Illegal Immigration Vs. a National Biometric ID Card

I'm going to wade into potentially dangerous territory today.

In an article in the WSJ today, author Laura Meckler writes:

"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 plan is being formed by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.).

Of course, privacy advocates are concerned. Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, responds that "it is fundamentally a massive invasion of people's privacy....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."

Exactly how is it being "treated like criminals" to provide identification to get a job? Don't we already have to provide a résumé? Don't we already provide a SSN? Don't employers already call around to verify our employment history, and sometimes perform extensive background checks?

It seems that what the ACLU is really concerned about is identifying the people who have illegally entered the country, illegally falsified identification, and illegally acquired jobs, and treating THEM like the criminals they are.

It is clear, in fact, it's indisputable, that this would require every citizen and legal resident to submit certain biometrics in order to acquire the card. And yes, to a certain extent, this card could be used "to track citizens".

But exactly how is that different from the way the government currently uses the Social Security Number today? In fact, it can be argued that the use of the Social Security Number is in direct violation of the promise by the Federal Government that the SSN would NOT be used for the purpose of identifying citizens. The original intent of the SSN was ONLY for the purpose of providing Social Security as a form of insurance.

However, Congress allowed a perversion of that intent and it morphed into the disastrous situation we have today, in which that number is used to verify an individual's identify for just about every important transaction in which he or she engages. Need a loan or credit? Show your SSN. Need a Driver's License? Show your SSN. Need a doctor's checkup? Show your SSN.

We now have a runaway problem in which organized crime is defrauding America of TRILLIONS of dollars by stealing SSNs in bulk. What's more, illegal immigrants have become some of the primary recipients of these stolen ID numbers.

And even more frightening, we are wide open to massive electoral fraud unless we get this situation under control.

So, let me ask this question: how is it any more intrusive to carry a card that is directly tied to biometric identifiers that are truly unique to the person and prevent the identifying number from being stolen and 're-purposed' by criminals? How is this different from a Social Security Card, except that it will be used for its actual intended purpose? How is it different from the use of a birth-certificate (which also can be falsified), or a Passport?

If there are privacy concerns, surely those can be handled through legislation. Why not?

In fact, there is really no reason why we could not issue a national biometric identification card {referred to as NBIDC from now on} AND solve the problems surrounding identity theft tied to the use of SSNs.

I have travelled and lived Latin America, and without exception, every country I've visited uses a national ID card, or Carnét. These are used to verify each individual's identity when requesting a bank account, credit, a passport, and yes, even before voting. To my knowledge, it has yet to become a "privacy issue" in these countries, or at least, no more so than a SSN is here in the United States.

But what are the benefits to issuing an NBIDC?

• In the battle against illegal immigration, the only entity enabled to police immigration is the Federal Government.
• Business owners who want to comply with the law and not hire illegals run the risk of a discrimination lawsuit if they ask to see proof of citizenship from anyone they suspect might be a foreigner.
• Police are constantly being sued for discrimination whenever they stop individuals whom they suspect are here illegally.
• Because drivers licenses in most states can be acquired even without being a legal citizen (either legally or illegally by easily circumventing the identification methods in place), driver's licenses are not a good preventative measure. And in many states, that's all that's required to vote, so we run the risk of non-citizens voting for who-so-ever promises the most to foreign interests or to keep the borders open so their 37 relatives can also come here--illegally.

We can't tell business owners that they "shall not" employ illegal immigrants if there is no method for them to identify legal residents.

And until the job opportunities for illegals dries up, we'll never solve that problem.

Think about the cost of continuing "business as usual".

