Congress Debating "No-Work" Database 438
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."
Across the border... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Across the border... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up. Does anyone with half a clue think that the workers hanging around a street corner at 6am looking for construction bosses to pick them up are LEGAL? Who's kidding whom here?! They're not checking documents now, and that's a legal requirement already. They think that the existence of a database will somehow make people care any more?
-b.
Well that's neat.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't just a "don't fly" list, and I suspect that in its initial incarnation it wouldn't have the same
If not this government what about the one that is elected five years from now? Nine? What about the (admittedly hypothetical) government that is elected in 2020 that wants to prevent convicted felons from holding certain classes of jobs (more so than stigma already does?) Political dissidents?
Re:Across the border... (Score:4, Insightful)
If that ever happened, it would be time to start voting with the rope and lamppost rather than with the ballot box.
-b.
A good thing! (Score:4, Insightful)
It just sucks being held criminally liable to verify something that I can't verify. I want to do the right thing.
PS: Before some racist person claims I shouldn't hire Mexicans, I'm not. I'm hiring mostly white or SE Asian guys that speak good English for retail jobs. Most of them are from eastern Europe or India. I live about equidistant from UNC, NC State, and Duke so there are a lot of foreigners here legally.
Re:Across the border... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly; this is like gun control laws. People determined to disobey this law will do so just as they ignore current employment laws.
they choose to employ them not just because they are cheaper labor
And everyone always gets wrong WHY they're cheaper: payroll taxes. The face value of illegal labor is only a little lower than the legal labor but behind the scenes not having to pay the additional taxes an employer has to pick up makes the difference HUGE. Yet another reason to go to the Fair Tax [fairtax.org]. Tax reform would go a LONG way toward taking care of the illegal worker problem all by itself without this half baked database idea.
because they do better work than the unionized workers here in the states
Oh no, not at all true all the time. The illegal workers the my HOA's maintenance contractor picks up at the day labor pool do extremely shoddy work. It all comes down to being ultra cheap which is how he undercuts all the other bids by at least half. Now if only the board would listen to the complaints more and look at the numbers less but that's another rant...
Re:Well that's neat.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Feature creep, anyone? Will this database just do a yes/no answer, or will employers be able to eventually request a background report, list of previous checks and jobs, etc... If this is merely a yes/no answer, it's somewhat acceptable, but anything more is not ok. Furthermore, will this just increase the use of fake documents and stolen SS numbers? It's not like employers (especially small ones) have the time nor desire to check IDs and determine whether they're real or not.
AFAIK, I don't think any employer has asked my for a driver's license or passport anyway for my I-9 -- they just said fill it out with your SS#, etc and trusted me not to be illegal.
-b.
Re:Land of the Free, Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
This didn't stop the Catholic part of my family from hiding Jews from the Nazis during WW II. And the stakes for that were much higher -- probably shot to death or sent to a camp along with your family if you got caught.
Stupid laws should be broken. Just try hard not to get caught.
-b.
Love of freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I feel that "love of freedom" isn't quite the right term here.
Re:Get mo' Gitmo! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
-b.
Re:Land of the Free, Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
The amount of abuse this database would be open to... urgh. Off the top of my head:
1. Government departments hire a lot of people who have write access to these databases.
2. It is SOP that a record added to the database is not automatically brought to the attention of someone else to check.
3. It is also common for the procedures to get off the database are substantially more complicated than the procedures to get on it.
4. The people mentioned in 1. above are humans. They're corruptible, they have emotions.
5. So, all I need to do to really screw you over is bribe such a person to add your name to the "do not work" list. It may not affect you now, but in 6 months/a year/5 years time...
At least when you're issued papers, they generally suffice and it's pretty hard for someone to take them off you.
I'm sure others can come up with more imaginative abuses of the system.
Slowly but surely... (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine if one day the databases got corrupted, and suddenly you find yourself in the no-job list even though you've built your career legitimately for decades in the US as a foreigner. Not a scenario I'd like to live with, and something I'd rather not risk to happen. I just hope the Australian govt don't go along with this brain-dead scheme.
How much you wanna bet that soon the politicians will help themselves to no-tax and no-small-income list. Or maybe they did that already? I know for sure that they're already in the no-brain list.
Heh. Yeah. Definitely no-brain list.
Sounds like a great way.... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Al those people at the protest for the war, add them to the no work list. That will teach them to disagree with our glorious leader.
Sorry, there is no other legitimate use for this list other than opression.
Re:Life Liberty (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure all Native Americans would agree that European settlement in the US was always done by the book, right?
I cannot condemn a person for breaking a law that I, in their position, would break myself. This country was founded by those who believed that unjust law was no law at all. "It's the law" is a empty position if you cannot justify the law itself.
