Congress Debating "No-Work" Database

grag writes "Cnet is reporting that the US Congress, in their quest for immigration reform, seeks to force employers to utilize a database to determine a person's eligibility for employment. The Department of Homeland Security would operate the database and would be given access to IRS records for this purpose. The article mentions similarities between this proposal and the no-fly list — and the expectation of similar difficulties the proposed database could pose to valid people seeking employment."

Comments

Re:Land of the Free, Indeed

[b0s0z0ku]

So, essentially, if the gubermint don't approve of you, you get to starve?

As much as I abhor illegal immigration, I might be more likely to hire someone who fails the database. Just pay cash, off the books. The guy might have a family, and I couldn't be an instrument of punishing them, honestly.

-b.

Several of these already exist

[PIPBoy3000]

There's a variety of "no work" databases out there. As a healthcare organization, we're required to check them or else we'll lose our Medicare status. For example, there's one that lists people who have been convicted of fraud. If we employ them, we could lose our Medicare reimbursement.

From a database perspective, the problem is making some automated process to make this work. Most lists I've seen don't have SSN, so you have to do crazy name matches. Of course, people convicted of fraud always use their real name, right?

Putting civil liberties aside, from a straight technical standpoint it would be great if everyone had a unique identifier and people would give lists that have these unique identifiers. I realize people have heart attacks over SSN, but there's nothing else out there at the moment (and it drives me nuts when banks use knowing SSN as proof-of-identity).

I'm not advocating we switch to some "everyone gets a number" society, but it's equally silly to pass laws requiring us to check lists of names and not expect it to be wildly inaccurate.

Re:Well that's neat....

[Richard W.M. Jones]

You know, this may be being implemented with the best of intentions (stopping illegal workers, etc), but do we really want to give the government an easy way to "flip a switch" (or bit) and make it impossible for any one person to earn a living?

It's funny you should say that because according to the book I'm reading at the moment, this was precisely the method used to control low-level thought criminals by the Stasi in the former East Germany.

Say something indiscreet in public? Mysteriously you'd lose your job and no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't get past an interview for even the most unskilled job.

Rich.

Does anyone see the parallels?

[ATestR]

Roman Kingdom (753 BC - 510 BC) ............ Colonial America (1500's - 1776)

Roman Republic (509 BC - 44 BC) ............ United States (1776 - ~1950's)

Roman Empire (44 BC - 369 AD) .............. United States (~1950's - ???)

I think an analogy can be made between the Roman Republic and the US up until the mid-50's or so. However, this also suggests that the current nation is more like the Roman Empire, where taxes are high, the rich get richer and the poor poorer (and the middle class being squeezed more and more into the later group), and the people have less and less input into the national government every year. The military gets squeezed, and will be unable to respond when it needs to.

The decline of the Roman Empire was a gradual process. After thriving for hundreds of years, the Empire was begun to fail by 369 AD for a number of reasons.

• The Government was running out of money.
  What is the US National Debt now? $3 Trillion? Someday in the not too distant future, this is going to come back and bite us.
• The people had to pay up to a third of their money in taxes.
  I wish I had to pay only a third of my money in taxes. Between Federal, State, Local (Property Taxes), FICA, Medicare, etc., I figure that approximately 46% of my income never sees my wallet.
• The rich were given grants of money and land.
  Can we say juicy government contracts? And it is becoming more and more common for States to try to attract large businesses by offering tax and other "incentives".
• There was not enough money to pay for the army.
  See spending priorities.
• The barbarian Vandals were invading the Empire from Germany.
  Well, at least the Vandals didn't fly a jet plane into the colosseum.
• No one had decided on a good way to choose an Emperor
  And in the last few presidential elections, I have concluded that our system is almost defunct. BOTH sides tend to nominate candidates that cater to the most extreme elements of their respective party. We end up with a executive who doesn't represent the people.

'Nuff said.

Re:Does anyone see the parallels?

[dbIII]

No guys - you are no more heirs to the Roman Empire than the vandals were. You are really run by poorly educated barbarians with suprising amounts of superstition often following an extremely dumbed down religeon that has been perverted to focus a great deal on wealth. The remaining attempts to grab on to the last vestiges of slavery are both shocking and pathetic.

Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry at my nation getting pushed around by your barbarian overlords. At least have some way to stop senile ex-wrestlers who never amounted to anything outside of the ring from running your military.

Re:Does anyone see the parallels?