• Massive illegal immigration provides a source of cheap labor to companies that would otherwise have to pay more to legal residents and citizens.
• It creates a debilitating drain on our social services--such as health care--and that cost is forwarded onto all citizens and legal residents.
• Illegal immigrants have been tied directly to many crimes, ranging from identity theft, to drug trafficking, burglaries, rapes and murders, not to mention the many thousands of automobile-related accidents costing our citizens financially and in lost loved ones.
• Our jails are beginning to overflow with illegal immigrants. In fact, it's become such a problem, many illegals receive a virtual "get out of jail free" card for their minor infractions. This means that there is a growing double standard wherein citizens are punished more harshly for their infractions while illegal immigrants are repeatedly given second, third, fourth chances.
• If we can't stop their access to jobs, the temptation will remain for them to cross our borders, which will again infuriate the citizens who in turn will push for a militarized border and the construction of costly fences and other measures to stop them.
• What would be more cost effective: A thousand mile fence, or a National ID Card?
• And there is a national security element to the discussion, as well. If we eliminate the numbers of illegal immigrants we also reduce the ability for terrorists to enter the country and hide among them. We provide a mechanism by which individuals who enter the country LEGALLY with the intention of overstaying their visas (and thus become ILLEGAL down the road) to be more easily identified and deported.

To review: The idea that an NBIDC poses some danger to "privacy" is a red-herring. To the contrary, it poses no greater threat than that already existing thanks to the abuse of the SSN, and in fact offers an opportunity to eliminate that abuse, save the economy trillions of dollars, reduce credit interest rates, secure our electoral system, and provide a mechanism by which employers and law enforcement can identify the illegals among us and deport them.

The REAL issue here is: how do we want to go about deporting millions of illegals? Or should we give the current millions "amnesty" in exchange for this problem-solver?

Forget the Bush Doctrine. We need to look forward.

Coffee break talk last Friday centered on Sarah Palin’s first interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson. In general, she received good marks for her adroit responses to Gibson’s questions, with the one exception being Gibson’s alleged “gotcha” moment when he asked her: "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?''

Palin paused, looking a bit perplexed, and tried to get some clarification by asking: “In what regard?”

When Gibson finally—and rather pedantically—revealed that he was referring to the Bush policy of pre-emptive strikes, Palin responded by reaffirming that the US has the right to respond to what it perceives as an imminent threat.

Liberals tried to point to this moment as an example of how Palin is weak on her comprehension of international policies and is ignorant about the “Bush Doctrine”. All which is powerfully contradicted by the brilliant commentator, Charles Krauthammer, in his article “Gibson’s Gaffe”.

Krauthammer makes the point that there is not one “Bush Doctrine”, but rather a total of four. The one to which Gibson referred is the third in the series, and technically was incorrect, because it is Bush’s fourth policy statement that will probably be remembered as his “doctrine”:

"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of
liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of
freedom in all the world."

Liberals have remained fixated on Bush’s third policy statement, the one stating that the US has the right to preemptively strike against nations that harbor terrorists or support them and pose a threat to US security. They cling to this argument because they believe they will gain political points—and political office—by reminding America of how we got into the war in Iraq.

This may be an interesting discussion, but discussions of "presidential doctrine" is table fare for historians and will do nothing for America's future. So Charlie Gibson's question was not only misleading and probably wrong, but really was totally irrelevant!

I’d like to use this moment as an example of how these so-called “leaders” are not leading at all. It was not Bush’s third policy statement that is now heating the current and riskiest global crisis, but his fourth and most far-reaching that needs deeper examination.

The “Bush Doctrine” quoted by Krauthammer is potentially the more controversial of the two. After all, it this part of the Bush policies that has inspired the administration to take such an aggressively supportive role of Eastern European democracies such as Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, and Georgia. Bush’s determination to defend the former Soviet bloc countries is making Moscow feel threatened. In response to the ‘missile shield’ that the United States is offering to put into Poland and the Czech republic is at the source of the conflict with Georgia/Russia. We must remember that it was shortly after the Bush administration worked out deals to locate the missiles in Poland that Moscow responded, threatening that their response could be a military one.

Russian President Medvedev was quoted in NOVOSTI, Russian news source:

“These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us,"
Medvedev said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television on Tuesday. "This will
create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way,
naturally using military means." … The Russian president said that offering NATO
membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics, would only
aggravate the situation.

Shortly afterward, the Russians apparently manufactured a political crisis in Georgia by encouraging Georgian rebels of Russian descent to ramp up their activities. The Georgians responded militarily in an attempt to restore control of the breakaway region, giving Moscow the excuse it wanted to invade the territory in the role of “peace keepers.”

