Monday, March 8, 2010

My old pastor would say, "Here comes the mark of the beast." How Lindsey Gramnesty and Shithead Schumer intend to sell us amnesty.


Doubling down on disaster, Lindsey Gramnesty and Chuck "Shithead" Schumer, have decided to make us all get biometric cards in order to insure that we won't get "another wave" of illegals. What about the last five waves they've done nothing about? I know some of you libertarians are all for open borders and don't mind amnesty, but is THIS what you had in mind?!?

MARCH 9, 2010

ID Card for Workers Is at Center of Immigration Plan

By LAURA MECKLER

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 U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

"It's the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. "If you say they can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it."

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We're also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

Mr. Graham says he respects those concerns but disagrees. "We've all got Social Security cards," he said. "They're just easily tampered with. Make them tamper-proof. That's all I'm saying."

U.S. employers now have the option of using an online system called E-Verify to check whether potential employees are in the U.S. legally. Many Republicans have pressed to make the system mandatory. But others, including Mr. Schumer, complain that the existing system is ineffective.

Last year, White House aides said they expected to push immigration legislation in 2010. But with health care and unemployment dominating his attention, the president has given little indication the issue is a priority.

Rather, Mr. Obama has said he wanted to see bipartisan support in Congress first. So far, Mr. Graham is the only Republican to voice interest publicly, and he wants at least one other GOP co-sponsor to launch the effort.

An immigration overhaul has long proven a complicated political task. The Latino community is pressing for action and will be angry if it is put off again. But many Americans oppose any measure that resembles amnesty for people who came here illegally.

Under the legislation envisioned by Messrs. Graham and Schumer, the estimated 10.8 million people living illegally in the U.S. would be offered a path to citizenship, though they would have to register, pay taxes, pay a fine and wait in line. A guest-worker program would let a set number of new foreigners come to the U.S. legally to work.

Most European countries require citizens and foreigners to carry ID cards. The U.K. had been a holdout, but in the early 2000s it considered national cards as a way to stop identify fraud, protect against terrorism and help stop illegal foreign workers. Amid worries about the cost and complaints that the cards infringe on personal privacy, the government said it would make them voluntary for British citizens. They are required for foreign workers and students, and so far about 130,000 cards have been issued.

Mr. Schumer first suggested a biometric-based employer-verification system last summer. Since then, the idea has gained currency and is now a centerpiece of the legislation being developed, aides said.

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.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn't have a position on the proposal, but it is concerned that employers would find it expensive and complicated to properly check the biometrics.

Mr. Schumer said employers would be able to buy a scanner to check the IDs for as much as $800. Small employers, he said, could take their applicants to a government office to like the Department of Motor Vehicles and have their hands scanned there.
—Alistair MacDonald contributed to this article.

Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com

24 comments:

Diogenes said...

Seems to me that none of these things work because someone, somewhere in the system is willing to 'bend the rules' for a dime. Look at what happened with the BMV workers and Identity theft ring recently.


They won't get it till that .30 cal round fly's into the gray matter. Then it won't matter.

Brock Townsend said...

Graham is a disgrace to SC, the South and all Patriots. He should be tarred and feathered, along with a few other things.

http://www.namsouth.com/viewtopic.php?t=75&highlight=quotes
"Some people are alive because it is illegal to kill them."
--Unknown

jon said...

they're finding any way they can to get you the same exact biometric id card technology that they failed to get through as "REAL" and succeeded as "TWIC." apparently, if you pick the right letters, americans nod their heads in approval.

so since we now have a biometric ID for transport workers, pretty soon, we'll all be "transport workers." that is the logic and principle of the monopoly of force.

drjim said...

Yeah, I had to get a TWIC for the last job I had. My employer paid the cost, but the paperwork was a PITA.

Jimmy the Saint said...

@Brock Townsend

Some of Batman's opponents have similarly useful quotes. Lady Shiva, for example:

"I believe in letting people do as they wish, as do I myself. Sometimes, of course, what I wish to do is kill them and they do not wish to die. This gives life interest."

"I answer this with blood and pain and cold, damp graves for my enemies."

Or, if you prefer, Black Mask:

"I'm listening, and when I say I'm listening, I'm also thinking about killing you."

Anonymous said...

1.Want to reduce illegal aliens? Start with abolishing automatic citizenship by premeditated accident of birth. Next, how about regular round ups followed by a long bus or truck ride back to Mexico?

2.Who says Libertarians want open borders? Maybe an Ayn Rand anarchist does, but I don't. Man is a horribly fallen creature. There has to be some control, like maybe a Constitution or dare I say a Bible? That's why the founders tried, alas vainly, to construct a limited government.

3.When are these idiots going to understand that enough is enough? This has nothing to do with “illegal immigration” and all to do with control. Leave me alone!

4.What are they going to do if I refuse to get one of these cards, shoot me? That's a rhetorical comment, but as Mike has said many times, “No more Waco's”.

5.Grrrrrr!

Anonymous said...

I've never liked Schumer...

So rather than close the borders and stop outsourcing jobs to foreign nations, we're just going to start labeling everyone like bread at the supermarket?

