Is a Biometric Identify Card the Key to Immigration Reform?

By KATY STEINMETZ / WASHINGTON Katy Steinmetz / Washington – Tue Mar 30, 10:25 am ET

Could a national identity card help resolve the heated immigration-reform divide?

Two Senators, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, certainly seem to think so. They recently presented an immigration-bill blueprint to President Barack Obama that includes a proposal to issue a biometric ID card - one that would contain physical data such as fingerprints or retinal scans - to all working Americans. The "enhanced Social Security card" is being touted as a way to curb illegal immigration by giving employers the power to quickly and accurately determine who is eligible to work. "If you say [illegal immigrants] can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it," Schumer told the Wall Street Journal. Proponents also hope legal hiring will be easier for employers if there's a single go-to document instead of the 26 that new employees can currently use to show they're authorized to work.

But with a congressional skirmish over comprehensive immigration reform on the horizon, skeptics from the left and the right have raised numerous concerns about the biometric ID - some of which pop up every time a form of national identification is proposed, and some that hinge on the shape this plan ultimately takes. (See 25 gotta-have travel gadgets.)

The sheer scale of the project is a potential problem, in terms of time, money and technology. The premise of using a biometric employment card (which would most likely contain fingerprint data) to stop illegal immigrants from working requires that all 150 million–plus American workers, not just immigrants, have one. Michael Cherry, president of identification-technology company Cherry Biometrics, says the accuracy of such large-scale biometric measuring hasn't been proved. "What study have we done?" he says. "We just have a few assumptions."

Schumer estimates that employers would have to pay up to $800 for card-reading machines, and many point out that compliance could prove burdensome for many small-to-medium-size businesses. In a similar program run by the Department of Homeland Security, in which 1.4 million transportation workers have been issued biometric credentials, applicants each pay $132.50 to help cover the costs of the initiative, which so far run in the hundreds of millions. "This is sort of like the worst combination of the DMV and the TSA," says Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the ACLU, an organization that has traditionally opposed all forms of national ID. "It's going to be enormously costly no matter what." (See photos of the High Seas Border Patrol in action.)

Lynden Melmed, former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, says the pace of expanding the program is crucial. He believes that issuing the cards on a rolling basis and viewing them as "the next version of the driver's license" makes the idea of a nationally issued biometric ID seem much less daunting. "I think that there is a risk in overreaching too quickly," he says.

Another potential issue is whether the card will result in people being wrongfully denied work. The average person isn't equipped to determine whether two fingerprints are a match - even FBI fingerprint experts have their off days, as when they incorrectly implicated a Portland, Ore., attorney in the 2004 bombings in Madrid - which means employers would be relying on an automated system. And that, as well as the fingerprinting process itself, invariably leads to some small number of mistakes. (See how border-patrol officials are securing the perimeter.)

In testimony given at a Senate immigration hearing in July 2009, Illinois Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, who has led the drive for immigration reform in the House, pointed out that an error rate of just 1% would mean that more than 1.5 million people - roughly the population of Philadelphia - would be wrongly deemed ineligible for work. "This is no small number," he said, "especially in this economy, where so many workers already face extraordinary obstacles to finding a job." Dean Pradeep Khosla, founding director of Carnegie Mellon's cybersecurity lab, estimates that the error rates of computerized systems would likely be less than 2% (and could be less than 1%) but says they can never be zero. Civil-liberties advocates, citing the secret post-9/11 no-fly lists that innocents couldn't get their names removed from, worry about whether those mistakenly put on the no-job list will ever be given the chance to correct the information.

Many skeptics also worry about false positives that come not from the computer but from counterfeits or employers looking to bypass the system. "It's naive to think that this document won't be faked," Calabrese says. "Folks are already paying $10,000 to sneak into the country. What's a couple thousand more?" In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Schumer and Graham said the card would be "fraud-proof" and that employers would face "stiff fines" and possibly imprisonment if they tried to get around using it. But Cherry half-jokes that someone could falsify such an ID in 15 minutes, and Khosla says that while current technology makes fingerprints the most feasible biometric marker to use, they're also one of the easiest to steal.

Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, believes that keeping biometric information out of a centralized database is "the biggest challenge." Otherwise, she says, the prospect of having millions of fingerprints on hand would be too tempting for the government not to abuse. In their op-ed, the Senators said the information would be stored only on the card.

Although the card is being presented as existing solely for determining employment eligibility, "it will be almost impossible to say that this wealth of information is there, but you can only use it for this purpose," Coney says. "Privacy is pretty much hinged on the notion that if you collect data for one purpose, you can't use it for another." Calabrese expresses worries that this ID will become a "central identity document" that one will need in order to travel, vote or perhaps own a gun, which Melmed calls "mission creep."