While the US and Europe wrung their hands over the issue, it became clear that the US was not willing to confront Russia militarily. But the Bush administration did respond diplomatically, and began to press to speed the inclusion of the other Soviet bloc nations in NATO, thus providing them with a promise of multilateral military defense, if needed.

Predictably, this action again provoked Russia. But watch this time, it appears that the Russians are looking to expand their influence in our hemisphere.

Weeks after the Georgian conflict, as tensions between the United States and Russia continue to escalate, Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez declared that Venezuela sided with the Russians in the Georgian affair, and bragged that the Russians and Venezuelans were planning war games in the Caribbean region.

The Russians then flew two Tu-160 long distance strategic bombers into Venezuela. Chavez declared that the presence of the bombers was a warning to Washington that “Venezuela is no longer poor and alone.”

Other reports indicated that Chavez had been courting Russia for a long time in the hope of convincing Moscow to establish a Navy port there and install an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean.
Congresswoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said she was not concerned about the presence of the Russian bombers in Venezuela: “I don’t think Russia would launch attacks on the United States.” By contrast, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md) said that “There is a continuing pattern over the last several months of Russian intimidation…and they are using the same old bullying intimidation tactics that go back to Brezhnev and Stalin.”

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, stated clear concern.

“What you are suggesting doesn’t surprise me, and yes it concerns me,” said Murkowski. “If it is clearly a flexing of muscle and effort to display force, it makes you wonder what the objective is and what the appropriate response should be.”

What is the objective?

Today’s leaders—both Republicans and Democrats—may be missing the point entirely. The threat is not that Russia might launch a military attack against the United States. It is that the Russians might act as a shield to protect Chavez’s socialist regime, giving him the ability to increase his interventionist policies in regional countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and others.

This past weekend, violence erupted in some of the Bolivian ‘departments’ (the equivalent of states) between supporters of socialist president Evo Morales and his conservative, capitalist opponents. The Bolivians expelled the American diplomat, claiming that he was promoting violent protests. Chavez stepped in and expelled the American diplomat in Caracas, causing a quid pro quo expulsion of the Venezuelan ambassador from Washington. Chavez then demanded that the Bolivian government respond with force to the “imperialist aggression” and that if Morales was overthrown, he—President Chavez—would send Venezuelan troops to Boliva. “I am prepared to die for Boliva,” he professed.

If the Russians had a naval base in Venezuela, Chavez would feel free to deliver on his repeated, hollow threats. The borderline-dictator and friend to the Colombia FARC terrorists, having bought the technology to build a Kalashnikov AK-47 and ammunition factory in Venezuela, would have the ability to arm hundreds of thousands of rebel forces throughout the continent, thus turning his dream of creating a continental revolutionary army into a reality. Russian protection would make US intervention in this plan much more difficult.

The objective that eludes our congressmen and women could be this: if the US continues to make threatening moves in the Russian neighborhood, they will respond with parallel maneuvers. If we are uncomfortable, we will have to back off our support for the Soviet bloc democracies to get the Russians out of our back yard.

I cannot reiterate strongly enough how potentially dangerous this is. Chavez has repeatedly insisted that the “non-aligned” nations, including Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, etc. need to work together to create an “asymmetrical” attack on the United States, in his words, to create many “Viet Nams” which would simply be too much for the United States to handle.

The United States is already struggling with the entry of millions of illegal aliens, and this during a time of relative peace throughout Latin America. If Chavez manages to create a wave of socialist revolutions across the continent, the number of refugees could increase exponentially.

It is time for the representatives in Washington to get this through their heads: Hugo Chavez is a serious threat to Democracy in the hemisphere, and his alliance with Russia is potentially explosive.

What should be the American doctrine on the Eastern European democracies? Are we really ready to go to war to defend them when they are threatened by Russian imperialism? If so, are we willing to go to war to defend democracies in our own hemisphere that are threatened by local (Bolivarian) and European (Russian) imperialism? The two concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have nearly broken our nation. Are we going to be drawn into the many "Viet Nams" in which Chavez and his cronies want to lure us, in order to lure us into our own doom?

The best thing that could happen right now would be for idiots like Charlie Gibson to stop playing "Gotcha" and instead start asking Presidential candidates Obama and McCain to address this issue now and clarify what they would do about the situation.