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U.S. Policy on Asian Immigration (cont'd)
isolation, this argument is persuasive. Given the current situation, where particularly Mexican and Latino workers, including U.S. citizens, are subjected to surprise raids and daily hassles by police and immigration officers, the attraction of the identity system is understandable. What proponents of the employer sanction/national identity system ignore, however, are several realities: 1) regardless of assurances in the law, any identity system can and will be abused to the detriment of the rights to privacy and civil liberties of all people. The Social Security numbers will be used only for purposes of the Social Security Administration -yet we all know that these numbers have become a nearly universal identifier in the United States. 2) The promise of employer sanctions is sham, since it cannot and will not be enforced. The federal government has numerous laws and regulations on the books regarding wages, working conditions and other factors relating to the working environment. They are not enforced. 3) No identity system can be immune from forgeries, and any sophisticated, relatively secure system will be very expensive. 4) There are substantially less intrusive methods of achieving the same ends that the employer sanctions tries to address. These include removing the incentive for hiring exploitable undocumented workers by seriously enforcing the existing laws relating to wages and working conditions -something which has never been attempted.
So it seems that the employers sanction proposals cannot be expected to deal effectively with the undocumented workers situation, but is merely a political response giving the appearance that Congress is "doing" something about what is perceived as a problem. On the other hand, several little-noticed but deadly serious proposals to shift immigration policy will have immediate and widespread impact on our Asian/Pacific communities. In August, the Senate passed the Simpson-Mazzoli bill which will ultimately result in a cap on the total number of preference immigrants and (heretofore unlimited) immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who may legally enter the U.S. each year. It will also remove adult children of permanent residents from the second preference, and completely eliminate the fifth preference which currently permits brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens to immigrate.
The real impact of the Simpson Mazzoli bill, then, will not be in the area of employers sanctions, but in the very real limitations on who can enter the U.S. as legal immigrants. Employer sanctions will result in increased hassles for minority workers, but its effects are survivable. The limitations, however, particularly if they signal a coming trend, will result in permanent separation of family members and in a restriction