is the correct term, or at least on the opposing side, to do that same thing.

I hope we can pull the teeth of the emotional excesses in this one and try to get to something that would represent real progress in our immigration and refugee policy.

And we will avoid the racist policies which have sometimes existed in the past. Fairness will characterize the final product of this session or sessions to come-fairness to the American people, above all, but also fairness to those abroad who wish to join us.

Arnold Torres and I have these visits in the office as well as in public. I do have some questions for Ms. Cooper and Mr. Otero. I will just extend this a bit.

I was very interested in the testimony this morning from Stephanie Bower of the United Farm Workers. She said that her union represents Hispanic persons and that those Hispanic persons were concerned. But she also testified for the union in favor of employer sanctions.

I am wondering is there a difference in perspective and views between MALDEF and LULAC and the field workers or the organizational elements of labor in the field, the United Farm Workers or Caesar Chavez? Why is that?

Mr. HUERTA. I do not think there is a fundamental difference in what we are trying to accomplish. The more urban Latino organizations are concerned about discrimination that would be engendered in areas other than in the farmworker area. I do not believe that there will be discrimination against Latinos with an employer sanctions provision in the agricultural fields. I mean they care about how quickly you can pick their fruit, and that is about as far as it goes.

But in other areas where we encounter discrimination, it is more in the middle-class positions in the large economic enterprises of this country that are in the urban areas. And it is those areas that we are concerned about being discriminated against, and I think that would account for the difference in our testimony.

In terms of the interests they are speaking to, I can understand what they are trying to accomplish.

Mr. TORRES. Let me just add to that, Senator, that the UFW and Mr. Otero have the primary interest at heart of protecting their workers, the members of their union. And certainly, an employer sanctions program would go far in attempting to do that.

But the major factor here is simply that, as Mr. Bower from the UFW indicated in her testimony, that we are concerned with the fact that they bring undocumenteds into the country to break strike potentials. In other words, they are in the process of striking, they are in the process of negotiating, and the agricultural employers bring in undocumented workers to break their strike.

Now, that would be addressed to some extent, the UFW contends, if you had an employer sanctions program and you had the ability then to organize.

So I would think that in that regard that is one of the major concerns that at least Ms. Bower raised in her testimony, I think, orally as well as written, in her written testimony.

So I think that that is perhaps the only major difference that we have. We certainly are concerned about the things that the union

representatives indicate, but I think that the interest in that regard is much more specialized insofar as the impact it has on unionization.

Senator SIMPSON. Knowing you, Jack, I am sure you will want to respond to that.

Mr. OTERO. First of all, I would like to ask Mr. Torres-

Senator SIMPSON. Now, you have to direct your questions to me, please.

Mr. OTERO. The characterization of my interest as representing only the economic interests of my members could not be farther from the truth. It is true, indeed, I represent hundreds of thousands of people who are of Hispanic descent, who work in many occupations in the United States. But my testimony here today is not strictly a labor interest. I am representing labor people, organized by a union, indeed, of which I am very proud.

But as a proud American citizen who emigrated to this country from Cuba, I am testifying before this committee because I am concerned that continued illegal immigration to this Nation will greatly undermine our society, it will make it impossible for many other people throughout the world who want to legally emigrate to this country, and also because I am concerned that it is deteriorating the fabric of this Nation in pitting one nationality against another, one class of people against another.

Today we face, as was obvious in the testimony of Ms. Cooper, the racial overtones of the problem that we face. Many blacks in this country, as she testified, feel threatened by the continued entry of people into this country who come to undermine working conditions, working standards, and social standards. So it is a very complex issue that requires immediate solutions.

Let me say to you that I speak for a lot of Hispanics-and I would like to underscore another point, Mr. Chairman: There are many Hispanic organizations in this country of all persuasions, and the term "Hispanic" sometimes is misunderstood. You know, we are not only Mexican or Cuban, we are Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Domincan, Argentinian, a myriad of different ethnicities within the same classical description of Hispanics. And you have to analyze the problem not only from the standpoint of one segment of the Hispanic community but how it applies to everybody.

