Two Senators, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, certainly seem to think so. They recently presented an immigration-bill blueprint to President Barack Obama that includes a proposal to issue a biometric ID card — one that would contain physical data such as fingerprints or retinal scans — to all working Americans. The 'enhanced Social Security card' is being touted as a way to curb illegal immigration by giving employers the power to quickly and accurately determine who is eligible to work. 'If you say [illegal immigrants] can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it,' Schumer told the Wall Street Journal. Proponents also hope legal hiring will be easier for employers if there's a single go-to document instead of the 26 that new employees can currently use to show they're authorized to work.But with a congressional skirmish over comprehensive immigration reform on the horizon, skeptics from the left and the right have raised numerous concerns about the biometric ID — some of which pop up every time a form of national identification is proposed, and some that hinge on the shape this plan ultimately takes.
The sheer scale of the project is a potential problem, in terms of time, money and technology. The premise of using a biometric employment card (which would most likely contain fingerprint data) to stop illegal immigrants from working requires that all 150 million–plus American workers, not just immigrants, have one. Michael Cherry, president of identification-technology company Cherry Biometrics, says the accuracy of such large-scale biometric measuring hasn't been proved. 'What study have we done?' he says. 'We just have a few assumptions.'
Schumer estimates that employers would have to pay up to $800 for card-reading machines, and many point out that compliance could prove burdensome for many small-to-medium-size businesses. In a similar program run by the Department of Homeland Security, in which 1.4 million transportation workers have been issued biometric credentials, applicants each pay $132.50 to help cover the costs of the initiative, which so far run in the hundreds of millions. 'This is sort of like the worst combination of the DMV and the TSA,' says Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the ACLU, an organization that has traditionally opposed all forms of national ID. 'It's going to be enormously costly no matter what.'" ...more
