Jobs Magnet (Or How Congress ensured illegal aliens keep coming)

JOBS MAGNET. Second of three parts Legislators put focus on fences, not jobs Marcus Stern COPLEY NEWS SERVICE 03-Nov-1997 Monday

WASHINGTON -- Last year, Congress quietly made a crucial choice in its battle to stem illegal immigration. It decided to hire more border guards and build more fences, rather than try to keep undocumented immigrants from getting jobs once they're in the United States.

The choice was precisely the opposite of what immigration commissions have been recommending for decades. But it allowed the lawmakers to appear responsive to voter concerns about illegal immigration without upsetting powerful special-interest groups.

The reluctance of Congress -- and successive presidents -- to seriously tackle the jobs magnet is rooted in one of the grim realities of electoral politics: Politicians are afraid to defy business lobbyists and influential blocs of voters.

"The people who take advantage of the weakness in the law want to maintain that weakness," said former Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., a longtime member of the Senate's immigration subcommittee.

"You have some within the immigrant community who basically don't really want to slow down illegal immigration. While they would not admit it, clearly they don't want to see anything that stems the tide of Hispanics or Poles or Irish coming into the country.

"And you have employer groups who are making money off of these illegal immigrants, and they don't want to see any kind of real sanction there. The combination is enough to make it difficult to pass legislation."

But since 1951, one immigration commission after another has told Congress that jobs fuel illegal immigration.

"Reducing the employment magnet is the linchpin of a comprehensive strategy to reduce illegal immigration," the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform concluded in a September 1994 report.

More specifically, it said, "A computer registry to verify that a Social Security number is valid and has been issued to someone authorized to work in the U.S. is the most promising option for eliminating fraud and reducing discrimination while protecting individual privacy."

The first real showdown over last year's immigration law came in September 1995 when the House Judiciary Committee approved pilot projects to test whether something as simple as a phone call to the federal government could sharply cut illegal immigration.

Employers would make the toll-free call to verify the Social Security number of every new employee, making it harder for unauthorized workers to get jobs. It was a key to curbing the flow, supporters said.

But later, behind closed doors, House Majority Leader Dick Armey gave other key House Republicans a warning.

The immigration bill would die, the Texas Republican said, unless it was endorsed by small business. And that wouldn't happen if even one employer was required to take part in an employment verification pilot project.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the bill's main architect, began secret negotiations with the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which represents small businesses.

Just before the bill went to the floor, Smith announced that it had been altered to make the pilot projects entirely voluntary for employers. Then the House passed the bill.

Smith had never disclosed Armey's threat or the NFIB's virtual veto-control over the immigration bill.

"So many of the Republican freshmen were elected on planks of being vociferous supporters of small business that when they heard that the National Federation of Independent Business would not be amenable to mandatory verification, they knew they had to do something," said a Republican congressional staffer.

"The leadership lives in mortal fear that something will be done against the interests of small business and it will show up in the form of negative (NFIB) ratings of Republican members at the end of the year."

Armey's little-known election-year threat to scuttle the entire immigration bill because business groups, including the National Restaurant Association, opposed the verification provision was telling. Even though members of Congress frequently use forceful rhetoric in declaring their intention to curb illegal immigration, there are limits to what they're willing to do. Alienating business groups isn't one.

"He's always been opposed to anything that might lead to a national data base," Armey spokeswoman Michelle Davis said in explaining the majority leader's opposition to verification.

But Smith's proposal relied only on existing immigration and Social Security databases.

On the other side of the Capitol grounds, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted its verification debate in March 1996. Sen. Patrick Leahy used the occasion to describe a brush he'd had with the U.S. Border Patrol.

As the Vermont Democrat told it, he was driving about 60 miles from the Canadian border a few years ago when he was stopped at an immigration highway checkpoint. A patrol agent stepped up and asked him to prove he was in the country legally.

"I've never had to prove my citizenship in my own country to anybody and I have no intention of proving it to you," he thundered.

When the agent's superior noticed the senator's VIP license plates, the incident ended. But Leahy's anger endures.

"I'll be damned if I want to have to go out and have to prove to anybody that I'm an American," he said during the verification debate.

By the time the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 became law, Congress had gutted the verification proposal. It had agreed to pilot projects, but they would be carefully limited and voluntary for employers.

For those who have followed the nation's long-running debate over illegal immigration for some time, it was a moment of deja vu. Congress had authorized voluntary pilot projects 10 years earlier -- without much result.

"What a pale shadow the new pilot system is of what we recommended," said Larry Fuchs of Brandeis University and the Commission on Immigration Reform. Congress created the commission to provide advice on immigration policy. "You could call it a gutting of it."

Lawmakers rejected requirements for tamper-resistant birth certificates and driver's licenses. And they opposed significant increases in the number of labor and immigration work-site inspectors.

For desperate immigrants, getting in would be tougher. But they would still be lured by the continuing temptation of jobs and eager employers.

Jobs continue to draw millions of desperately poor people to the United States. They travel in buses up Mexico's west coast from starting points in the country's impoverished interior, or from farther away in the jungles of Central America. Some land in Baja California Norte crammed into the hulls of rusting trawlers sailing from mainland China. Others fly from Eastern Europe to Mexico City as "tourists" and trek north.

Those who arrive in Tijuana today stare across a 10-foot-high steel fence at a row of Border Patrol vehicles. Beyond the agents, the sprawling U.S. job market beckons like a giant thirsty sponge eager to soak them up.

