Barney Frank: “this bill has two parts. One part is to reiterate what is already the law. It is already the law that only people who…”

“this bill has two parts. One part is to reiterate what is already the law. It is already the law that only people who are in the country legally may benefit from this. The second part is how to enforce it, and what it does is to continue an unfortunate tendency that goes counter to everything we have tried to do about privacy, of making the Social Security card a universal identifier, and there are real dangers in that. Members who have been concerned with privacy know that an unreasonable and unrestricted use of the Social Security card is a problem. Indeed, we have talked about legislation, bipartisan, to restrict the requirement that you give your Social Security number. But here is what this bill says. It does not change the law. It's already illegal for people who are not here legally to get these benefits. ... The number of really poor people carrying passports is less than you might imagine.”