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Legislation

administration announced a number of steps

Introduction

in mid-August 2007 to promote registration

requiring

and tracking of American workers.

national worker

About 10 years before Miller and Moore

More than a decade ago, a Cato Institute

registration and a

sounded the alarm in their Cato study, the

study opened with an urgent alert:

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 19863

national ID

Republicans in the House and Senate

introduced the concept of "internal enforce-

system could

are moving quickly forward with Or-

ment" into U.S. immigration law. IRCA condi-

wellian legislation that would create a

tioned Americans' ability to work on proving

advance with any

national computerized registration sys-

their legal presence and status in the country.

immigration-

tem for all American workers. The new

This requirement was supposed to suppress

related legislation

federal computer worker registry, which

illegal immigration by reducing the magnet of

is intended to reduce illegal immigra-

relatively high-paying work that brought such

moving through

tion, is the crucial first step toward the

immigrants into the country.

Congress.

implementation of a national identifica-

But internal enforcement did not work.

tion card system for all 120 million

With employment in the United States still

American workers.1

very attractive and legal opportunities for

immigration restricted, people continued to

come to the United States illegally.

In their paper, "A National ID System: Big

Policymakers conveniently chalked up the

Brother's Solution to Illegal Immigration,"

failure of internal enforcement to weakness in

John J. Miller from the Center for Equal

implementation rather than to theory or

Opportunity and Stephen Moore of the Cato

design. They quickly set to strengthening inter-

Institute called this system "an ill-conceived

nal enforcement rather than scrapping it. The

idea that would grant the government vast

creation of an electronic employment eligibili-

new police-state powers, require citizens to

ty system called "Basic Pilot" in 1996 was one

surrender basic freedoms and privacy rights,

such measure. As Miller and Moore had point-

and fail to halt illegal immigration." The lead-

ed out, making it work would require a nation-

ers of virtually every libertarian, conservative,

al ID card and massive databases of informa-

and civil liberties organization in America,

tion about all American workers. Nevertheless,

they reported, had denounced the computer

registry as "misguided and dangerous."2

Basic Pilot went ahead, and it may soon move

further forward.

Miller and Moore's study evidently educat-

Along with its Orwellian features, today we

ed policymakers and helped stave off such a

know that administering a system of electron-

system. Nevertheless, a pilot program begun

ic EEV would conjure Franz Kafka as well. A

then now threatens to resurrect the national

sizable percentage of workers--foreign- and

computerized registration system they warned

native-born alike--would be denied the ability

of, with all the big-government ills that sur-

to work legally by a faceless federal database

round it. A dozen years later, it is time to

system. Deemed ineligible by the database, mil-

sound the alarm again.

lions of American workers each year would

In last summer's congressional debate on

have to present themselves at the Department

immigration reform, a worker registration and

of Homeland Security and the Social Security

national identification (national ID) system

Administration, clutching their identity papers

was treated almost as a matter of consensus

and pleading for the right to work.

agreement. It remains a viable--even promi-

Such a system would make working in the

nent--policy option in the immigration area,

United States more difficult, of course, but it

and legislation requiring national worker reg-

would not eliminate the United States' attrac-

istration and a national ID system could

tion to immigrants. Some potential illegal

advance with any immigration-related legisla-

immigrants would change their plans, but

tion moving through Congress. The Bush

2