Do Come Here ---But Come Here Legally

 

            Previously in the Journal, Congressman Ken Calvert was quoted from the Congressional Record in the matter of a Basic Immigration bill, which he is sponsoring in order to demand better documentation of legal vs. illegal workers.

            The following interview was conducted with the congressman, in order to get his thoughts on the immigration issue, in general, and the bill, in particular.

            We began by asking the congressman about the simple fact that he is taking an awfully hard stand on immigration for a man whose district is only 90 miles from the border. His response was simple.

            “I’ve been doing this for years. I passed a bill back in 1996 which started the employment verification program which we referred to as the Basic Pilot Program, which gives the employer the opportunity to check and validate whether the Social Security card that is being used in the course of employment is valid or not.”

            Until that time, according to Calvert, there was simply no way for the potential employer to determine if the card was valid or not.

            “Now,” he continued, “this has been picked up in the (Cong.) Sensenbrenner bill which is now called the employment verification portion of the act. Right now the Basic Pilot Program is law in all 50 states, except it’s a voluntary program and we want to make it mandatory.

            “People should come into the country legally and obey the laws of the country that they’re the guest of,” he stressed to the Business Journal. “It is not the fact that people are coming here to work as much as it is the fact that we in America believe in fair play and playing by the rules.”

            “People who are coming here illegally are taking advantage of the system and not playing by the rules. We are a country of immigrants, we respect that, but the fact is that people are coming here not entering legally and breaking our laws.

            “This is wrong,” he declares. “What we need to do is set up a process, not to come in and violate the laws of this country, but where people can come here to work in a legal fashion.”

            Calvert recognizes the attraction of this country, where people want to come to work and live, but he stands firm on the fact that it is our job to control the borders, south and north as well as both oceans.

            “We do have limited resources and we need to provide for the people who are here legally and play by the rules first. We cannot tolerate people who come here and break our laws.”

            Will this new law create more paperwork for the small businessman?

            Calvert points out that for many years he himself was a small businessman, operating a Corona restaurant. He stresses that he has employed hundreds, if not thousands of Hispanics in his lifetime.

            “They’re great workers, they’re great people and they’re great people to have working in a restaurant, but we want to hire people that are here legally. I’ve hired many people who were here legally and had their green cards, and people who were born here and had families who were here for generations. I want to hire people who have gone through the process and come here legally. The existing system requires that you have an I-9 document. Every employee needs an I-9. On the back of that I-9 form you are required to have some form of identification, and always a Social Security number. This should automatically tell if your name matches that number. The reality is that you want to make sure that that number is valid.”

            “As it is now,” he explains, “somebody can apply (for work) without a valid number. This system will also help to pick that up. We just want to be sure that the Social Security card is not fraudulent.”

            The I-9 form is Immigration Document #9, which verifies the identification of the person that the employer is hiring. Everyone of every color and background must fill an I-9 form. It goes into your file and requires two forms of identification. A driver’s license or passport or green cards, and always, your Social Security number. According to the congressman, the leak in the system was the lack of verification. The card could be forged and there was no follow-up to support it. His new bill is a way for the potential employer to match the name on the card with the name of the applicant.

            As the I-9 is already required of all employers, Calvert does not see this as any new make-work. His program is simply designed to make sure that the submitted SSN is valid and matches the worker. It can be done over the Internet.

            Of course, as a valid SSN number becomes more important, the card will become a more valuable document to forge. The current emphasis on identity theft is expected to protect us from that.

            Calvert himself has been a victim of this 21st century crime. As he points out, when 20 people show up with the same number, that’s when you know you have a problem. Before this new bill, Calvert declares, even the U.S. government had no way to verify the card for their own employees.

            “We’re not checking people, we’re checking the actual card to make sure it’s not fraudulent.”

            Does supporting laws designed to fight illegal immigration make Congressman Calvert a racist?

            “I don’t buy that,” he responded to us. “I’ve lived here all of my life in a heavily Hispanic area. Most of my employees have been Hispanic. And there are just as many people in their communities who believe that people should play by the rules as in any other community.”

            He believes that most people of any demographic understand the pressure that gets put on everyone. He also believes that there is competition in the workforce that artificially holds down the wage potential, and there is some natural anxiety in some neighborhoods because of that.

            “But that’s not the reason I’m doing this. People should come into this country legally, not illegally.”

            In the end, Calvert admits that there is much in this country that is attractive to the people of many third world countries. What he is attempting to do here is to make the available jobs harder to get illegally. If you have to have solid proof of who you are and how you got here, the free flow of illegals should taper simply because jobs will be harder to get.

            If Calvert’s efforts succeed, properly enforced laws should do more to resolve the immigration problem than fences or armed enforcement of the borders. Considering the tragic tales of people being taken advantage of by their own kind, such as the so-called “coyotes” and suffering for it---this could be the best way to resolve both sides of the problem.