DHS faces difficulties in enforcing immigration laws

The ambivalence in the United States about illegal immigration and what to do about it makes life difficult for those who are supposed to enforce immigration laws already on the books. Govexec’s Katherine McIntire Peters correctly notes that when it comes to enforcing immigration laws, DHS is in a lose-lose situation. Take two examples: Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich signed a law amending the state’s Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act to prohibit employers from participating in DHS’s E-Verify — a voluntary electronic employment-verification program. Then last month, a federal judge in California blocked DHS’s plan which have given employers

ninety days to reconcile employee Social Security numbers which did not match official records or be held accountable for hiring undocumented workers. DHS has decided to sue Illinois to overturn its law, and it is now considering whether to appeal the judge’s decision in California or rewrite the letter sent to employers so that it addresses the judge’s concerns.

Since Congress has failed to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, states stepped forward to fill the void. The National Conference of State Legislatures has been tracking more than 1,400 pieces of immigration-related legislation introduced in state capitols across the country this year — two and a half times more bills than were introduced in state legislatures in 2006. Legislation addressing employment and documentation requirements represented the bulk of those bills.

The Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute last year put together a bipartisan Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future.

The task force, co-chaired by Spencer Abraham, former senator and Energy Department secretary, and Lee Hamilton, former Congress member and vice chairman of the 9/11 commission, found that current immigration policy is “broken and outdated.” The result is the country’s need for low-skilled labor is being met largely by illegal immigration, whereas temporary visa programs meet the needs for highly skilled labor. “The most dramatic manifestation of the breakdown of America’s immigration system is that a large and growing share of today’s immigration is illegal. According to recent estimates, 11.5 million to 12 million unauthorized immigrants are in the United States - nearly one-third of the country’s foreign-born population,” said the report, “Immigration and America’s Future: A New Chapter.” Abraham and Lee recommended that the government create a secure, biometric Social Security card to combat fraud, enable individuals to establish their eligibility to work, and allow employers to easily verify the authenticity of documents presented by citizens and non-U.S. citizens alike. They also endorsed the kind of programs DHS is pushing with E-Verify and the now-thwarted rule requiring employers to address discrepancies in employees’ Social Security records. “Mandatory employer verification and workplace enforcement should be at the center of more effective immigration enforcement reforms,” the report noted. “Without them, other reforms - including border enforcement - cannot succeed.”