For example, there is a misconception in this country that the undocumented workers are primarily and solely Mexican. That could not be farther from the truth. The INS testified before our Commission that more than 50 percent of those in this country who are illegal have entered legally. They are Greeks, they are Yugoslavs, they are Italians and all different nationalities who overstay their welcome and become illegal.

So we have to look into the problem of correcting the problem at the source: that the employer is penalized when he wilfully violates the statute and the various other laws by hiring illegal aliens for the purposes of undermining the law and exploiting people. And that is what this hearing is all about.

I hope, Mr. Chairman, that you will continue as determined as you are to see that not only employer sanctions are put into effect but also a meaningful employee identification program, which I submit to you can be very simply accomplished by just turning the

current social security card into a document that cannot be forged, a document that the employer must check; no different than the employer has to do today.

When you apply for a job, the employer verifies in the W-4 form what is your social security number, the same requirement the employer has to follow in reporting to Uncle Sam and the Internal Revenue Service for the purpose of deducting your taxes.

All we are suggesting is that the employer ask for the verification of that number. And that can be very easily achieved by having a data bank at the Department of Labor with the pertinent information of the person to whom that number was issued in the first place. And that would cause no discrimination whatsoever.

Mr. TORRES. Senator, not wanting to have the last word but just wanting to clarify a couple of points.

Senator SIMPSON. If you could.

Mr. TORRES. Yes, I just want to clarify a couple of points. I am here representing LULAC, not personal travels or personal discussions that I have had. LULAC, with 100,000 members, has passed in the last 22 years resolutions, at our national conventions, and executive board of directors, meetings, opposing employer sanctions.

Also, our records of membership indicate that we are not solely a Mexican American group, that we have chapters in 44 States, including many in the Southeast as well as the Northeast.

Second of all, the concern about displacement in the black community by undocumented workers, all the information that I am sure you have finds that the primary emphasis and location of undocumented workers is in the Southwest. Let us look at the Southwest labor market, as Vernon Briggs has done in his study. You have an extremely high unemployment rate—I mean, excuse me, very low unemployment rate, but you have an extremely low wage structure and you have an extremely high poverty rate. And that is primarily due to the fact that labor laws are not enforced in the Southwest and that there is no unionization.

So if anybody is going to suffer from a displacement factor, if we are going to assume it is extremely rampant, then the Hispanic community does have something involved. Our differences simply lie in the fact that we are concerned that the employer sanctions program will present more additional complexities to a situation where we do not think it is necessary.

Senator SIMPSON. I understand that. And, of course, the issue to the American public, in general-these are the 230 million who are already here, white, brown, black, and yellow-is that it is not right that an American has to compete with a foreign worker for a U.S. job. That is what they are saying, and that is very hearable. And I guess we will see whether we succeed.

I should ask you-I would ask for just a swift "Yes" or "No"-if you believed that a particular employer sanctions program would not result in discrimination-and you see that as we go through the hearing and the debate process-that it would not result in discrimination against Hispanic U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, would you then be supportive of such a system?

Mr. HUERTA. I would still have some civil liberties concerns, but I would have to consult with Vilma Martinez, who is my boss, who is president and general counsel.

Senator SIMPSON. She is a very able spokeswoman. We have shared the podium at various places.

Now a question of Ms. Cooper. Your testimony is very precise on the issue of the presence of illegal aliens in U.S. cities as a contributor to greater unemployment and less favorable wages and working conditions for black Americans. Is that more prevalent in certain areas of the United States than in others?

Ms. COOPER. Well, if you follow the logic of some of my Hispanic brethren here, most of the studies have concentrated on the Southwest, for whatever reasons.

However, I think it was last year we testified on the whole issue of the Carter proposal in reference to refugee policies. We found that very little had been done in reference to those who had overstayed their visa, in reference to those who just simply walked across the Canadian border and decided to stay here or those who came through other mechanisms.

