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US Immigration Bill May Bring a National Biometric ID Card

Posted by Soulskill on from the fighting-aliens-with-bits-of-plastic dept.

schwit1 sends this quote from the Wall Street Journal: "Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal US workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. ... A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said. The card requirement also would be phased in among employers, beginning with industries that typically rely on illegal-immigrant labor."

7 of 619 comments (clear)

  1. Papers please! by Pojut · · Score: 3, Informative

    Seriously though...this idea would likely work just as it is being advertised, but the privacy implications of this are astounding. Then again, we only have the illusion of privacy at this point here in the US, so we may as well stop fooling ourselves....

    Remember kids, privacy != freedom

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  2. Re:Papers Please! by xaxa · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sure, they'll start off requiring it ONLY for workers

    That's not really an "ONLY", is it? The British government started off requiring them only for international (non-EU, IIRC) students and air-side airport workers. (The students is because there are loads of international students registered on fake courses at fake universities.)

    There are some useful arguments here and here.

  3. Just need to have serious fines for employers by originalhack · · Score: 4, Informative

    The ID cards are not the problem. The problem is consequences.

    Today, it is cheaper to staff with undocumented workers and hope they don't get caught. If ALL employers had to verify the ID of all of their employees and contractors or face serious fines and all contractors (including household help) were required to show a verifiable ID and anyone who fails to check or falsifies faced serious penalties, this problem would be hugely reduced overnight.

    The real problem is that the big businesses (agriculture, meat packing, hospitality, commercial real-estate, etc..) want the cheap labor and won't let the problem be solved.

  4. Re:Meh by BrianRoach · · Score: 3, Informative

    A social security card is not required. It can be used as a "List C" document for the I9 form.

    http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/backgroundcheck/a/background_2.htm

    I simply use my passport since it's a "List A" document. Which begs the question ... why is it that we need something more than that? Like this new thing is going to be "unforgeable" ?

  5. Re:Tracking of work? Nothing new by furby076 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Does Congress really live in a fantasy land where illegal immigrants are hired to positions where they supply SSNs, drivers licenses, etc? In my experience the vast majority of businesses employing illegal labor do so by paying them in cash. "Come work with us for a day putting up drywall, there's a few sawbucks in it for you." No amount of biometrics will stop this.

    Illegal immigrants use stolen socials to get said jobs...yes it happens, and yes it is significant. Those socials are also used by criminals who are trying to avoid detection, used by people trying to steal benefits, used by people trying to get loans and defaulting on them, etc. It's a huge issue. SS theft is extremely bad - it hurts the person who had their information stolen (getting your SS changed is next to impossible). It hurts the businesses who got screwed out of loan money (which in turn raises the prices for the general public).

    --

    I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
  6. If I had mod points, I would mod that up by Presto+Vivace · · Score: 4, Informative

    anyone who has an opinion about this can contact Senator Schumer and Senator Graham

  7. Take it from a person who has to carry one... by dejanc · · Score: 3, Informative

    I lived in USA for 6 years and the best thing there, in terms of citizen-government interaction, was that there was no mandatory ID cards.

    Sure, an ID card is not that big of a deal at first. It's not much unlike a DL (which almost everyone carries around all the time anyway), and it's not like the police can't track you down all the time.

    But this is what will happen:

    • First they mandate you always have to carry it with you.
    • Then, the police implies you have to show it to anyone with a badge on demand.
    • Finally, they will randomly stop you and check your ID... without a right that you refuse it.

    Here in Serbia, quite literally, I can't even take a walk in the park anymore without a cop stopping me and asking for ID...