The Government is Impractical

On February 28, 2008, Representative Sam Johnson (R-Texas) introduced "The New Employee Verification Act" (H.R. 5115), ...The bill will replace the current I-9 process used to verify whether employees are work-authorized in the United States with a mandatory electronic employment verification system that is "adequately funded and vigorously enforced," said Johnson...The legislation would also strengthen enforcement through tougher employer penalties. Separately, the proposed bill would also create a voluntary Secure Electronic Employee Verification System (SEEVS), which...would include a standard background check and the collection of a biometric technology—such as a fingerprint or eye scan—to secure an employee's identity, work authorization and prevent future fraudulent use of a Social Security number for the purposes of illegal employment.

...Harper (Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute) predicts that creating an accurate and mandatory EEV would require a national identification system with substantial costs incurred by American taxpayers—an estimated $20 billion to create and hundreds of millions more per year to operate. Moreover, he contends, a nationwide EEV system "would send a substantial number of workers—native-born and legal immigrant alike—into labyrinthine bureaucratic processes, preventing them from working until the federal government deemed their papers to be in order."

....Harper notes that things necessary to make a system impervious to forgery and fraud could "convert it from an identity system into a cradle-to-grave biometric tracking system—a national ID and surveillance system."

Is this the only solution to illegal immigration? Spending 20 billion dollars to create a government run database on its own citizens? (p.s. I thought the Republicans were about less government interference in our lives). What about using a fraction of that 20 billion to reform the INS system so that a person petitioning for naturalization won't have to wait 13 years for a response?

From Shakesville

Read Harper's Policy Analysis here