
entries along the US-Mexican border by taking away the migrants' main
reason for coming - the lure of jobs in the North. But today most
businesses still have no quick way to check the eligibility of people they
hire - and many don't want to.

This puts those who do at the mercy of prospective workers, who can present
dozens of documents to prove their identities. In an era when the most
basic copy machine can churn out real-looking driver's licenses and birth
certificates, it can be difficult to tell the fraud from the real Montoya.

But in Texas and four other high-immigration states, federal agencies are
now testing a telephone verification program that may give US businesses a
chance to abide by the law, and avoid hefty fines. "The problem that
immigration officials have always faced is that employers could always say
... these fraudulent papers look real enough to them," says Mark Krikorian,
director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group in
Washington. "Not only does this make it difficult for the feds to crack
down on undocumented workers, it provides a screen for crooked employers
who routinely hire illegal immigrants."

But if you think the solution is to create a tamperproof national
identification card, as found in many European and Asian nations, guess
again. Opposed by both civil libertarians and social conservatives alike, a
national ID card has long been portrayed as a threat to privacy, with
overtones of Big Brother. As a result, federal immigration officials are
testing a less-controversial - and some say flawed - approach of using a
telephone call to cross-match employees' names against their Social
Security numbers.

Why the crackdown

Immigration is growing at a rate unseen in almost 80 years. While 1 million
immigrants enter the US legally each year, more than 5 million others
arrive illegally, more than half of those from Mexico. The US Justice
Department's Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has responded to
this illegal tide in the past five years by doubling the size of its Border
Patrol and, more recently, by conducting worksite raids in places such as
hotels and meatpacking and poultry plants, where many undocumented people
work.

If all goes well at the 950 employer test sites in Texas, California,
Florida, Illinois, and New York, employers may, for the first time, get
their immigration questions answered quickly. "We realized that companies
have difficulty distinguishing real and fraudulent documents," says Cassie
Booth, a spokeswoman for the INS in Washington. "This takes the guesswork
out of it."

INS officials are quick to note that the verification is not meant to
screen out prospective workers, but rather be a double-check for those
already hired. Businesses call in the workers' identifying information. If
the name and number don't match, the employer must send the employee to the
Social Security office, and later, the INS office, to have the error
corrected - if it can be.

One company that praises the new pilot verification system is the Texas
restaurant chain owned by Pappas Partners of Houston.

"We feel very comfortable that if the Social Security Administration gives
the go-ahead, this person is OK," says Julie Pastel, director of human
resources at Pappas' Houston headquarters.

Like many participants in the pilot program, Pappas Partners came to
appreciate the benefits of verification only after being busted. Last year,
after repeated INS raids, the restaurant chain admitted to hiring,
shielding, and hiding undocumented kitchen staff. One restaurant even hid
an employee in a false ceiling during raids. In its court settlement, the
Pappas chain paid a record $1.5 million fine.

Forced firings

In some states, the INS is taking a more aggressive approach. Rather than
arresting and deporting illegals - a lengthy and costly process - agents
are now raiding businesses and forcing management to fire anyone found
using fake documents. This fate befell the Caribbean Gulf Resort in
Clearwater Beach, Fla., this past June, which was forced to terminate
one-third of its staff.

Such a tough approach has its critics. Latino civil-rights leaders, in
particular, have charged that a crackdown will disproportionately target
Hispanics, even those who reside in the US legally. "We've had concerns
because of the margin of error in any identification system and who is
going to be impacted the most - ethnic minorities," says Cynthia Cano, a
lawyer for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund in San
Antonio.

Many Hispanics carry two surnames - one from their father, another from
their mother. That means drivers licenses and immigration records may bear
different names for the same individual. Critics say, too, that the
database system may have glitches, such as a typographical error, which
could cause hardship for those accused of forging documents.