Business Groups Up In Arms Over Employer Sanctions Proposals

"Congress ordered up the Basic Pilot system a decade ago to see if it could plug the loopholes that now make it fairly easy for illegal immigrants to hold jobs in the U.S., and fairly risk-free for employers to hire them. Those loopholes were written into a 1986 immigration-overhaul law that for the first time required employers to verify both the identity and work eligibility of their new hires," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Moves in Congress to mandate use of Basic Pilot by all employers are sure to provoke heated debate. Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, insist they support a verification program. But they complain about the unreliability of the government databases, as well as the cost and paperwork burden of checking out their employees through an expanded Basic Pilot system. The Government Accountability Office found that employers who now use Basic Pilot typically spent only $777 each on equipment and training."

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