Re:And They'll Start With... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Across the border... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A good thing! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Across the border... (Score:2, Insightful)
If they actually investigated the companies that employ illegal workers, and imposed a decent fine and/or prison for the CEO, and then had some high profile cases, then we wouldn't have a problem with it.
The other problem is Americans. No matter how bad off people are, they will not go out in the mid-day sun and pick cotton or build houses for the pennies illegal people will do it for.
Also, the excuse used is cost, but I don't think that it would increase that much by using legal people and paying them min wage if they could get them.
Re:Life Liberty (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure all Native Americans would agree that European settlement in the US was always done by the book, right?
By the book of the day it was. But that's kinda not part of this debate is it?
I cannot condemn a person for breaking a law that I, in their position, would break myself.
I may not condemn them but I don't condone them either.
"It's the law" is a empty position if you cannot justify the law itself.
I think of all sorts of reasons to justify why illegal immigration is bad. It strains our social infrastructure, our health care infrastructure and our law enforcement agencies. It creates an entire class of people that depend on the services of the nation but don't contribute toward those services (taxes). It creates an entire class of people that can be exploited by businesses and criminals alike with no protection from either.
It's also blatantly unfair to those who decided to come here legally. A Canadian friend of mine has been waiting to come here for months. She has going through a paperwork nightmare from hell to get her green card. This is in spite of the fact that she has a masters degree and speaks three languages. We make her wait even though she is well educated, has family and a job waiting for her but we are willing to give amnesty to those that break our laws? What kind of message does that send?
This is the one issue that you would find agreement on across most sections of the political spectrum. Ask the common man on the street if this is a problem that needs to stop and he will say yes. It doesn't matter if he is a Republican or a Democrat. Unfortunately our political leaders have failed us miserably on this issue. The Republicans are owned by big business that likes cheap labor and the Democrats are owned by the PC crowd that feels bad for them and is afraid of being labeled racists. Both parties want the Hispanic vote.
What database hasn't been misused? (Score:5, Insightful)
s/could be/would be/
Has there ever been a case of a government database which hasn't been misused? If this law passes, it's only a question of how many are going to get burned, not whether it's going to happen.
Re:A good thing! (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing I have is a copy John Smith's SS card that may or may not be real along with his W-4 that I have no way of verifying
It just sucks being held criminally liable to verify something that I can't verify
You know that you CAN verify [ssa.gov] if an SSN is ligit and if it belongs to that person right? You also know that you are supposed to have a new employee fill out a I-9 [uscis.gov] form, which includes instructions on verifying employment eligibility, right? Look at it and hit page 3. Assuming all you have is an SSN card and a drivers license (typical for new hires) then you can verify that the SSN is ligit through the SSA. If your new hire thinks ahead (I did) they will bring their passport and save you the trouble.
Either way, it's pretty easy to verify that somebodies SSN isn't fake and that they can legally work. The tools are there for those that want to use them. The problem is that the people hiring illegals don't care.
Taco Bell has your order make a run for the border (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Across the border... (Score:3, Insightful)
We need to re-boot government instead of adding more programs trying to fix the corrupted ones. Go back to the source code (Articles of Confederation), recompile our operating system and re-install it without 200+ years of bloatware.
That's already happening with the no-fly list (Score:5, Insightful)
That's already happening with the no-fly list. A Princeton professor who gave a televised speech criticizing Bush's constitutional overreach found himself on the no-fly list afterwards. A guy who wrote a book called "Bush's Brain" about Karl Rove found himself on the no-fly list [dailykos.com] afterwards. 20 Wisconsin peace activists suddenly found themselves on the no-fly list [commondreams.org].
The no-fly list is even being used to harass opposition political party members. Senator Ted Kennedy [washingtonpost.com] suddenly found himself on the no-fly list and had a lot of trouble getting himself off the list. The head of the TSA had to call him personally and promise to take him off the list before his troubles ended. In the same article, it talks about employees of the ACLU also ending up on the list.
Giving the government more secret and anonymous "lists" to deny people rights is not an invitation to abuse, it's a guarantee of it. The fact that systems like this from previous fascist governments are being implemented in modern-day America is one reason that people are arguing that America is on a well-planned transition to fascism. [guardian.co.uk]
duplicate employment (Score:4, Insightful)
"As currently structured, Basic Pilot does not detect duplicate active records in its database," John Shandley, the company's senior vice president of human resources, told politicians. "The same Social Security number could be in use at another employer, and potentially multiple employers, across the country."