These people will do ANYTHING for a minority vote...

typeay said...

The Book of Revelations, Chapter 13

Get a King James version, it hasn't been "PCed" up.

Anonymous said...

No, no, no, and no.
This would fail on too many levels.
1-Expense. Between the gov't & everyone else, there ain't enough money to implement this type of a program on ANY sort of scale.
2-Privacy. Just like all the 2A /gun control arguments, this would be the beginning of a slippery slope. First, optional. Then peer pressure. Then mandatory. And last (maybe?), an implanted RFID chip with a barcode tattoo. And on to the next generation, at birth.
3-And I'm sure, just like past iterations of the HellthKill bill, there would be those "special ones" who would be exempt from any / all of the above.
4a-Reliability. How sure & pure is this biometric technology. Will I be mistaken for some terrorist 5 states over? And be presumed guilty without a chance to prove innocence? The TSA can't keep their watchlists straight now, how can I trust them (and by extension, the rest of the gov't), with advanced technology.
4b-As a corollary, how foolproof is this? Is the card tamper-proof? 'Nuff said there.

Or is this just a distraction to have us go off chasing phantoms while Obeyme slips us a cold-gloved HellthKill Law?

B Woodman
III-per

Anonymous said...

"2.Who says Libertarians want open borders? Maybe an Ayn Rand anarchist does, but I don't. Man is a horribly fallen creature. There has to be some control, like maybe a Constitution or dare I say a Bible? That's why the founders tried, alas vainly, to construct a limited government.

3.When are these idiots going to understand that enough is enough? This has nothing to do with "illegal immigration" and all to do with control. Leave me alone!
"

This has everything to do with "illegal competition with American workers". Leave me alone, I don't want any of your Christian-Constitutional control of workers and employers.

Wyn Boniface said...

I vote for the big L and I no of nowhere that is a plank of the party.

I am already bio-metrically scanned. Any camera that spots me know it is me with facial and body recognition technology. Any individual who has gone through FAST is tagged as such, but it is required for me to acquire the business I wanted to start. I am unemployed. I cannot think of a choice. Am I to start a war? Sorry, I am so pissed off now-a-days . . . :(

Anonymous said...

We had this fence thing that Congress approved a few years ago. Did you guys finish that yet?

INS in some cases refuses to actually do their job and deport these people-leaving it to local LEOs like Joe Arpaio to do it. Which then predictably draws howls of protest from some of the same people who are responsible for this task.

The simple economic calculation is that it is cheaper to hire the illegals, run the risk, and take the profits (while they last). Which is exactly why so many businesses do it. So what happens if the fine is increased by 5-10x for each illegal? The cost/benefit ratio probably becomes unfavorable. Problem solved.

But predictably, this is how leviathan works. Punish and harass the innocent for the sake of the guilty. Why? Because it's not about actually solving the problem, it's about increasing power. Never let a problem go to waste right?

Want a real solution to illegals? Paste this in your address browser..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback

I guess I might have to be an "undocumented worker" in the future.

Eric
III

Nate Gray said...

This part made my stomach drop, my cackles raise, and my blood run cold.
"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."
Hit your knees folks, only our Lord Jesus Christ can steel you from what is coming. Now check your preps and keep that hatchet scoured.

Bill St. Clair said...

I don't believe in open borders. You need my permission to enter my property. But as far as I'm concerned, the US government doesn't, and can't, own any property, so they have no business requiring anybody to have permission to enter or leave the country, or to hire anyone they please to work on any mutually-agreed-upon job for any mutually-agreed-upon price.

rexxhead said...

I've said it before and I'll say it again. In fact, I'll say it right now:

We don't have an "illegal immigrant problem"; we have a "welfare problem". Abolish government-run welfare for everyone, and your illegal immigrant problem will evaporate like morning dew.

Then, the only people coming to America will be like your great-grandfather who came to work hard and build a good life for his family. Those people made America great, and the ones who come here next year will do the same thing.

jeffrey Quick said...

Your old pastor was right, Mike.
Iowa Patriot: Ayn Rand wasn't an anarchist. Bill St. Clair's comment was as close to a purist libertarian position as you'll find. Pragmatically, I think that the difficulties in establishing freedom in one country justify at least temporary immigration restriction; one can make the case that our sorry state now comes from letting in too many Germans and Russians in the 19th c. Fallenness really has nothing to do with it, given that Mexicans are no more or less fallen than WASPS. As for what they will do if you refuse...you won't. They will starve you out. I imagine that the requirement in order to buy and sell will be phased in gradually. "Civil unrest" would give them the excuse to restrict sales of gasoline, so you won't be able to get to work (assuming you've found work under the table that doesn't require the card). Then (or maybe earlier) ATF and medical care, finally food. Your only hope of survival will be to have land, and like-minded productive neighbors (Amish?) to trade with. If you're in the city, you're livestock; submit to the brand.

Hollywood said...

Of course a true libertarian, does want ID cards. I want to be able to hire anyone I want for the job at a price we both agree.

