Just about the time the Center for Immigration Studies was holding a press briefing at the National Press Club about the immigration and health reform connection, proponents from President Obama on down were denying that illegal aliens would receive taxpayer-funded health care under pending legislation.

I’m here to tell you, as I told the Press Club crowd, the legislation on the table does, honest to goodness, effectively extend coverage to illegal aliens.

Take the premium subsidy in the House bill, H.R. 3200. This lies in the part of the legislation (Division A, Title II) that creates a Health Choices Administration, adds the infamous “public option,” sets up and runs the “exchange” clearinghouse for getting insurance, and controls a graduated premium subsidy program through allocation of “individual affordability credits.”

The subsidy, found in Section 242, will give a voucher to people earning between 133 percent of the official poverty level and 400 percent of that income level (or, up to about $88,000 a year for a family of four).

Legal immigrants certainly qualify under H.R. 3200 for this subsidy. Section 242(a)(1) makes eligible "an individual who is lawfully present in a State in the United States (other than as a nonimmigrant described in a subparagraph (excluding subparagraphs (K), (T), (U), and (V)) of section 101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act)."

A political fig leaf purports to keep illegal aliens from receiving the subsidy. Section 246 says, "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."

However, reading the legislation as a whole, its glaring omission is any requirement to verify someone’s immigration or citizenship status. For instance, H.R. 3200 makes no reference to the verification system in current law that’s used for nearly all government welfare and other public programs. If lawmakers wanted enrolling agents, including bureaucrats at the new Health Choices Administration, to use the Systematic Alienage Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, the bill should include a reference and authorize SAVE’s application to this government program.

In other words, the silence of H.R. 3200 regarding SAVE and mandatory verification makes Section 246 just empty words. In fact, the Ways and Means Committee outright voted down an amendment by Rep. Dean Heller to require eligibility verification before qualifying someone to receive a taxpayer subsidy. Also, "lawfully present" covers a lot of ground. Does it include someone here under Temporary Protected Status, for instance? Again, the absence of eligibility verification requirements leaves open a lot of room for waste, fraud, and abuse.

A similar situation of setting up blinders occurs in H.R. 3200’s Medicaid provisions. Division B’s Title VII, Section 1701 expands Medicaid eligibility to those with incomes a third above the federal poverty level. This provision dictates that "the State shall accept without further determination the enrollment under this title of an individual determined by the Commissioner to be a non-traditional Medicaid eligible individual." In other words, the bill prohibits asking any further questions about new Medicaid enrollees.

Rather, the bill section promotes "presumptive eligibility" concerning Medicaid expansion. Read it for yourself, right from Section 1702(a):

(ii) PRESUMPTIVE ELIGIBILITY OPTION- Pursuant to such memorandum, insofar as the memorandum has selected the option described in section 205(e)(3)(B) of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the State shall provide for making medical assistance available during the presumptive eligibility period and shall, upon application of the individual for medical assistance under this title, promptly make a determination (and subsequent redeterminations) of eligibility in the same manner as if the individual had applied directly to the State for such assistance except that the State shall use the income-related information used by the Commissioner and provided to the State under the memorandum in making the presumptive eligibility determination to the maximum extent feasible. (emphasis added)

And, once again, the lack of any provision mentioning or requiring verification, mandatory use of the SAVE system under this part of the bill, or any other accountability requirement opens the process up to signing up illegal aliens for Medicaid.

In the Energy and Commerce Committee, a mandatory verification amendment was voted down when Rep. Nathan Deal offered it. A political figleaf amendment was added by voice vote, but the loopholes and potential for waste, fraud, and abuse remain wide open in the Medicaid provisions.

Whatever you think of health reform, a combination of things makes it certain that illegal aliens will receive government health coverage. The most obvious is the omission — heck, the outright rejection of corrective amendments — of eligibility verification requirements. The other factor is the designed ease of enrolling people in Medicaid, for "affordability credits," and the like.

Bottom line, the health legislation Congress is considering establishes an "enroll now, don’t ask questions later" regime. That’s a recipe for covering more people, but many of whom may not actually qualify. A huge number are almost guaranteed to be illegal aliens or legal immigrants still in their first five years in the country who are supposed to turn to their visa sponsor for financial support. And having more people in a public program translates pretty quickly into higher costs. In this case, we’re talking on the order of tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Please read more, where CIS has published my analysis.