In a recent statement about the bill, the White House maintained that the proposal will allow for "unprecedented" information sharing among federal and state agencies, and that Homeland Security will be able to receive "information on multiple uses of the same Social Security number by more than one individual."
I see a huge potential problem with this. In order to detect duplicate employment employers will have to report that an employee is working with them and also report when an employee quits or is fired. Imagine moving across the country to a new job only to find that they can't employ you because your previous employer forgot (either genuinely or maliciously) to report that you had stopped working for them, so the system sees you working on the other side of the country and determines that you must be using fraudulent credentials.
Also, what about those people who simply need to maintain two jobs?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well that's neat.... (Score:3, Insightful)
All I see are wagons circling these days. War on guns, war on terror, war on drugs, war on immigration, war on this and that. Every last one of these "wars" has restricted personal freedoms and brought massive powers to the federal government over state governments. If these trends continue, which I foresee no slowing down, but only a quickening of the pace, our country and government will no longer even be recognizable, much less as the last bastion of freedom in the world.
We, the citizens, will become the state's slaves and we will be assigned our life-duties and carry them out or be disposed of. Progress in the robotics field will only serve to complete this future reality. When people are no longer needed to do menial tasks and even some of the more elevated tasks, they will become a friction to the economy rather than the grease. The scales of wealth will tip immensely.
Re:Across the border... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's that last part that really needs to be emphasized. There are a lot of people running around -- usually politicians, but I've seen some newspaper editorials where it was said -- claiming that illegals do work that "Americans won't do." This is false.
Anyone who doesn't believe it's false, can just turn on the Discovery Channel the next time they're running that "Dirty Jobs" program. There are people who do pretty unbelievable stuff [discovery.com] for a living; shoveling garbage, standing waist-deep in feces, working ridiculous hours in uncomfortable conditions, dodging machinery that could crush or tear you in half if you're not quick. But they don't do it for cheap. There's a reason why sanitation workers in NYC get paid more than cops -- otherwise, there wouldn't be any sanitation workers.
There isn't anything that somebody in this country won't do, for the right compensation. All illegal workers do is allow big companies to get away with paying workers less than they ought to get, for dangerous/uncomfortable/unsafe/unsavory jobs. Ultimately, this hurts all legitimate workers, across the board: low-skilled workers are impacted the most, because it directly depresses their wages, but higher-skilled workers are hurt, too, because of the increased labor pool being pushed up from below, and also the increased tax burden (which is shouldered mostly by high-skilled, high-income workers) of supporting a surplus of low-skilled workers and their attendant medical/educational/social costs.
Re:Does anyone see the parallels? (Score:3, Insightful)
Call it post-industrial or something. But it's like PETA meets Archie Bunker. It's very Bleeding Heart in so many ways, but yet not. It rails against something, and then promotes policies that undermine it. So it results in a very strange culture of defeatist victimhood. Like a kid who wears lead boots to play basketball and then complains when he loses.
A couple of examples. If you listen to right-wing preachers, they complain endlessly about Hollywood, right? Well what's Hollywood really about? Simple, giving the consumers what they want. So they're lambasting consumerism from hollywood, but then on the otherside they are defending consumerism from say Wal-Mart. Hell, many of these preachers are nothing more than con artists, flying their church plane to their condo in florida, and then on sunday railing about narcissism and consumer excess.
or right-wingers promote their absitinence only education, and it turns out the kids who get that training are more likely to have sex. In fact, they're more likely to have what they'd probably call "deviant sex", because the kids are more confused than anything. I knew a girl like this back say 10 years ago. Was just adament she was not going to have sex before marriage. Didn't stop her from performing BJ's though.
It's not new. Consider Prohibition. Promoted by the Temperance movement to reduce alcohol consumption, but instead it increased alcohol consumption. or the war on drugs.
Or the war on terrorism.
Re:Across the border... (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:The last box to vote with ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Reserve personnel: 858,500 (List of countries by size of armed forces)
Now, as far as more powerful firepower... an overwhelming guerrilla-style force, such as the "militia" of the United States will not go quitely into the night. Instead, it would trounce the US military if needed be. A fact that's vital to living in a free country; and if you ask me we're getting closer and closer to that dreaded day when the people must rise up once again.
Re:Life Liberty (Score:2, Insightful)
It creates an entire class of people that depend on the services of the nation but don't contribute toward those services (taxes). It creates an entire class of people that can be exploited by businesses and criminals alike with no protection from either.