Learn English, be productive and don't infringe on any one's rights and I will be glad to call you countryman, I don't care if you were born on Mars.

Liberty is for all, and we must be the "shining city on the hill", or saving the republic isn't worth it.

For the first 100 years we have almost no immigration law, and it wasn't until 1882 do we start to block the Chinese Laborer from becoming citizens...

Immigration is not the problem, free tax funded services are!

Anonymous said...

They already demand you number your child at birth if you are in their tax system and he/she is born in a hospital.

Remember that he who accepts a benefit is thereby beholden to the giver of said benefit.

Maybe it is time to avoid being an American worker on their plantation.

Underground economy, home school, home birthing, back to the land, turn off your television, shred the credit cards, roll your own ammo, and sharpen your knives....it is getting to be nut cutting time.

Sean D Sorrentino said...

I have a much cheaper solution. Rather than waste time and money on a card that you could lose, we could all just get some centrally issued number tatooed to our forearms. It'd be permanent, impossible to lose, and it'd go well with the striped pajamas they will eventually insist we wear.

Anonymous said...

[T]he US government doesn't, and can't, own any property,..--Bill St. Clair

"All [government] property is theft." Karl Marx

Scratch an anarchist and you quickly discover the communist beneath.

Who owns the courts, ports and forts that are indispensable to the rule of law and defense of the private property order?

Isn't this what the US Constitution delineates as the fedgov's rightful authority?

MALTHUS

F. Harold Harkawad said...

When anyone here has a few dollars to spare and a few hours to read, there is a book of futurist / speculative fiction, called 'Rebelfire: Out of the Gray Zone" a collaboration between Clair Wolf and Aaron Zelman, of JPFO. Not a new book, and written primarily to interest teen and young adult readers in second amendment, nanny-state and libertarian issues, it portrays a chillingly realistic portrait of a grim and oppressive ( but not hopeless! ) future in which statist control and national ID monitoring are accepted parts of everyday life.
If you can overlook the youth-slant, I think that a lot of IIIpers would find it very thought provoking, as it touches in this issue and so many more discussed here...

The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit said...

Will they be available in a convenient ear-tag format? If they're wanting to treat us like cattle, the least they can do is be honest about it.

As a non-Randian anarchist, I'm all for open borders. And as that same sort of anarchist, I'm all against government ... well, government ANYTHING. If "that government is best which governs least" was good enough for the founders AND Lao Tzu, it's good enough for me.

Anonymous said...

"Pragmatically, I think that the difficulties in establishing freedom in one country justify at least temporary immigration restriction"

No. Do you encourage casual sex to teach chastity? Then why would you reduce liberty to increase liberty? There is never a correct reason to infringe on liberty. Not for the children, not to fight drugs of abuse, not to resist totalitarianism overseas, not during a war. Liberty is the most important in the very midst of when elites have stampeded herds of idiots into warring with each other. America would have avoided WWII if Americans had been free to stay home, live their lives, not pay war taxes, and not have their factories turned to war production. There was a draft because Americans were so unconvinced about this war that somebody had to put a bayonet in their backs to make them go. Follow the money or follow the bayonets; they lead to the same place.

"one can make the case that our sorry state now comes from letting in too many Germans and Russians in the 19th c."

No. The mistake was letting them, or anyone, vote. Follow the bayonets and you'll find the instigators of our sorry state.

"Who owns the courts, ports and forts that are indispensable to the rule of law and defense of the private property order?"

Do you mean the same courts, ports and forts that want to impose biometric cards and an Iron Curtain? Or some other, mythical ones where power doesn't corrupt and every representative is a saint? Let's instead try an answer which has a solid historical track record: Whoever chooses to start those businesses and attract dispute resolution and burglar-repelling customers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_mercatoria

You are arguing that there must exist only one instance of these institutions, for stability. You might call such "stability" a one world government, or a Union of Soviets. I'm glad that there exists more than one government, otherwise who would have fought the Nazis? Your argument is circular. The State has a monopoly on policing simply because it granted itself one. If you want to how this situation came to be, you have to look outside the State's self-justifying propaganda.

"Isn't this what the US Constitution delineates as the fedgov's rightful authority?"

Who cares? The same document also said that imported brown people are only 3/5ths human, and I don't believe that, either. That same document led to this current mess, and I'm not impressed with it.

CCW said...

"I know some of you libertarians are all for open borders and don't mind amnesty, but is THIS what you had in mind?!?"

This is exactly what I have in mind, which is why I oppose the current obsession with poor people coming here for jobs.

For years and years I was a believer in the "libertarianism in one country" meme that seems pretty common amongst our gunnie crowd. But I've come to realize that the problem is that it's not enforceable without eroding the rights of the citizenry. The solution always ends up looking and acting like a Bolshevik government perpetually hounding out the impure elements of society.

I don't want employers to have to take data and withhold taxes from anyone at the behest of the government. I don't want another "your papers please" internal security system built up. I don't want to support a massive, tyrannical security state.

Second, I am against the welfare state in all its forms so the argument that these people are bankrupting that system doesn't fly with me. Rexxhead is right.