So we have this voluntary database where employers can check to see if their workers are documented because if they don't, they can be prosecuted for knowingly hiring illegals, but the problem is that the system is so old and unreliable that no one can prove that the companies hired the people in spite of knowing their legal status.
The system needs to be seriously revamped and expanded to help catch these businesses who skirt through the loopholes, but first, its use has to be made mandatory in every state, and it needs a lot of money.
President Bush's budget request calls for adding $115 million to the program's current budget of $20 million to make it mandatory across the country. (The spending also includes a system that will eventually check the immigration status of applicants for driver's licenses and other benefits.)
So there goes a lot of money for a program that, even when it's finished, will still leave the real bad guys (the employers who skirt past the system) unpunished, in the end, because we know their friends in Washington will come to the rescue when the timing is right. Great.
Tags: [database to help catch illegal workers and the employers who hire them], [immigration issue], [Migration Policy Institute], [database needs expansion to help with immigration reform]
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