> I don't know what is "normal human behavior" in your part of the world.
> The US, like other Western societies, are based on law. And if a
> person wants to have any kind of future in the US, he or she better
> follows the law.
Lol I am probably from one of the most law abiding places on this planet (maybe the austrians beat us to it). You know, the kind of place were people wouldn't cross the road at a 'don't walk' signal even if it was 2 am on a deserted backcountry highway.
> From some third-class novel, obviously.
I guess you could call the NY times a third-class novel if you are politically conservative enough
http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=green cards&date_select=full&srchst=nyt
I can't link to the original article as it is subscription only, but here is a free reprint of the same article in the San Diego Union Tribune:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050607/news_1n7socsec.html
Because the NYT says so doesn't make it true, but I have no reason to believe that it doesn't work. In fake documents you get what you pay for. I am sure, for maybe 1k you can get something better than the goverment can make it (for enough money you can probably get a genuine GC. They are made by a private company, again employing potentially corrupt workers.)
> Sure, you can get fake GCs, e.g., here in LA, in Macarthur Park.
> But such forgeries are easily detectable. Now, the average
> store owner may not be able to do so,
The average store owner doesn't WANT to recognize a card as fake. His only obligation in IRCA is to check whether the documents produced SEEM to be genuine. If I remember correctly, all he has to retain is the I-9, there isn't even a requirement to keep photocopies of produced documents (If you hire farmworkers in the field, how are you going to carry a photocopier around.....)
> but the person just has to get in a police checkpoint.
Coming to the states for 20 years now, live here for many. Got into a checkpoint by CBP once, and that was 50mi south of Bennington, VT actually on the way back from the Vermont Service Center.
> And in more and more cities, police is allowed to inquire about
> the immigration status of a person. It is becoming tough to be an
> illegal in the US...
And in other cities, the police deliberately don't ask. They know that their potential witness pool will shrink even further if anybody who talks to the cops is in danger of getting picked up.
> That's of course BS. Some employers want cheap labor, of
> course... Big surprise. The thing is that the borders are not
> controllable unless there is something like a wall erected.
> And that looks a bit too much like Eastern Europe...
Well, the employment verification would be fixable, wouldn't it ? If there was a will, a couple of 100 mil spent here would go a long way to eliminate illegal employment, the key driving factor of illegal immigration. The goverment could hire a contractor (like the guys running application support centers) to re-issue new SSN cards over a 3 year phase-in period. Everybody would have to go there provide proof of citizenship or a genuine GC, get a digital picture taken. The contractors (supervised by SSN officials) would have access to the legacy INS database as well as the current USCIS computer to verify identities.
And from this day on would have a biometrically encoded SSN card. Unless you have that card, only a valid EAD (no cheapo laminating machine interim EAD's anymore) will be sufficient to proove employment verification. With the ubiquitous internet, employers will be able to enter the SSN and a control-number from the card and get a likeness of the authorized employee on their screen. IRCA was written in the mid 80s, long before universal internet access for company HR departments.
This of course would be the bulletproof solution. A little babystep would be a universal website were employers could punch in a SSN and a name and pull up the 'no match' or 'not allowed to work without INS authorization' right then and there. For case #2, it could also pull up the validity of the presented EAD or visa through a cross-matching with a USCIS database.
Would this be technologically and financially impossible ? No, but it would be politically impossible. I stand by my (and many other folks) assessment:
The political system in the US WANTS a pool of illegal workers in the country. They keep labor costs low, the unions in check and on top of all, the crooks currently in power get political contributions from people who make good money exploiting illegal labor.
> The fines for employers hiring illegals are going to be raised soon
> as well. This is all part of the current anti-immigrant climate.
Fines are going up, enforcement is going down. Who cares.
> And more or less encouraging people to try the illegal route,
> like what you do in this thread, is only going to make it worse.
I am not encouraging anybody. The people stuck in a illegal situation know far more about the ins and outs of fixing these things than I could ever know.
PS:
The 30% number wasn't entirely pulled out of my #$%. There was a report by the office of the inspector general in 1993. They randomly picked 600 labor certifications and followed up whether a. the job actually existed b. the sponsored person ever worked that job. The results were scathing. Their recommendation to I believe Donna Shalala at the time was (paraphrased): 'The alien labor certification program utterly fails in all of its core requirements such as the protection of domestic workers from foreign competition etc. It should be either completely revamped, or abolished.' And you see how much effort they made to fix the problems. Instead of having the dysfunctional SWA doing the recruiting, they have now switched it to the honors system (RIR/PERM).
