Excerpt from Verification of Eligibility for Employment and Benefits: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, First Session, March 30, 1995 The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar S. Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Lamar Smith, Elton Gallegly, Sonny Bono, Ed Bryant of Tennessee, John Bryant of Texas, Howard L. Berman, and Xavier Becerra. Also present: Cordia A. Strom, chief counsel; Edward R.Grant, counsel; George Fishman, assistant counsel; Judy Knott, secretary, and Paul Drolet, minority counsel. Opening Statement Of Chairman Smith Mr. Smith. The Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims will come to order. Let me welcome everyone present and express my appreciation for their interest in this subject of the hearing today. I have to say to you all, regrettably, that we're short on Members, but long on interest in this subject. We're short on Members because Republicans are having a closed conference, mandatory attendance, and votes will be taken. So I suspect that they will arrive in about an hour. I know the Democrats are also having a whip meeting, and so we've lost several Members to that as well. But we appreciate the Members who are present and we certainly appreciate all the witnesses and guests who are here as well. Verification of eligibility for employment and public benefits is critical to our efforts to reform immigration laws. Improved verification is just as vital to our overall enforcement strategy as placing Border Patrol agents directly on the border. This is not a new concept. The original version of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 included strong provisions for mandatory identification and verification systems. The authors of IRCA understood that secure verification was necessary to complement employer sanctions and to prevent ineligible aliens from being given public benefits. Congress, unfortunately, did not see the value of this approach at that time. The strong verification provisions in IRCA were dropped in the bill and weaker verification systems were adopted. We are now living with the consequences. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.