DR. JAMES EDWARDS is one of the legislative specialists who represents NumbersUSA daily on Capitol Hill. He is co-author of "The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform"

Many of you responded to my last blog stating that we need far more signatures on a petition to have any type of impact. But are you willing to help us distribute this one to truly make an impression? As “Gary6333 of NY” commented:

Four times bigger is still not enough! EVERYONE needs to push this site EVERYWHERE they go. MAKE THIS MOVEMENT GROW! 

SIGN THE PETITION NOW!

We’re just as upset as many of you are over Speaker Pelosi’s recent comments suggesting that at least some immigration enforcement is ‘un-American’ while saluting those who advocate an end to enforcement as being ‘very, very patriotic.’

As someone sworn to uphold the public good, Pelosi should never give such a public admonishment of our Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials simply for carrying out their normal job duties.

What makes Pelosi’s statement even worse is that she validates illegal immigration by classifying the promotion of the behavior as “very, very patriotic.” Illegal actions should never be considered patriotic, especially by the person second in succession to become President.

As the son of retired Air Force Sergeant, I can think of about a million other things I find more patriotic. And I’m sure many of your friends and family do also.

OUR NEW PETITION DRIVE

We’re ready to start another petition drive, this one against Pelosi’s damaging comments, to make our position in favor of immigration enforcement fully known by the President and his Administration. But we don’t want to fall short of anything other than an impressive response.

Will you help us spread this next petition not just amongst your family and friends, but to every household in America?

Our last petition to President Obama asking him to reject all amnesty proposals for illegal aliens gathered over 147,000 signatures. Even though this is more than 4 times the response of the petition sponsored by the pro-amnesty group America’s Voice, many of you commented that we would need thousands of more signatures, if not millions to make an impact.

IF THIS IS TRUE THEN HELP US!! Are you willing to genuinely get involved to make an impact?

Get started by signing our petition here. Once you’ve signed up, you’ll be given the opportunity to forward it along to others.

If you have a friend who favors immigration enforcement, know ICE officials who feels as if they have had their job ridiculed and demeaned by Speaker Pelosi, or simply know someone fed up with our government’s instance to favor illegal aliens over their own citizens, SEND THEM THIS PETITION.

Let’s see if we can far surpass the 147,000 signatures from the last one.

Phillip Zanders is the Membership Development Assistant at NumbersUSA

Carol Swain, professor of law and political science at Vanderbilt University, has noted in the Nashville Tennessean that Pres. Obama has now promised to lead the way to cure cancer, end foreign oil dependence and guarantee higher education to everyone who wants it.

No goal appears too audacious. No effort is too bold ....

.... except when it comes to keeping illegal aliens out of U.S. jobs so that unemployed Americans (especially Blacks and Hispanics) can have them, Prof. Swain notes.  She writes:

I would like to focus on something that the president has not addressed: illegal immigration and its impact on unemployment, job creation and our failing educational system. Until he is willing to acknowledge the obvious, our best efforts are doomed to fail.

Prof. Swain asks how it can make sense for Pres. Obama to leave 6-7 million illegal immigrants working in low-wage, low-skill positions that could be filled with the millions of U.S.-born workers with similar education who are desperately seeking a job. 

She suggests that those 6-7 million jobs filled by illegal aliens far overshadow the 3.5 million jobs that Mr. Obama hopes to create or save from his nearly-trillion-dollar Stimulus package (jobs that Obama made sure remain open for illegal aliens to take).  

And Prof. Swain is particularly puzzled by Pres. Obama's callousness toward U.S.-born Blacks and Hispanics:

A detailed breakdown of U.S. Census unemployment data released by the Center for Immigration Studies reveals startling levels of unemployment for U.S.-born blacks and Hispanics without a high school education. Blacks had a 24.7 percent unemployment rate and Hispanics were at 16.2 percent.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for legal and illegal immigrants without a high school education was 10.6 percent. 

Although the official jobless rate for less-educated foreign workers is high, they are still doing far better than their Black and Hispanic American counterparts. 

This shameful situation does not exist because Pres. Obama and his federal government are powerless. Prof. Swain writes:

The president can act now to ensure that all American jobs go to people authorized to work in the United States.

We can aggressively tackle unemployment by taking simple steps to ensure that American workers are protected from illegal competition from those unauthorized to work in this country.

