Rewarding-Work

States Criminalizing Immigrant Workers through State "Identity Theft" Legislation

When Congressman James Sensenbrenner sponsored legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to make just being an undocumented immigrant a felony, progressive political leaders denounced the bill as misguided and hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across the country in protest. As U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid argued, "[The Sensenbrenner bill] makes criminals out of and demonizes a lot of hard-working people who are just trying to provide for their families. In my view the House bill is mean-spirited and un-American." 

That federal Sensenbrenner bill was defeated, but now a number of states, under the seeming cover of fighting "identity theft," are moving to adopt de facto the same policy of making felons out of millions of undocumented immigrant workers. The latest proposal is Iowa's proposed HSB 717, which would make any use of a fake social security card to obtain a job a crime of "identity theft," even if no one owns that number. Other similar state proposals include Kentucky HB 304 (also Kentucky HB 2921 and Kentucky HB 95), Minnesota HF 3294 , South Carolina SB 453 (also South Carolina HB 3035 and South Carolina SB 8).  The bills seem to be based on a model, MS SB 2957, approved by Mississippi back in 2006.

A Tool for Employers to Exploit Workers:  What this means is that undocumented immigrants will be driven even further underground with more incentive to stay "off the books" (and therefore much more vulnerable to exploitation) in order to avoid being automatically made felons. Employers will exploit that worker vulnerability, since they can hire immigrant workers, then threaten any who protest treatment on the job with being imprisoned and deported as a felon. In Kansas, for example, an employer tipped off immigration authorities that a worker injured on the job who filed a workers comp claim was undocumented. These kinds of "identity theft" laws will just hand a new tool to bad employers and enable them to manipulate state prosecutions in order to further intimidate their workforce and keep wages down.

Making Real Identity Theft Worse:  Real identity theft where anyone, undocumented or not, manipulates someone else's identity to hurt them financially is a real crime and should be prosecuted to the fullest. The problem with this new crop of "identity theft" bills is that they create a felony crime where there is no intent to hurt another person, no evidence of financial harm, and a crime even where the "victim" of the identity theft is a "fictitious person." 

And the problem with criminalizing non-existent harm to non-existent people is that it may actually encourage immigrant workers to turn to more sophisticated identity forgers using REAL identities, since those are harder to detect.  As new employer sanctions laws have been applied in Arizona, the Arizona Republic noted:

The push for more documents, especially with authentic numbers, is expected to spur more identity theft... "There is a good potential for an increase in identity theft and also an increase in the manufacture and sale of fraudulent documents," said Leesa Berens Morrison, director of the Arizona Department of Homeland Security.

Real Solutions Needed:  As the Arizona example shows, state enforcement of immigration laws usually has unintended consequences that worsen the situation, not just for undocumented workers but for legal workers as well. The best thing states can do is crack down on illegal low-wage sweatshops, an approach that raise standards for all workers.

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Growing-Economy

Washington House Passes Bill to Create Green Jobs

The Washington State House has voted to establish a comprehensive "green economy jobs growth initiative" that aims to increase the number of green jobs to 25,000 by 2020. "Green jobs" is the term used to describe the good-paying, sustainable jobs that are created through environmentally sensible projects. For example, increased energy efficiency requirements will require work retrofitting buildings all across America with solar panels, insulation and other weatherizing materials. The federal Green Jobs Act of 2007, which authorized $125 million per year to create green jobs worker training programs, was included in the recently enacted Energy Independence and Security Act.

The Washington bill, HB 2815, is yet another example of states taking the lead on fighting climate change, by requiring the state to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 50% below 1990 levels by 2050 with a provision to study the emissions reductions and make recommendations on whether they need to be updated. The bill also requires the state Department of Ecology to adopt broad statewide goals to reduce annual per capita vehicle miles traveled by 50% by 2050. As we highlighted in our recent Dispatch, vehicle miles traveled are the greatest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. 

Green Jobs, Good Jobs: In addition to the obvious environmental benefits, the Washington State approach to green jobs has the potential to reverse the draining of jobs out of our economy. The Apollo Alliance and Urban Habitat released a report that highlights the types of jobs that are created in energy efficiency and green buildings, renewable energy, and renewable fuels. In renewable energy, for example, solar power creates 22.4 jobs per megawatt of energy expended and wind power creates 6.4 jobs per megawatt. In contrast, natural gas power creates less than 1.1 job per megawatt. Plus, the jobs that are created are good-paying jobs that can offer the opportunity of union apprenticeships and long-term secure employment. As Becky Kelley of the Washington Environmental Council said, "There is tremendous opportunity for Washington businesses and Washington workers. There are good jobs to be had. There's economic development to be accomplished. That's a very hopeful message."

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Increasing-Democracy

Policymakers Deal with RFID Security and Privacy Problems

The cards used by California legislators to gain access to the "secure" areas of their statehouses have one big problem: it's been demonstrated that third parties can easily read information off their electronic tags at a short distance and gain unauthorized access. 

This kind of problem is why legislatures in California and Washington are moving bills that would criminalize the unauthorized reading of personal information from documents embedded within devices that make this possible, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. This practice, known as RFID "skimming," involves surreptitiously copying the information embedded in IDs, security access cards, consumer loyalty cards, and a growing number of other documents where they are increasingly ubiquitous. The information on some types of tags can be scanned thirty or more feet away with readers that are easy to build or purchase.

Stopping the Skimming of Personal Information: Because RFID tags can be read remotely, without the tag holder's knowledge, the personal and consumer information contained inside is inherently less secure. Similarly, government or private actors could track and profile tag holders without their knowledge or consent. (One controversial application of the technology has been to track students in school.) The insecurity of these documents facilitates identity theft, security breaches, personal surveillance, and violence against women. These concerns have lead a broad array of groups, including privacy, civil liberties, women's rights, and industry organizations, to support anti-skimming laws and other ways to protect the privacy and security of RFID embedded documents. 

The RFID document problem will increase with the adoption of new "enhanced" driver's licenses which comply with the Department of Homeland Security's mandate requiring passports when crossing a U.S. land border or traveling to Bermuda or the Caribbean. For this program, DHS has chosen to use RFID tags that can be read across the room instead of a technology that will only work on contact or over very short distances, against the advice of the General Accounting Office, the Department's own Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, the Smart Card Alliance (an industry group that has recommended a more secure alternative to RFID) and U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, among others.

• Washington State has legislation (HB 1031) recently passed by its House that would create a felony for skimming an RFID tag for the purpose of fraud, identity theft or other crime. The bill would also require opt-in consent before any public or private entity could scan and store information contained in an RFID tag.
• California's Senate recently passed SB 31, which would create a misdemeanor for skimming any identification document. California also has other RFID bills that would create a moratorium on using RFID in driver's licenses and school identity cards, as well as regulate RFID use in government identity documents.

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