Brian Bilbray: “I think the key is the fact that every legitimate employer wants to have a simple system that lets them know who is…”

“I think the key is the fact that every legitimate employer wants to have a simple system that lets them know who is qualified to work and who is not. The employer doesn't want to be the person having to make that determination. We require every employer in this country now to get a Social Security number for their employee. All we are saying now, with the Silvestre Reyes-David Dreier bill, H.R. 98, is we will now give the employee a card to prove that it's their number, so that the employer, when they get this number, gets it from a card, doesn't just take somebody's word. It gives us, as legitimate citizens or legal residents, the ability to prove this really is our number, not 20 other people that are using that number somewhere else down the road. This issue of upgrading the Social Security card seems so simple. We haven't done this since the 1930s, though every driver's license from every State has been upgraded since then. Now that we have done the real ID bill, where we are requiring finally that driver's licenses be upgraded, isn't it appropriate that the Federal Government do the same thing with our card, our Social Security, to upgrade it to be as tamper-resistant as the new driver's license would be?”