[Opportunist]

Well, the Roman Empire soon started to crack after the Republic was replaced by it. The begin of the downfall was already noticable (ok, hindsight...) in the late first and early second century (AD).

The Empire has stretched to its utmost capabilities. Until then, the governors got rich by squeezing the occupied lands dry. They had to deliver a certain tax to Rome, and whatever they manage to squeeze out of the land and people beyond that was theirs. The logical consequence was that they squeezed as hard as they could, until it became impossible to even squeeze out what Rome wanted.

More and more resources were wasted to keep the ruling class in power, with games and spectacles for the masses, as well as keeping them fed. The Romans were quite easy to appease, keep them fed and entertained, and nobody would even consider staging a revolt. That worked well in other parts of the empire, at least where the people were already thinking that Rome was the shiny pinnacle of human evolution and that they should be like Romans.

Didn't work so well for those parts of the empire that weren't yet "converted".

Personally, I'd say we're currently pretty much in that phase of the "US Empire". The Empire can't grow anymore, is struggling to keep its size, people are kept happy with games and food, "barbarians" are nibbling at its edges, testing its strength, its allies are pondering whether it makes sense to stay allied... next step would be to hire auxiliary troops 'cause it gets near impossible to keep the army at the necessary size, with those troops soon gaining not only military but also soon after political power.

Re:Does anyone see the parallels?

[maxume]

It's an interesting parallel. Some issues though:

Clinton, Bush I, Carter all defy description as 'extreme' elements. Reagan wasn't really all that extreme either, the party even reshaped itself around him.

The relative level of wealth between then and now is laughable. The lower end of the middle class lives as Roman kings cold only dream. Separating recent actual increases in wealth from moral decay is a bit of a problem, but there have been significant increases in productivity and the like.

There is no credible military threat to the United States(just like the U.S. is not a credible threat to the rest of NATO or China or even Russia). War is essentially too effective for large scale campaigns to actually occur(Iraq is an exercise in nation building, not warfare). A nuclear madman poses some issues, but that's pretty much a problem for everybody, not just the new American Empire. Terrorism sucks, but the current situation is already an overreaction - overall, it is tractable.

National and personal debt are both problems. They are bigger problems for creditors than they are for debtors(because at least the debtor sees the benefits of spending the money). In the end, even if the dollar explodes, there is still a fairly well educated and experienced work force that can go ahead and produce; that production should mitigate the impact.

Damned if they do and damned if they dont

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

There are many real reasons why employers prefer illegal workers. Cheaper wages, lower payroll taxes, freedom from OSHA regulations, cheaper overtime and more control over the employees. But the most commonly stated official reason for hiring illegal workers is, it is impossible to find who is legal and who is not. Some would go so far as to suggest that checking the citizenship status of prospective employees would leave them open to discrimination lawsuits. This no-work database might be a badly compromised version of plugging this standard escape route.

There is no way we can stop illegal immigration without finding and punishing employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Atleast for the immigrants you could say, they are poor, uneducated, they have nothing to lose and all they are trying to do is to feed their family by working instead of stealing. But most employers of illegals, are rich, educated, they have a lot to lose if caught, and they are undercutting their competitors who employ legal workers. They are the ones who trigger the race to the bottom.

People who oppose such data bases should suggest alternatives by which this "race to the bottom" can be avoided and employers of legal status workers are not unfairly undercut by others who employ the illegals.

Re:Get mo' Gitmo!

[ElBeano]

There is already such a blacklist in Pennsylvania. I have a neighbor is on it and battling this through the courts. It was clearly abused in his case (though whether he will obtain remediation his is seeking through the courts is still an open question). No reason to think the same thing couldn't or wouldn't happen if this were national.

We NEED this...here is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, here's the sad story:

-- You can only require employees fill out an I-9 employment eligibility form AFTER you hire someone. So you could go through the while hiring process, THEN sometimes find out that they aren't eligible to work in the U.S.

-- You can't peridically REVIEW the information on the I-9 form and can't ever make the employee verify the form again!! (e.g. even if they have a work card that expires in 1 day, if they present it, you have to accept it and can never require them to show an updated one!)

-- YOU have to be a document-forging expert to try and detect the fakes. Worse, if you are wrong, or if their "community" law clinic lawyers can convince a judge you were "discriminating" against them, you get hit with ridiculous penalties and fines.