Many of the president's new programs lack any mechanism for verifying that the recipients are in the country legally. Such a failure to tackle the obvious does not bode well for the future. Our rising health-care costs and educational burdens are all impacted by the presence of large numbers of undocumented and unauthorized residents who make it more difficult for hard-working Americans to enjoy some of the benefits of living in a nation that used to be one of the greatest in the world. 

Prof. Swain has proven that one can work in an ivory tower and still understand the world.

Millions of unemployed Americans are waiting for Pres. Obama to show similar understanding from his ivory tower.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

I finally got my chance to get a formal hearing before Members of Congress on Thursday for NumbersUSA's year-long argument that U.S. unemployment requires deep, immediate cuts in immigration.

I let the key numbers do the talking. Do you know them? Take a look at the top three below.

Before I give you the first part of my testimony, I want to thank the activist members of NumbersUSA who showed up on Capitol Hill for the hearing. One woman told me she is living in a household with five adult workers, with three of them unemployed. Another woman said she has been unemployed so long that she has "burned through" two 401k retirement plans and has decided to sell her house rather than cash in the third and last pension plan.

Millions of Americans are in crisis because they have lost their jobs and can't get another one.

That is the crisis that I asked Members of Congress to address Thursday. Below, is most of the first section of my written testimony. I hope you will consider it carefully and determine if the main arguments here aren't ones that we should jointly repeat, repeat and repeat to each of our own Members of Congress until they explain why these key numbers should be allowed to stand.

====================================================================

THE TESTIMONY

KEY NUMBERS POINT TO POLICY CHANGES THAT COULD QUICKLY SAVE LARGE NUMBERS OF JOBS FOR UNEMPLOYED AMERICANS

Excerpt of Written Testimony by Roy Beck, Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

Congressional Forum, 'American Jobs in Peril: The Impact of Uncontrolled Immigration'

Nov. 19, 2009, 2237 Rayburn House Office Building

Congressman Smith (Lamar Smith, R-Texas) and other distinguished Members,

. . . . Your hearing today is a flicker of hope that somebody up here cares enough to pay attention to a few key numbers that tend to say all that needs to be said about the necessity of changing immigration policy immediately.I believe that my written testimony outlines convincingly that perhaps hundreds of thousands of additional Americans could be in jobs a year from now if Congress immediately passes a few simple changes in immigration law.

A few key numbers make the case.

First Number -- at least 7 million

The Pew Hispanic Center estimated last spring that 8 million illegal foreign workers held U.S. jobs at that time.

Pew said only 4% of them were in agriculture.

Since that report, many illegal aliens’ jobs have been eliminated. But it is likely that at least 7 million construction, service, manufacturing and transportation jobs are still currently held by illegal foreign workers.

Those are 7 million jobs being sought by more than 7 million less-educated Americans who are currently unemployed and actively seeking a job.

Members of Congress and this Administration need to look at those numbers and come to understand that immigration enforcement is about creating jobs for unemployed Americans. In general, when a government action results in an illegal foreign worker leaving a job, an unemployed American gets to go back to work.

Congressman Smith, the 920,000 members of NumbersUSA in every congressional district of our country wholeheartedly support your efforts to promote far more immigration enforcement as one of the most effective JOBS programs the government can have.

Second Number -- 75,000

It appears that American workers’ own federal government in October issued permanent work permits to about 75,000 working-age immigrants[2] -- 75,000 new LEGAL immigrant workers in just one month.

Third Number -- 190,000

In October, 190,000 U.S. jobs were eliminated.[3] Our government added 75,000 more permanent workers to compete with 16 million unemployed Americans[4] for 190,000 FEWER U.S. jobs.

Since Jan. 1 of this year, it appears that our government already has issued nearly three-quarters of a million new permanent work permits to immigrants.[5]

THESE NUMBERS ARE HIGHLY CREDIBLE

Congress has created an immigration system on auto-pilot so that the unemployment rate of Americans has virtually no effect on the numerical levels.

Consider these numbers from the Department of Homeland Security:

• Federal records show that two years ago – before the recession began – the federal government issued around 830,000 Green Cards (permanent work permits) to working-age immigrants.[6] 830,000.
• Last year during the first year of the recession, the government gave away around 875,000 permanent work permits to immigrants. That was an average of around 75,000 per month.[7]

Without any evidence to suggest a significant change this year, it is safe to assume that our government has continued to crank out around 75,000 new permanent work permits to immigrants every month without any regard for how that might affect American workers.

