Keeping Our Eyes on the Ball in the Immigration Debate

So far as I'm concerned, the core of the immigration debate in the US is the human rights issue. But the real sticking point of any program to normalize the immigration situation in the United States is employers' legal responsibility.

This article about pro-immigrant demonstrations in Mississippi this past Monday is a reminder of that: Immigrants rally in Miss.:More than 400 gather at Capitol by Larua Hipp Clarion-Ledger 04/11/06. Mississippi has seen an influx of Latino immigrants over the last decade or so for various jobs, mostly low-skilled labor. As the article notes, estimates of the Hispanic populartion in the state range from around 50,000 to twice that. ("Hispanic" being the common term currently used by demographic surveys.) One of the largest employers in Mississippi is Tyson Food, a spokesman for which is quoted in Hipp's article:

Efforts to enhance employers' ability to verify legal status must be improved, as well, [an anti-immigrant legislator] said.

Officials at Tyson Food Inc. agree. The company has seven processing plants in Mississippi.

Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said managers check Social Security numbers through a federal pilot program to verify an individual's status, but the program has limits.

"It does not currently help us in cases of identity fraud when an individual assumes someone else's name by using their Social Security number," Mickelson said in a statement. "We believe companies should not be placed in the role of policing who has proper work documentation." (my emphasis)

The bolded sentence gets to the core of the sticking point in a solution. Republicans can be expected to go to the wall to prevent anything more than cosmetic enforcement requirements from being imposed on employers. Without that, any immigration-control measure is going to be partial, at best.

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