I live in a very "poor" community in central California and I am not Hispanic. The paternal side of my family came to this country a little over 100 years ago and the maternal side is documented back to the colonial times. Having lived about 30 years in this place has taught me that your argument is flawed on many levels. But it is not your fault because you are just regurgitating the BS fed to you by the usual suspects. Lets start with the huge misconception about how undocumented workers don't contribute to the tax pool. Just because someone does not pay payroll taxes doesn't mean that they do not contribute to the tax system. These people live in a very cash based society. They pay sales taxes, gas taxes, luxury taxes, just to name a few. And their business has an enormous impact on the well being of our local economy. And I love the whole "It's for their own good" argument like you use by complaining about how they are exploited. Jesus if you could spend a week where most of these people grew up and lived most of their lives you would know that almost any amount of exploitation they could possibly face here is almost completely insignificant. Show me a time in history when an ethnic group came to this country legally and didn't face those same issues.
It's also blatantly unfair to those who decided to come here legally. A Canadian friend of mine has been waiting to come here for months. She has going through a paperwork nightmare from hell to get her green card. This is in spite of the fact that she has a masters degree and speaks three languages. We make her wait even though she is well educated, has family and a job waiting for her but we are willing to give amnesty to those that break our laws? What kind of message does that send?
The message is sends is...Bring us your poor, your tired etc...Your friend with a Masters degree doesn't NEED to come to the U.S. from another first world country. The people who flee the the U.S. are literally fleeing some of the worst conditions imaginable to come live in ramshackle little buildings here in the U.S. The fact that they are willing to live in the kind of conditions that they live in once they are here is a testament to the horrible shit they are running from. Tell your well educated, probably well paid, probably fictitious Canadian friend to go hire herself a decent immigration lawyer and she could have a visa inside of 6 months.
This is the one issue that you would find agreement on across most sections of the political spectrum. Ask the common man on the street if this is a problem that needs to stop and he will say yes. It doesn't matter if he is a Republican or a Democrat. Unfortunately our political leaders have failed us miserably on this issue. The Republicans are owned by big business that likes cheap labor and the Democrats are owned by the PC crowd that feels bad for them and is afraid of being labeled racists. Both parties want the Hispanic vote.
This is the best part of your post, by best I mean most flawed. If illegal immigration was a real issue that was so bi-partisan in nature it would be dealt with by now. In my opinion this issue is just a bunch of hype to keep us distracted from real issues. Illegal immigration is just like the war on drugs. It is a huge money-pit, an awesome excuse for our government to restrict it's citizen's civil liberties, and a great way to distract a population so disillusioned by it's political system that it is considered a success when half the eligible population turns up to vote on something. This issue is like abortion, kind of emotional for a lot of people but in the end it is all kind of meaningless because people are going to do what they believe is right
Re:The last box to vote with ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, who says that people in the military would fight their friends, neighbors, etc. Soldiers aren't raised in a vacuum, and if they're called upon to kill Americans, they probably would rebel.
-b.
Re:Across the border... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's precisely because they are "illegal" that the employer can get away with paying slave-level wages, skip on the insurance and taxes, etc.
Re:Across the border... (Score:2, Insightful)
Because then you're basically guaranteeing a labor surplus.
If there are 10 guys standing around, all trying to get hired for one job, then that job isn't going to pay very much. As soon as the guy who gets hired asks for a raise, or anything else, he'll just be fired and quickly replaced.
In a tighter job market, where there are fewer potential employees standing around looking for work, then the workers (individually or collectively, although personally I think collective bargaining can quickly become a scam as well) are in a much better negotiating position and can get paid more.
That's just basic supply and demand; what you're proposing would basically make the 'supply' of labor near-infinite. That's not what we want; we need a balance between the two, one that gets as close to full employment within the U.S. as possible, without driving inflation out of control. That's the goal -- not to act as some sort of employment agency for the rest of the world.
And on a more practical level, people who have just stepped off the proverbial boat from a poor country are always going to expect less in terms of pay and standards of living. Particularly if they aren't planning on actually living here, and are either saving up to go home and live like a king, or sending their money home while living in a hovel themselves (not uncommon; it's unbelievable how many people you can pack into a one-bedroom apartment if you try, I've seen it), they'll always be able to underbid a domestic worker who wants to have a typical American lifestyle (own a house, car, major appliances, etc.).
In essence, if you do what you propose, and just open the floodgates, you'll have lots of people coming in and working, who aren't really interested in the typical American lifestyle, which is pretty expensive. Since I think we want to promote that type of lifestyle -- not necessarily blatant consumerism, but a culture of ownership and individual self-sufficiency, where it's not ridiculous for a person to aspire to own a house, car, etc. -- we flat-out can't do that. To put it perfectly bluntly: if you allow a lot of people who are comfortable (or at least used to) living in Third World conditions into the labor market, we're going to reduce the working class here in the U.S. to Third World conditions, in order to compete. I don't think that's a good thing.