750,000 NEW FOREIGN WORKERS vs. 990,000 JOBS SAVED/CREATED

Based on last year’s rate, it appears that the hand extended by the federal government to unemployed Americans THIS YEAR has already given them nearly 750,000 new immigrants to compete with them for the dwindling number of jobs.

That number is particularly interesting when compared with another number that the White House proclaimed on Oct. 30. The number was 990,000.

The White House announced that the $159 billion of Stimulus money spent thus far, plus the $189 billion of tax relief this year, had created or saved 990,000 jobs.

Putting aside charges by critics that the estimated number was far higher than was credible, compare the 990,000 jobs with the 750,000 new working-age immigrants given permanent work permits during the same period. It would appear that the majority of the $348 billion of Stimulus and tax relief went for jobs needed to just keep up with the workers brought in by our immigration system.

(Please note that I am not even counting the hundreds of thousands of brand new temporary foreign workers during this period. Temporary visas deserve their own consideration but I want to limit my remarks to giving permits for foreign workers to hold U.S. jobs not just this year, but for every year the rest of their lives.)

Of course, not every new immigrant takes a job from a U.S. worker. Many find themselves standing in the same unemployment lines. The U-3 unemployment rate for immigrants has increased from 4.1% in 2007 to 9.7% in 2009.

Congress might ask itself why it is importing an increasing percentage of immigrant workers only to become dependents on government unemployment and social service programs. The 75,000-a-month new permanent worker number is challenged by groups that support the status quo of labor importation. They point out – accurately – that a high percentage of those 75,000 were already in the country at the time they received their Green Card.

For example, an estimated 9,000 to 20,000 each month are illegal aliens who are being granted legal work authorization for the first time.

Other new Green Card recipients have been in the United States a short time on temporary visas for students, workers, tourists and others.The fact that those foreign workers were already here doesn’t mean that they had to stay. The federal government doesn’t have to adjust the status of most of these illegal or temporary visitors into permanent competitors for U.S. jobs.

It could—in the middle of an unemployment disaster -- let the visas run out and the workers, tourists and students go home as they promised when they sought the visas in the first place.

NUMBERS ADD UP TO NECESSITY FOR POLICY CHANGE

The questions that most Americans hearing these startling numbers are sure to ask are:

• Why does Congress continue to order up 75,000 new permanent foreign workers each month at a time of so much suffering by unemployed Americans and the families that often depend on them?
• And: Why not cut the 75,000 each month as close to zero as possible as long as the overall U-3 unemployment rate remains above, say, 5%?

Congressman Smith and other distinguished Members, I suggest to you that these few simple numbers demand immediate attention.The numbers demand the introduction of legislation to SUSPEND the issuance of as many permanent work visas as possible during this Jobs Depression.And the numbers demand tenacious and concerted public education efforts to build support for the Suspension Legislation among the general public. . . .

(more testimony will be posted at a later date)

[2] Monger, Randall and Nancy Rytina. “U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2008.” Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. March 2009. In 2008 the United States issued 880,636 permanent residency permits to aliens aged 15-64 – an average of 73,386 per month.

[3] United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to data released on November 6, 2009, 190,000 payroll jobs were lost in October, 2009.

[4] Ibid., According to data released on November 6, 2009, 15.7 million Americans were considered to be unemployed in October, 2009. This is the U-3 category counting only those actively looking for a job who can’t find any job, not even a part-time one.

[5] Monger, Randall and Nancy Rytina. “U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2008.” Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. March 2009. In 2008 the United States issued 880,636 permanent residency permits to aliens aged 15-64. Based on that same rate for this year (for which no official data has been released), approximately 733,860 permanent residency permits would have been issued during the first 10 months of 2009.

[6] Ibid., In 2007 the United States issued 835,697 permanent residency permits to aliens aged 15-64.

[7] Ibid., In 2008 the United States issued 880,636 permanent residency permits to aliens aged 15-64 – an average of 73,386 per month.

[8] An October 30, 2009, White House press release (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/new-recipient-reports-confirm...) states that 640,329 jobs were created/saved due to stimulus spending. Later that day, the White House released data showing that 350,000 jobs were created/saved due to tax relief. Roughly 990,000 jobs were created/saved due to a combination of stimulus funds and tax relief, according to the White House. In an October 31, 2009, statement (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/weekly-address-president-obam...), President Obama notes that more than one million jobs have been created or saved.