Some dismiss privacy concerns as reflections of general government mistrust rather than legitimate technology issues. But Melmed believes that the practical issues will have to be addressed before the "social-acceptance debate" over biometric cards can even begin, and both rely on many details that the Senators have yet to present. "People are waiting to see something in writing," Calabrese says. "But the idea doesn't fill people with a warm, fuzzy feeling."

Link to article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100330/us_time/08599197492700

2 comments:

  • Jobless American workers cannot understand the well-documented promotion of many groups assisting illegal aliens push for AMNESTY. Millions of American people have been forced into food banks, trying to save their homes or their only means of transportation from harassing creditors. Then there are all these organizations who should be fighting for its own countryman's hiring, instead of keeping the borders unsecured. The ACLU ( Leon Levy Foundation, the Open Society Institute, Peter B. Lewis and John Sperling had stepped up with pledges totaling $23 million spread over the next three years.) These name's link to the ACLU works daily to support immigration, especially of the illegal alien variety. The US Chamber of Commerce,corporate consortium organizations and even the quasi-government agency called The Council of Foreign Relations want the free flowing cheap labor?

    The 100.000 pro-amnesty protest last Sunday and in the last two months special interest groups have been conspiring in Public Relations build-up throughout this nation; backed by tens of millions of dollars. This money from George Soros (Socialist-Marxist Billionaire), Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation and the giant Service Employers International Unions. In 2001, David Gelbaum hedge fund manager and investor gave the Sierra Club a $101.5 million donation; although Carl Pope head of the Club, who said it didn't affect their agenda, Gelbaum admitted: "I did tell Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me..." I guess this is why the Sierra Club is completely silent to the mounds of trash stretching for miles, where illegal aliens break into our nation? Just goes to show the huge amounts of money laundered into the push for AMNESTY and dollars for politicians campaign contributions, that the average American cannot even comprehend.

    This mix is in collusion with La Raza (The Race) that is said to have a silent agenda of overrunning the Southwest, with prominently Spanish speaking people. LA RAZA, gets its donations from THE FORTUNE 500 companies, U.S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE (an obvious front for corporate interests) LA RAZA also gets donations from WELLS FARGO and BANK of AMERICA and the GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO (we are Mexico’s welfare benefits system) These groups have major money influences in the corridors of power, whereas the general public who want a permanent E-Verify has been ushered to the back. Only these entities, including politicians who see immigration as a wonderful virtue as promoters of greed, gain and profit. Under the push for a Comprehensive Immigration Reform or more honestly assessed as Amnesty, Homeland Security Napolitano has cut the budgets of the fence building (not that it was the two-layer barrier in the first place) or overall positive enforcement.

    Whereas, in the President Bush years this administration did not release illegal workers once caught, releasing significant numbers back in the workforce. All this lax enforcement seems to rising to a imminent crescendo of the possible Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. John McCain apparent Amnesty resurrection? In any new reform Graham-Schumer want to substitute the E-Verify program, already grown in national business awareness for the National biometric ID card. E-Verify is a perfectly stabilized computer application, that is working in removing-some but not all illegal labor, which is gaining strength as it is modified.
    Currently 8 million illegal immigrant are employed, as approximated as being in the workplace. While 14.7 million citizens and legal residents remain unemployed Investigating the truth about the population explosion of illegal immigrants and families in the US, has been carefully manipulated in government reports. But12 million illegal foreigners doesn't agree with the US Border Patrol in Tuscon.

  • We have politicians that have intervened in making E-Verify permanently such as Harry Reid and majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi who are unlikely to be reelected. ONE THINGS FOR SURE, ANY KIND OF AMNESTY WILL BE DIFFICULT TO PASS IN THIS ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT, EVEN AS THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE STILL RISES? THE PROTECTION OF EVERY US WORKERS JOB SHOULD BE FIRST ON ANY AGENDA, INCLUDING A HIGH LEVER OF NATIONAL SECURITY.

    This week the strong ongoing evidence that the border states are in constant danger, when a Arizona Rancher was shot dead on his property near the Southwest border. Rob Krentz with his dog had been shot and killed and was found by an Arizona Public Safety helicopter. Authorities say they found footprints near Krentz's vehicle and followed them to the U.S./Mexican border. .Phil Krentz said that the last time he spoke to Rob, he was responding to an injured illegal alien. The border region is becoming a battleground and it's high time the Homeland Security Chief Napolitano issued orders for the NATIONAL GUARD, fully armed to keep US civilians safe from incursions of drug smugglers, illegal alien criminals and even terrorists. The US border Patrol, and scattered law enforcement is no longer enough to fight this spreading blood bath. Demand this today from our government lawmakers at 202-224-3121. Find out more on all illegal immigration outrages at www.numbersusa.com and www.judicialwatch.org.