So, initially, our first reaction was that even in those research documents that are relied upon so heavily, there was, in our mind, some degree of racism as we approached the whole issue. We do not know how many others there are in Minnesota and North and South Dakota, Seattle, Washington, or Washington State.

My feeling is that if we were to do the same kind of exhaustive studies that we have done in the Southwest, we would indeed find that we have these kinds of problems in many of the States. New York State for example-my feeling is that it is not just the Southwest, to give you a short answer to your question—it is in many of our States.

Senator SIMPSON. I know that we have received some very interesting letters from the blacks in Florida, very intense. And then, of course, into that picture comes the possibilities of discrimination, more discrimination against the Haitians than against the Cubans. It is indeed a volatile, complex thing.

We certainly are receiving enough information that the black community, a majority of the black community, is deeply concerned and really feel very threatened by it all.

Ms. COOPER. I think if you look at our affiliate in New Orleans, that would crop up in the community unrest, if you will, when the Asian Americans settled there. That gives us reason for now beginning to speak out on the issue, recognizing that the local affiliates, the Miami Urban League, the New Orleans Urban League, and others, are facing this problem head on.

So we now have to become much more active as you develop the legislative proposal in making sure that our concerns are addressed.

Senator SIMPSON. I have found very few inactive groups on this issue.

Thank you very much. Your testimony is appreciated, and you all are excellent spokesmen for your positions. And I thank you. I apologize again for having skipped out. Thank you.

We will go now to a panel of scholars: Prof. Vernon Briggs of Cornell University; Prof. Mark Miller of the University of Dela

ware; Mr. David North, New TransCentury Foundation director; and Mr. Douglas Parker, Institute for Public Representation.

It is nice to see you, gentlemen. Shall we proceed with Professor Briggs? Why don't we do that in that order?

STATEMENT OF VERNON BRIGGS, PROFESSOR, CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

Mr. BRIGGS. Thank you, Senator. I am just going to skim this testimony.

Senator SIMPSON. This is rigged to an electrode in your chair.

Mr. BRIGGS. It is my understanding that you are interested primarily in the employer sanctions at this hearing, and I just want to make it clear that I support employer sanctions but only as part of a comprehensive immigration reform package.

Employer sanctions alone is not going to stop the problem of illegal immigration or have much impact on it. But in my view, it is the crucial element of any type of immigration reform package, that without it nothing else makes sense. It is the linchpin, as I say in my testimony. It is what holds the whole package together. A linchpin does not look like very much in a machine, but the linchpin is crucial to the element of the whole program operating. And that is the way I see employer sanctions.

In my view, it sets the moral tone for what the reform measures seek to do; that is, they try to set the tone that it is an illegal act for an employer to hire an illegal alien. And in that sense, I support very strongly this concept.

I see it similar to the issue with the antidiscrimination efforts of the past decade; that is, antidiscrimination laws have not made it particularly easy to stop individual acts of discrimination, but they have set the moral tone.

In that sense, because they set the moral tone and because the penalties are at least plausible, there has been some voluntary compliance with the law. Employment patterns have changed markedly in the past 20 years from what they were before those laws were in place. I see the same thing occuring here. Employer sanctions are designed to set the moral tone and they will achieve some element of voluntary compliance if the associated penalties are plausible for those who abuse them.

I also believe that the potential effectiveness of employer sanctions hinges on the issue of identification. There must be some form of identification or otherwise employer sanctions makes no sense. So I strongly support the concept of either the use of the social security card-not the one currently in use but a counterfeitproof card or some other type of work permit system. I outline some of the alternatives in my testimony, citing the work of David North extensively, who has looked into various means of doing this.

But I think you must have a system of univeral identification because, without it, you do have the possibility of discrimination. I believe that the issue of discrimination is much less of an issue to be concerned with when employer sanctions are tied to a universal identification system. Then you do not have to worry much about the idea that any particular group of people will be discriminated