[9] Camarota, Steven and Karen Jensenius. “Trends in Immigrant and Native Employment.” Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder. Using public data from the United States Census Bureau’s Current Population Survy, Camarota and Jensenius determine that 4.1% of immigrants sixteen and older were unemployed in the third quarter of 2007 while 9.7% were unemployed in the first quarter of 2009.

[10] Ibid., Using data from the Office of Immigration Statistics, Camarota and Jensenius determine that between 100,00 and 250,000 illegal aliens were given legal resident status in 2009.

In a congressional forum Thursday, NumbersUSA President Roy Beck urged Members of Congress to immediately introduce and pass legislation to suspend most immigration in light of the nation's 10.2% U-3 unemployment rate.

Also testifying were Dr. Steven Camarota, Vanderbilt Political Science professor Dr. Carol Swain, and Jerry Kammer who won a Pulitzer Prize as an investigative reporter with the Copley News Service.  All provided evidence that unemployment among Americans is so bad that there is no doubt that every job emptied by pushing an illegal foreign worker out of it would quickly be filled by an American. 

House Immigration Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve King (R-Iowa) and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) led the forum. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) offered several rounds of questioning and said he wondered why the United States should take ANY immigrants right now unless they were absolutely needed for a specific job.

Dr. Swain's testimony focused on the impact immigration, specifically illegal immigration, had on Black and Hispanic Americans.

In the current economic environment, many Americans are suffering from unemployment, job displacement, and stagnant or declining wages. But, no group suffers more than native-born blacks and Hispanics who have a high school education or less. ...

If we expand and mandate E-Verify, we make it possible for more native-born workers to achieve the American Dream for themselves and their families. We make it possible for more native-born Americans to achieve the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that our Forefathers saw as a fundamental right.

-- Dr. Carol Swain

Dr. Camarota's testimony focused on the fact that there is no evidence of a worker shortage at the bottom end of the labor market. He also said that there is a huge supply of less-educated workers, and it's that group that's been most affected by the current job recession.

The big losers (with high numbers of immigration) are natives working in lower-wage jobs that require relatively little education. ... The latest research indicates that we can reduce immigration secure in the knowledge that it will not harm the economy.

-- Dr. Steven Camarota

Kammer's testimony focused on the positive impact that worksite enforcement raids have had on American workers. He talked about how the raid at the world's largest pork processing plant in Smithfield, North Carolina freed up jobs for African Americans.

In the early-1990s, most workers there were African Americans/ But this changed during that decade, as the workforce became majority Hispanic. There is strong evidence that the company had a preference for illegal immigrants because they were more likely to accept low wages and poor working conditions. ... The 2007 raids at Tar Heel removed man illegal workers. Vacancies were soon filled by African Americans, who were less subject to intimidation by the company.

-- Jerry Kammer

We'll have more coverage of today's forum in the coming days...

NumbersUSA Founder and President Roy Beck will be testifying on Thursday in front of a Congressional Forum. House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) called the forum - American Jobs in Peril: The Impact of Uncontrolled Immigration - to explore the relationship between high immigration and unemployment.

Since last November, Roy Beck and NumbersUSA has called for a suspension of non-essential immigration, while the United States suffers through one of the worst job recessions since the Great Depression. Last month, the jobless rate hit 10.2%, the highest rate since 1983. Under current policy, however, the federal government has imported 125,000 foreign workers per month.

Rep. Smith has extended an invitation for any interested citizens in the area to attend the forum. It's open to the public and begins at 1 p.m. in Room 2237 of the Rayburn House Building. Rayburn is on Independence Ave. at South Capitol St. (near the Capitol South Metro stop).

Before leaving for his trip to China, Pres. Obama said of the job's situation, "[I]f somebody can show me a strategy that's going to work, then we are happy to consider it." Roy will arguing that suspending non-essential immigration will help hundreds of thousands of American workers get back to work faster as jobs are created.

CATO Institute's Dan Griswold suggests that the U.S. faces a crisis in filling lower skilled jobs because we aren't producing as many high school dropouts as in the past.

This is the kind of open-border libertarianism that gives the willies to thoughtful libertarians who believe in national communities. 

He was writing this in the Washington Times -- which is read heavily by the Republican staffers and Members of Congress.  He was warning that the Democratic proposals for "comprehensive immigration reform" are not likely to bring enough low-educated, low-skilled foreign workers into our country, even after giving an amnesty to approximately 8 million low-educated, low-skilled illegal alien workers already here.

