Immigration in the US

Your description makes it sound like the system is working exactly as intended, it just wasn’t intended to work like most people would think…

That’s largely true IMO. Many of the loopholes written into the system are glaringly obvious. I’ll give one more example, which will make anyone who has ever had to deal with legal, corporate or financial compliance cringe.

Currently, employers are required to obtain an I-9 form from new employers and to “check” both a picture ID as well as documentation of legal work status. Typically a SS card plus a driver’s license. Employers are (very) sporadically audited as to their compliance with this. The way compliance would usually be shown is with a copy of the SS card or other documentation, showing that the employer received it and (presumably) looked at it. Typically in a compliance scenario, if someone doesn’t have a document to back up their claims, there is a presumption the claim is not valid. Needing receipts to verify your tax deductions is an example of this. We don’t just take people’s word for stuff that involves $$$. However, in the US, if an employer does not have a copy of an SS card or other required documentation, there is no presumption that their compliance is BS. We all know that if they didn’t even bother to make a copy, they didn’t actually even ask for or look at an SS card. But our current law is blind to this. Can you imagine if that rule applied to tax deductions? Why, yessssss Mr. IRS man, I have plenty of receipts to verify the thousands I’m claiming, but I don’t have to show you them! It’s a frigging joke.

And in my workers’ comp practice I’ve seen literally hundred of Personnel & Payroll files where an SS# was written down, a photo ID was copied, and yet no SS card was copied. It’s commonplace. I mean as SS card is so easy to fake it’s a joke, and yet our law doesn’t really in a de facto sense require that employers check SS cards. The entire system of we have of “requiring” valid documentation of legal status to work is a complete and utter disgrace.

There is a bit of good news here: this problem is really easy to fix with relatively cheap technology and compliance requirements. E-Verify is already free and available to all employers, and there’s a bunch of ways to make verification easier, faster, more secure and to strengthen audits, strengthen compliance verification, etc. Relative to building a wall, actually reducing illegal employment would be cheeeeeeap. And reducing illegal employment is going to have a much bigger impact than a wall that just constitutes one more barrier to get around, under or through. As long as that lure of illegal employment is there, people will come.

Now, given that our lax enforcement has lured millions of people here over decades, I don’t believe in just flipping this switch without also giving the people already here a path to citizenship. The congress people who created this mess did so 100% on purpose (low wages) and it’s our responsibility to clean up the mess.

For the record, when you fill out your I9, your employer is supposed to verify that you actually have a SS Card. You can’t just give them numbers.

I really think the Obama Administration saw all this coming which is why they issued the Executive Order on these people in the first place. They were the most tech savvy administration in history and they knew that tech was how these people would end up being outed for their illegal status and wanted to start on the way to legitimacy because compliance is a huge deal now specifically on the computing side of things.

As more and more companies work to meet requirements for securing their businesses (forced mostly by all the security breaches at big companies in the last five years), this idea that people need to be vetted more stringently was bound to get more traction. In IT, we’re locking things down to where you can only access one PC now, and often can only do certain things with that device. Knowing who that is who’s sitting down there in detail is something that is the inevitable next step.

That’s why this really needs to get the twofold fix Sharpe talks about. You can’t hide anymore. Almost every business is touched by tech in some way these days.

See the post immediately above your post.

Eh, this isn’t actually true I don’t think.

I actually know this because quite recently, we realized that we had accidentally gotten rid of some old files that contained the I-9’s for some of the oldest of our employees (folks who have been here for over 10 years), along with the photocopied ID’s. So we had to go and get those I-9’s re-done, along with copies of the ID’s again. If we didn’t have those photocopies, we’d be out of compliance. We’re legally required to have them on file for all of our employees.

Technically, those places are in violation of the law, aren’t they?

This is totally true. What’s worse is that the actual SS card is a cheap, small, paper ID… and you aren’t allowed to laminate it, so it degrades over time easily. And replacing one is a huge pain, so it may actually be difficult for people who actually have a legitimate SS number to provide the card.

SS cards are not easy to fake. You might be able to fake a photocopy but the card itself, with the raised ink… let’s just say there is a reason you are not supposed to laminate your card nor is anyone supposed to accept an altered card like that. The way ICE checks those cards includes touching it, and that raised ink part is not cheap or easy to reproduce.

