Privacy Concerns Spread To Immigration
Illegal immigration is a big problem in the U.S. today and is growing worse by the day. American citizens are losing jobs everyday to their illegal counterparts who will work for much less than they will. While minimum wage is what the lowest income Americans live with, for people of less developed countries, this money is unlike anything they have ever seen before. Think about it from an employer’s perspective; you have two workers, and one will work for less money; who do you pick? The answer is obvious, as money is everyone’s number one concern.
The public has remained quiet about this problem for some time, but the downturn in the economy has made getting a job and holding one much more difficult. The U.S. is discussing the implementation of biometric cards to verify that all employees are legitimate citizens. They propose to use iris scans or maybe fingerprint scans that would require every employee to sign in at the beginning of every day and especially for job interviews.
The plan also proposes to step up immigration security and make it more difficult for someone to infiltrate the U.S.’s borders. For workers who are illegal but have been in the U.S. for some time, they will offer naturalization processes that are normally only available to legitimate immigrants.
While many support the idea of the plan, it is only the principle that they support. The actual implementation of the plan is questioned. Obviously installing all of this technology would be quite expensive, and seeing as we are already cash-strapped, people wonder if their taxes will rise to accommodate the new addition. Then there is the matter of people actually using it. Employers might have to pay employees more every day to go through an austere and arduous sign in process that would take up some of their working time. There is still the likely possibility that employers will just start to play employees under the table, and not have them on the registered payroll.
The U.S. already fingerprints all immigrants into their data banks that income into the country. This would eliminate the need of gathering up all legal immigrants, but they still would have to convince petrified illegal immigrants that they can come out of the woodwork and register; many would probably think it’s a sting to try and pick them up and deport them.
With so many citizens fleeing from own country to escape to the U.S., we now have strained relations with these nations, and many problems in our own economy. These illegal immigrants will be scared of the law for a while, but after being more confident, they won’t have the pathos most citizens feel towards our law enforcement and cause a lot of trouble.
There are privacy concerns with this as well. A fingerprint is just like a social security number, and if this information falls into the wrong hands, can lead to tracking and harassing. Something just seems a bit fishy about having so much information on store about you too. Privacy advocates are completely opposed to the idea of cornea scanning or fingerprint scanning, and feel it is a step towards an authoritarian world a la 1984.
I think it’s safe to say Orwell would be turning in his grave right now though.
Jane P Says:
Another Immigration issue is the treatment of illegals. Granted, they are here illegally and, particularly if they commit a crime or some such, can and should be deported.
But, deportations need to be humane, as well. My understanding is that potential deportees are often held incommunicado, and it is very difficult for family members to get information. Further, deportations are often effected without any notification to the family.
This type of treatment is un-necessarily inhumane. There is no justification for our country to treat these people that way.