We Should Live - Ben Bateman

Last month’s immigration bill was defeated, but there are no signs that the political classes learned their lesson. Contrary to what that bill’s supporters said during that debate, enforcing our immigration laws wouldn’t be particularly difficult—if we really wanted to enforce them. Every other country on Earth manages it somehow. US Rep. Marsha Blackburn explains on NRO today what a serious effort at immigration enforcement would look like:

Some prominent financial institutions, most notably Bank of America, are consciously exploiting loopholes in federal money-laundering law and “gray areas” within IRS regulations to allow illegal immigrants access to credit cards and loans. Despite intense media pressure and citizen backlash, these institutions continue this practice to this day, without repercussion.

Banks have the option of accepting a range of documents to verify a customer’s proof of identity under current law. And yet, operating within the letter but outside the spirit of the law, certain banks are choosing to allow anyone with an “individual taxpayer identification number” (ITIN) and an additional government-issued form of identification to apply for a credit card or loan.

The catch is that this second form of identification is often the matricula consular, issued by Mexico, and frequently counterfeited and easily obtained on the black market. Without ever having produced a Social Security number, passport, visa, or credit history, an applicant can simply maintain a $500 balance in a checking account for three months for the bank to issue a credit card.

Just as with terrorism, the heart of the serious solution is in the financial system. On terrorism, where the government is serious, some subtle changes to our banking laws have caused our foreign enemies some serious headaches. But on immigration, where our government is not serious, Bank of America welcomes illegal aliens with open arms, and our government looks the other way.

UPDATE: Another article on NRO today points to another simple change in regulations that could have a dramatic effect on illegal immigration:  The Social Security Administration (SSA) already knows which employers hire large numbers of illegal immigrants, because those employers must submit social security numbers under which to pay employment taxes on their illegal alien employees.  These employers scoff at immigration law, but they take the tax laws much more seriously.

Under current law, when the SSA detects an incorrect social security number it sends a letter to the employer and employee informing them of the problem.  But the letter, and the regulations behind it, assume that the employer has no knowledge of whether the employer knew that it had hired an illegal alien.

Proposed regulations from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will soon change that.  If these regulations become effective, then employers who receive those letters from the SSA will be required to specifically verify that the name and number match.  If they still don’t match, or if the employer doesn’t bother to check, then DHS may find that the employer knew that it was hiring an illegal alien, and the employer may be subject to penalties under the immigration laws.  It’s a subtle change, but it could make a big difference to those companies that employ illegal aliens—if DHS were to actually bothers to enforce the law against them.

But there’s a catch.  The proposed regulations don’t require the SSA to give this information to DHS.  So as the proposed regulations stand now, the law will be just as it has been: Lots of scary window dressing, but underneath nothing to fear for illegal aliens or their employers.