Because security has been beefed up on the border in San Diego, the crossers have shifted eastward to the rugged outlying mountains and deserts. Already this year, dozens have died in this forbidding landscape, including a young woman whose husband carried her body out in his arms.

For the migrants, the costs of doing business in the United States have always been high. But, with jobs waiting, the flow continues.

"We get nothing but absolutely glowing reports from the companies about these Hispanics working for them," said Mike McAltin of the Mississippi Poultry Association. "They come in with a great work ethic. They have a real tenacity about working. It's the law that we hire only legal people. And we try to enforce that. But it can be tough."

Lawmakers took their first stab at shrinking the job market for illegal immigrants in 1986 by making it illegal to intentionally hire them. But fraudulent birth certificates, driver's licenses and immigration documents made enforcement impossible because the government couldn't prove employers knew they were hiring illegal workers.

Employers were given no way to check if a Social Security number, driver's license or birth certificate is valid.

"It's easy to pass a law and say, `OK, all your workers must be legal,' " said William T. Roenigk of the National Broiler Council, a trade group representing chicken plants. "And then someone else says, `Well, yes, but you can't ask this question, you can't ask that question. And you can't examine the documents beyond whatever or it leads to discrimination.' "

"The '86 law is dysfunctional because we didn't want it to work," said Sidney Weintraub of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "We passed legislation (in 1986) that we knew was unworkable because we aren't willing to take the steps of identifying who is an illegal. The (members of Congress) knew that when they did it."

When Congress took up the issue again last year, lawmakers put out a blizzard of press releases proclaiming the bold steps they were taking during an election year. But their releases invariably failed to note Congress' retreat from any kind of verification proposal or document reform.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein implored her colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to approve some sort of system to ensure that birth certificates, driver's licenses and immigration documents are real.

"Gentlemen," the California Democrat said, "as sure as I'm sitting here now, the result of continuation of a non-system, the ostrich-like head-in-the-sand attitude, the constant rejection of any efforts to solve this problem, will produce an Armageddon in the American population in those states where there is a big problem."

Opponents said a worker-eligibility system would infringe on civil liberties and would conflict with America's abhorrence of big government. It would be bad for business and wouldn't work, they said.

"Using a national verification system to stop illegal immigration is to me like trying to fix a wristwatch with a pickax and a sledgehammer," said Sen. Russell D. Feingold, D-Wis.

Feinstein and former Sen. Simon said political pressures sometimes compel lawmakers to pass feel-good legislation. That way, they're able to placate the public without upsetting special interests.

For example, Congress doubled the size of the INS budget over the past five years and hired additional Border Patrol agents. But little has been done to devise a workable verification system and secure documents.

The public doesn't understand the nuances of the complex issue, but the special interests do, said Simon. And they know how to work Congress, build broad coalitions and use the media to assist in their campaigns.

"You face this dilemma from time to time when you're a member of the House or the Senate," he said. "Do you serve the public good when the public at large doesn't really understand the issue? Or do you serve a very small constituency that understands the issue and is going to respond?"

This is an old article, but I think it clearly shows how Congress, led by Republicans like Dick Armey, never intended for immigration reform to work. They are selling this country to Mexico for the sake of a couple of dollars and hour. We get criticized for calling these people traitors but I honestly believe the word fits.

This article also shows how it is ESSENTIAL to look at the employer verification provisions in any immigration reform bill. That's where the meat is, not with any border control provisions.

But it would seem that the votes and campaign contributions of small businessmen cannot outweigh the views of the majority of the voters, can they?

Unless, of course, a majority of those voting for Republicans are owners of small businesses. I knew there a lot of sub-S corps, but I didn't think there were that many.

Unless, of course, a majority of those voting for Republicans are owners of small businesses

Time to tar and feather those evil small businessmen and women(/sarcasm).

You guys are starting to sound more like nancy pelosi and hillary with each passing day.

You know that the gov't does not want to stem illegal immigration because it refrains from enforcing the laws that could bring it REVENUE. Enforcing the law could more than pay for the costs of enforcement, but the political decision had been made that we want illegal immigration and the cheap labor. Cheap labor does not necessarily mean low wages, but can mean low wages relative to the intensity of thework being done. In short, these illegels often make good money, but they work hard for it.

You can imagine how employers might prefer employees who are willing to work harder than most native-borns.

I think we should enforce the laws and let the wages go up to get supply to meet demand. But we had better be prepared for higher prices, and/or less service.

Dick Armey in 1995

But later, behind closed doors, House Majority Leader Dick Armey gave other key House Republicans a warning.
The immigration bill would die, the Texas Republican said, unless it was endorsed by small business. And that wouldn't happen if even one employer was required to take part in an employment verification pilot project.

And Dick Armey a/o July 24, 2005

The White House is working with political strategists to create a broad coalition of business groups and immigrant advocates to back a plan President Bush could promote in Congress and to minority voters in the 2006 elections... The White House-backed coalition, to be called Americans for Border and Economic Security, will be led by former U.S. Reps. Cal Dooley and Dick Armey.
"There's two voices right now, and the noisy one is what I call the slam-the-borders crowd," Armey said. "The voice we want to speak with — and the one that will be in unison with President Bush — is the voice that echoes those marvelous words on the Statue of Liberty."
"To me, the Tancredo wing appeals to the more prurient character of our nature," Armey added. "We want to talk to the better angels of our nature."
Source: Immigration Rising on Bush's To-Do List
The White House wants to build a coalition to court Latinos and marginalize hard-liners.

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