SAVE Act: The New Rockstar Bill

If you ever wanted to compare a bill to a rock star, then the SAVE Act would be the rock star. Most bills are much to mundane and wordy to ever warrant such a comparison, however this one may be different. While I support the idea of this bill, and much of its content, I am concerned that the rock star status of the bill may lead to trouble.

First, let's get everyone a brief background on the SAVE Act. It does several things to beef border security however the center piece of the act is a new verification system, that if it works properly, will insure that every employer can easily verify if their employees are here legally. (Go here for more reference) This bill is being introduced by former quarterback now Congressman Heath Shuler of North Carolina. It has an impressive array of supporters. Everyone from Tom Tancredo, to the National Federation of Independent Business, to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers support this bill.

Congressmen from every stripe are lining up to support this bill. Everyone from members of the Congressional Black Caucus like Congressmen Davis (D-Alabama) and Bishop (D-Georgia), to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus like Congressman Rodriguez (D-Texas), to strange bedfellows like Congressmen Rohrbacher and Murtha.

Numbers USA speaks about this bill the way most dorky high schoolers describe the head cheerleader.

NumbersUSA believes that this legislation originating on the Democratic side of the House is just the vehicle to give us a chance to actually pass immigration legislation through a Democratic-controlled Congress that would significantly improve the lives of most Americans. "It's the one [immigration] bill that will pass this Congress," said Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus Chairman Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) in an interview with The Hill. "We have to make this about illegal employment and crack down on employers."

My own blog has lit up with readers of previous blog entries. It seems everyone is fawning over this bill as though it is infallable. The problem is that it is fallable. There is a huge potential problem that all the fawning supporters overlook and disregard. This bill would create a huge new bureaucracy. Most massive bureaucracies aren't merely a headache but frankly counter productive. Most people that I mention this to write it off and say it is just something we will need to deal with for border security.

Well, with all due respect to the fawning supporters of SAVE Act, it won't necessarily be a minor inconvenience. It may just be a disaster waiting to happen. This new bureaucracy sounds good on paper but there are no guarantees that it will do what it is supposed to do. INS and subsequent metamorpheses in the DHS have shown time and again that they fail to do what they are supposed to do. How many times do we hear stories of the Feds losing track of illegals.

This system can very well be headed for the same type of disaster if everyone that fawns over it refuses to address what I see as a huge potential problem. While politicians of both stripes push others out of the way to be the first in line to support this bill, I hope they also understand that just because a bill has good intentions doesn't mean it will actually be implemented effectively.

I have heard absolutely nothing from anyone about how this massive new bureaucracy is going to function. The only thing I hear is that we will finally have a system that tracks the legal status of employees. With all due respect to everyone, I thought that social security numbers were designed to do that. If those have proven ineffective, there are no guarantees that this will either. I am not saying this system will fail. In fact, I hope it won't. What I am saying is that everyone needs to stop fawning over this thing like a beauty queen and actually examine it in a sober manner. No bill is ever perfect and the worst are often those that everyone thinks at the time is great.

This bill has potential to do great things against the cancer of illegal immigration, however it also has the potential of creating yet another massive non functioning bureaucracy. Just because we want it to do the first doesn't mean it won't actually do the second.