-- The I-9 form has a LONG LIST of easily faked "acceptable" forms of proof to live and work in the U.S. "Joe Employer" has never even heard of some of these forms, let alone be schooled in detecting fakes of them.

Employers don't have to send the forms in to anyone!!! They just have to keep it at their company for 3 years, then they can destroy it. It just sits there in a file cabinet unless the rare chance that ICE or some other agency raids or requests it. There is NO spotchecking, no routine review, no nothing.

Many employers WANT to do the right thing. Give us the tools to do so!!

Re:Get mo' Gitmo!

[G27 Radio]

But white-collar and legal workers will be more likely to be checked through the database. And in the wrong hands, the database could be used to enforce a blacklist of people not allowed to work for various reasons.

I wonder what else will be in this database besides "not allowed" to work. I'd be afraid that eventually it'll turn into something where you have a "work score" similar to a credit score. Maybe I'm just paranoid because I spent five years unable to get a decent job before finding out the government has me listed as a felon. A year after notifying them of their error I'm still listed as a felon. I don't trust a database like this one bit. This is a bad idea.

Re:Get mo' Gitmo!

[G27 Radio]

I appreciate the offer, but I've since started my own business and I'm going to stick with it for a while and see if it pans out. As far as verification, I'm still leery about giving out all the related information publicly. If I'm contacted by a respectable journalist I'll be happy to walk them through finding all the data online. Also, background check on me in combination with the Department of Corrections photos of the criminal will provide them with all the evidence they need.

If I were to apply for a job at a big company now, Human Resources would take one look at my record and hire someone else--even if I told them about the identity theft. The HR person probably wouldn't spend a couple hours verifying my story if they can just pick up the next resume and hire that person.

I used to work as a contractor at several of the big financial institutions here in Jacksonville. Merrill Lynch, Chase Manhattan, Wachovia, and a couple others. Suddenly I couldn't get in anywhere. At first I thought it was the economy, then I thought it was because I'd been out of work too long. It took me five years to find out that the state had me listed as a felon--and I still wouldn't know if it wasn't for the cops harassing me.

I can see it now. One more database managed by the government, containing inaccurate data, and no way to change it without paying a lawyer to force the issue. Read my blog and you'll see why I'm so cynical.

Re:Get mo' Gitmo!

[mrchaotica]

I've been reading your blog (your situation is making me physically sick, by the way), and I've got a question: why did you pay (and thus plead guilty to) those bogus traffic tickets in the first place? Had you contested them, the worst-case scenario would have been to be found guilty, which you were anyway but you would have had at least a chance of winning. At the very least you would have been able to tell your story to a judge, and inconvenience the asshole cops.

Also, by the way: if you're indigent, the state will appoint you an attourney for free (especially for felony offenses, like the license suspension). Regardless of what those clerks said "should" happen, you should take advantage of that oppertunity -- you might be able to get some free advice about your situation in general.

Although I'm not a lawyer, I do have more experience in [traffic] court than I care to admit. So please, always fight your tickets! By pleading guilty, not only did you let the abusive cops win, cost yourself $300, and set yourself up for the license suspension trouble, you've also probably made it that much harder to clear your name (as the dichotomy between a convicted felon and a guy who's never had so much as a traffic ticket is mch wider than the felon and a guy who's been in enough trouble to get his license suspended, even if in error).

Bottom line: you need competent legal representation, and you need it now. Suck up your pride, and get your parents and friends to help you pay for it.

Re:Get mo' Gitmo!

[G27 Radio]

None of the bogus tickets were felonies, so I would not have been able to get a court-appointed attorney for that--at least that's my understanding. The attorney I did talk to about it wanted $500 to show up but said he couldn't guarantee anything. He also pointed out that the officers were unlikely to admit to writing the bogus tickets even if they were informed that I wasn't the guy they thought I was. By the time I was able to sell my car my only option was to pay them if I wanted to be sure to keep my license--which as you know they suspended anyway.

I think maybe you're right that I should have swallowed my pride and accepted money from my friends when they offered. Several people that I don't even know have offered to give me money since I started the blog, but I keep turning it down because I keep thinking I'll be able to take care of it myself. I'm really going to have to think about it seriously but it's hard because I feel like such a loser. I can't explain why. I know logically that this wasn't my fault. But sometimes I think how I'm a 36 year old man that can't even take care of himself and has practically nothing to show for his life. I already feel like people have done too much for me.

That last paragraph was probably the hardest thing I've had to write so far. I'm going to think about what you said. Thanks.