May 18, 2007 9:17AM # Immigration Reform = National ID? By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE Yesterday’s “breakthrough” on comprehensive immigration reform is indeed salutary. But as the *Washington Post* [editorializes](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051702190.html) this morning, “It’s critical that in addressing one set of immigration problems, the legislation doesn’t create a new set.” One potential problem is the creation of a national ID in the process of expanding worker surveillance for intensified internal enforcement. This was the subject of a hearing in the House Immigration Subcommittee at which [I recently testified](https://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-jh04262007.html). Like many, I’ll be watching carefully to see if a national ID system is part of the ineluctable logic of the immigration reform deal that has been struck. Ineluctably, I’ll be calling it like I see it. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).