Griswold said the amnesty needs to greatly increase temporary worker programs for low-educated, low-skilled foreign workers.

. . .recognize the reality that the U.S. economy benefits from low-skilled immigration. As the United States shakes off a deep recession, it is only a matter of time before job growth resumes, including lower-end jobs in retail, landscaping, food preparation and service, and home and commercial cleaning that attract low-skilled immigrants. . . .Yet our current immigration system offers no legal pathway for anywhere near a sufficient number of foreign-born workers to fill that growing, structural gap in our labor market.

-- CATO's Dan Griswold

OK, how about a little reality check?

First, American schools and disfunctional families are doing a much better job than Griswold gives them credit for producing high school drop-outs.

• We have around 15 million native-born Americans between 18 and 65 who are high school dropouts.
• Less than 7 million of them have jobs.

The official U-3 unemployment rate for the high school dropouts of our own is more than DOUBLE that of the rest of the nation's citizens, who are doing pretty awful themselves.

Wages and poverty rates for those who DO have jobs have been deteriorating for years.

Nothing in any government statistics suggests to me that our high school dropouts are in short supply and highly valued for their essential work.

Frankly, I am guessing that the Griswold idea is that people who do retail, landscaping, food preparation and service, and home and commercial cleaning deserve really low wages, and we might someday have to pay them a livable wage if we don't import enough foreign peasants to be our semi-slaves.

Feel free to share your opinion about the need for more foreign drop-outs with the folks at CATO.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) is urging the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Georgia Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss to offer his identity and verification language as an amendment to the health care reform bill. House leadership prevented Rep. Deal from offering the amendment in the House.

Recent polls show that 83 percent of Americans oppose giving health care benefits to illegal aliens, and Rep. Deal used that as the basis for a letter addressed to the three Senators today.

I am writing to request that you offer my identity and citizenship verification amendments I offered on the House healthcare bill, which will prohibit taxpayer dollars from being used to provide healthcare benefits to illegal aliens. As you know, the citizens of Georgia and the American people have spoken in firm opposition to allowing those who have illegally entered into our country from receiving taxpayer-funded social welfare benefits, and President Obama has acknowledged this demand by promising not to sign any bill which  provides healthcare benefits to illegal aliens.

Rep. Deal said that the language contained in the House version of the bill (H.R.3962) does not require individuals to present proof of identity or citizenship status when being considered for eligibility. Individuals looking for coverage only have to provide a name and social security number.

In a letter to former Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Jim McCrery, the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Mr. Michael J. Astrue, confirmed that the name/Social Security Number verification process alone would not prevent an illegal alien from being able to access taxpayer-funded benefits.

Rep. Deal offered an amendment to the health care bill during the House Energy and Commerce Committee's markup, but it was defeated by a party-line vote. Efforts to offer the language during the full House debate were rebuffed by the House Rules Committee.

The House Judiciary Committee's Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) wrote an op-ed for the Washington Times today slamming the Obama administration's immigration enforcement efforts. While illegal immigration advocates criticize Obama for too much enforcement, Rep. Smith says it's quite the opposite.

Rep. Smith pointed out several measures taken by the administration that weaken enforcement:

• Rescinding of the "no-match" rule that prevents the Social Security Administration from contacting employers when a new hire's name and social security number don't match their records. "Without this protection, many employers will continue to employ individuals they know are illegal and are taking jobs that should go to citizens and legal residents," Smith said.
• Repeal of REAL ID in lieu of PASS ID, which makes it easier for illegal aliens to obtain a driver's license. "This makes it easier for illegal immigrants to stay in the country. And it can provide terrorists with a legitimate ID - as we saw with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists, who between them obtained 30 driver's licenses and ID cards," Smith said.
• Lack of funding for an airport biometric exit system that is part of a DHS proposal to monitor when foreign visitors leave the country. "40 percent of all 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States entered the country legally but overstayed their visas. This program will show who did not leave the country when they should have," Smith said.
• Restricted the 287(g) program by limiting the ways local law enforcement officials can help federal immigration enforcement officials.
• No funding for border fence, which was required by the Secure Fence Act of 2006.
• Signing the CHIP bill making it easier for illegal aliens to get health care.
• Reduced worksite enforcement by shifting the focus away from the illegal workers and onto the businesses that hire them.
• Allow states to provide in-state tuition to illegal aliens even though it violate federal law.

You can read Rep. Smith's full article at the Washington Times.