Ken Calvert: “Mr. Chairman, illegal immigrants are from all over the world. They are not just from South America, they are from Asia…”

“Mr. Chairman, illegal immigrants are from all over the world. They are not just from South America, they are from Asia, they are from Europe, they are from Russia. One thing they all have in common, they mostly want a job. As an employer, you have certain responsibilities in this country. One of those responsibilities is to fill out an I-9 form. That has given employers a cover, because once you have that I-9 form in the personnel jacket, along with two pieces of identification, along with that Social Security card, in every case, if the INS comes into your establishment and you have met that criteria, even though you have a great number of illegals working in that business, you are not held accountable for that, because there is no way for you to verify whether or not a Social Security card is a fraudulent document. This is all that does. It gives an opportunity for an employer to call a number and check a name to a number. This is a system that we must have, and quite frankly, if it is a voluntary system, those people that are not very good employers and who are knowingly hiring illegals are going to continue to do so.”