I find it odd that people focus on the relatively tiny issue of SS cards. The issue of illegal employment is the defining issue of the entire illegal immigration debate. There are tons of ways we could tighten up enforcement; SS Cards are a part of that, but the cards themselves are not a huge part. The cards right now are a big part of our “enforcement” right now but that’s b/c our current level of enforcement at the employer level is weak and tiny.

I focused on it because you brought it up and made a statement that isn’t really that correct, thus the quote. I used to check those cards as a living. I was trained by ICE to recognize fakes, and we were shown some very good ones. Years ago, they provided that kind of training to employers for free.

They’re not that easy to fake, but you have to want to, you know, want to catch the fakes in the first place. You can’t laminate it because the feel of the card, including the raise ink, is part of that process of checking the validity of the card.

I love the internet where a minor quibble as to a particular statement can be used to ignore/derail a much larger more meaningful discussion.

Do you folks disagree with my larger point that illegal employment and lax enforcement are the true root causes of the problem and also the area where we can improve things significantly?

I recently heard Ruben Navarrette say that very thing on radio. That to end illegal immigration you first had to end employers hiring illegals. His argument was that when they couldn’t get jobs they would go home. This meant everyone from the farmworker to the maid.

I believe the reason employers claim these things are easy to fake is they don’t actually want to catch the fakes. The tools are there. The training is available. Can it be better, probably, but the kind of knowledge to catch a fake document is out there, but I don’t think they really want to catch them. They just want the labor at as cheap a price as they can get it.

That’s interesting as a reason for why they don’t want you to laminate it, but there are a number of commercially available printers that could mimic that effect these days that are pretty cheap.

I suspect that security feature has not really kept up with modern technology.

According to this HR site that popped up on my first google attempt, copying the cards is not required of employers (it should be). According to the IRS itself which popped up on my second google, this is also true. Here is the IRS quote:

"You are required to get each employee’s name and Social Security Number (SSN) and to enter them on Form W-2. (This requirement also applies to resident and nonresident alien employees.) You should ask your employee to show you his or her social security card. The employee may show the card if it is available. You may, but are not required to, photocopy the social security card if the employee provides it. "

Also, as to whether SS cards are “easy” to fake that depends on the definition of easy and is also only slightly relevant to the larger point. Back when I lived in LA a few years ago the going rate for a fake SS card from the hustlers in McArthur Park was around $200.

But of course, the card itself doesn’t matter, as without copies required to prove compliance, its absurdly easy for employers to NOT request the cards. That is technically a legal violation by the employer but with that gaping hole in compliance, proving the violation is very difficulty. And when you add in the fact the federal government’s employer-level enforcement funding is a pittance compared to border-security-theater, it’s easy to see why lax enforcement is such a problem.

Edited to add info from IRS.

That’s not the only security feature though. The thickness of the paper, the quality of the ink… the point is just because it’s paper doesn’t make it easy or cheap to replicate. If someone is just doing a visual check, they’re not doing it right. And if you’re doing it visually correct, you’d have a magnify glass because that’s how you check the ink used, not just the raised.

The real issue here is employers dont’ take the time and effort to check properly… they have little incentive to do so.

Huh, well that’s interesting. Apparently you can copy the documents instead of keeping the i9.

I’d have to agree then that it’s all kind of theater then, since it’d be a joke to fake. And as you say, even when found in violation, it’d be almost impossible to prove that the employer intended to do anything bad.

Although the flip side of it is that I don’t particularly care if someone wants to work.

I imagine that everyone believes this. If there weren’t ways to make money in the US that were/are easier than those back in X country, then the vast majority of illegals wouldn’t have come or would not stay.

I think your real question is this: is the US government and the vast majority of employers cynically doing nothing to dissuade illegal immigrants from working… because doing so would drive up consumer prices on most food and many domestic services?

Or because business makes money using them. Aside from the jobs that Americans simply won’t or do not want to do anymore.

For example around here the ag industry depends on a supply of labor at certain times of the year. Without illegal immigrants they suffer shortages. However, the construction industry (mainly residential and some subs) use illegal immigrants because of how cheap they are, not because Americans won’t do the work.

I believe the inflation phobia is exaggerated given our overall low rate of inflation and our almost-deflationary wages in the low-wage sector over the last decades. Also, I think the primary driver of the loophole-writing back in the Reagan/GHW Bush days was maximizing profits via keeping a steady flow of illegal unregulated labor.