Immigration Laws: April, 1995 - Number #3

Congress continued to hold hearings throughout March on proposals to reduce illegal immigration and reform the system for admitting legal immigrants. The Commission on Immigration Reform (CIR) considered many of the same issues. The CIR is expected to issue recommendations on legal immigration during the summer of 1995.

On March 7, 1995, Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) held a joint press conference to announce plans to introduce legislation that deals with legal and illegal immigration. Simpson, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs, introduced a bill targeting illegal immigration, and a hearing was held on S 269 on March 14, 1995.

Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, has been holding weekly hearings on immigration issues. Smith announced that he would not support a House Republican plan to make legal immigrants ineligible for welfare benefits, but that he would support measures that would make sponsors of immigrants legally liable for supporting them until the alien becomes a US citizen.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) introduced a reform package on March 21 which includes a $1.00 border crossing fee, increases in civil and criminal penalties for forgers and makes document fraud an aggravated felony. The measure would also increase employer sanctions with fines ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 per undocumented worker hired. Current fines range from $250 to $2,000. Feinstein's reform package also includes an employer verification system and adding 2,100 Border Patrol agents.

Unlike the Simpson measure, the legislation does not call for reducing legal immigration. Feinstein has not endorsed Simpson's plan, although the two measures are similar.

The 41-member House Task Force on Immigration headed by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) is due to make recommendations to reduce illegal immigration by June 1995, so that the House can hold hearings and approve immigration reform legislation by September. Gallegly asserted that his proposals would make it tougher for illegal aliens to enter and work in the US, but he left open the door to an expanded guest worker program to fill "legitimate" labor needs.

The House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology on March 7, 1995 heard about the INS Telephone Verification System (TVS) Pilot system under which 200 employers in industries likely to employ illegal aliens can call in newly hired workers' A-numbers to verify their right to work. Under TVS, an employer gains instant access to the INS database, and can determine whether a newly-hired worker is authorized to work in the US. The employer punches in a code, the employee's date of birth, and his or her A-number, and minutes later receives a report from the INS on whether the A-number is valid, and whether it permits employment.

In 70 percent of the cases, INS confirmed employment authorization right away, and secondary verification took five to ten days. The theory is that fraudulent documents will lose their value, because the employer will in most cases learn instantly that the worker is not authorized to work in the US. The INS system currently works only for aliens, and relies only on INS data.

If the worker is not authorized to work, the employer keeps the employee, mails in a secondary verification form, and awaits the results of manual verification. This INS computer verification system is being extended from 9 businesses nationwide to 200 Los Angeles area employers in 1995-96, and to 1,000 in 1996-97.

On February 23, 1995 CIR Chair Barbara Jordan repeated before the House Judiciary Committee's Immigration and Claims Subcommittee the CIR's recommendation that pilot computer employee validation systems that combine data from Social Security Administration and Immigration and Naturalization Service be tested to enable US employers to determine quickly if ALL newly-hired workers are authorized to be employed in the United States. According to a Harris poll, 53 percent of Americans in 1994 favor a national work permit system for US citizens and authorized aliens, up from 46 percent in 1990.

On February 22, 1995, the INS announced that it had detected over 5,000 aliens working in entry-level hotel, restaurant, construction, and manufacturing jobs in Arizona after a 10-month investigation. About 10 percent of the 50,000 I-9 forms at 500 Arizona companies that were checked by the INS were signed by workers not authorized to hold US jobs. About 500 unauthorized workers were deported, and 30 employers were fined $326,120. According to the INS, most employers were not purposely violating the employer sanctions law.

The CIR also called for better border management--deterring illegal crossings while facilitating legal ones. Jordan also emphasized that, "Deportation is crucial. Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave."

About 333 million foreigners were admitted at 200 air, land, and sea ports with legal visas in FY94, and 662,000 were denied entry to the US--90 percent of the legal entries were over US land borders. About 93 percent of all nonimmigrants enter with visitor visas for pleasure or business.

Procedures for issuing visas vary from country to country, with face-to-face interviews required in countries where fraud is common. Visitors from 22 countries coming to the United States for business or pleasure for up to 90 days may be admitted without visas under the Visa Waiver Pilot Program. Mexicans can receive border crossing cards, which permit them to travel within 25 miles of the border for up to 72 hours.

Of the estimated 300,000 visa overstayers in 1992, 60,000 were Mexicans, 18,000 Italians, 15,000 Filipinos, 13,000 Bahamians, and 9,000 Poles. Lawfully-admitted nonimmigrants comprise approximately 33 percent of aliens filing asylum applications with INS.

According to the British press, there are an estimated 150,000 illegal alien workers from Britain in the US, and more are being apprehended in INS raids on British-themed restaurants. Most presented their US employers with false documents.

On March 14, House Republican leaders decided to bar legal immigrants only from five of the 60-some federal assistance programs that would have become off-limits to them under the original welfare reform proposal. Legal immigrants would be barred from the so-called Big 5 programs--Medicaid ($155 billion in federal-state costs per year), Food Stamps ($27 billion), Disability aid, AFDC ($23 billion), and Title 20 social service programs--they would not be barred from employment and training programs. States would also gain more power to require the sponsors of immigrants to repay the cost of any aid that the immigrants receive.

Most of the savings anticipated from welfare reform come from barring non-citizens from welfare programs. For example, if the proposed ban on non-US citizens receiving AFDC is approved, the CBO estimates that about $2 billion annually would be saved from the $23 billion federal-state AFDC program. During the summer of 1993, about four million mothers were receiving AFDC payments for 10 million children. There were about 4.2 million foreign-born mothers, and nine percent or 400,000 of them were receiving AFDC payments, about the same as the 11 percent rate for US-born mothers.

James Bornemeier, "Feinstein Introduces Measure to Cope with Illegal Immigration," Washington Post, March 22, 1995.
Michael Barone, "Attention: Congress Acting Sensibly," US News and World Report, March 20, 1995, P. 44.
Marc Lacey, "New Task Force Targets Illegal Immigration," Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1995.
"Debate Over Registry Focuses on Scope, Cost," Daily Labor Report, March 15, 1995.